Does a Bullseye Lantern require a hand?

Question

A Fighter PC without Darkvision who has donned a shield in their left hand and wishes to attack with a sword in their right hand. Their ally, a Gloomstalker Ranger, bought them a Bullseye Lantern so the Gloomstalker could stay in the dark behind the fighter shooting arrows at enemies, while the Fighter attacks a lit enemy in melee.

Is the Fighter able to strap the Bullseye Lantern to a belt or otherwise have it shining and moving with them without constantly requiring the use of a hand? Does this answer change for "the lantern faces wherever the Fighter faces" vs. "the Fighter has precise control over the angle of the lantern"?

Answer 1

Some designs of dark lanterns or bulls eye lanterns could be hooked on a belt

Some models of bullseye lantern, e.g. police lamps of the 1800s had belt clips. There are design considerations and compromises that go into that design, but police lamps are similar to what one might expect adventuring types to be looking for.

Mechanics and Lamp Direction

Optional Facing Rule

Dungeon Master Guide p.252 has an optional rule for facing in combat. Having a lantern fixed forward facing on a character's belt would dictate that the light be facing the forward arc and thus the direction in which the character is attacking.

Combat without Facing Rule

If the optional facing rules are not being used, then the character can attack directly behind them and there isn't a combat rule that the limited directionality the character (and light is facing) and which direction they're attacking.

Narration Reference

A bit of narrative example of what wearing a lantern was like from The Youth by Robert Louis Stevenson

He was like the lad- die with a lantern under his coat in the game he described so well. "We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigour of the game, a buttoned topcoat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin; they never burned aright though they always burned our fingers; their use was naught; the pleasure of them merely fanciful; and yet a boy with a bull's eye under his topcoat asked for nothing more!"

Answer 2

Normally, yes

Everyday objects behave as you would expect them to, unless there is explict rules text explaining how something works in game terms. Otherwise, the rules books would need endless amounts of boring and mundane text explaining how the normal world works.

If real life experience is any guide, under normal circumstances you need a hand to hold and point a lantern that has a directed beam. You might be able to comission a special helmet where you can mount it, similar to the modern lights you can use when jogging at night, but the lantern is much bulkier and heavier than those, so how well that would work would be up to the DM.

Answer 3

This is up to the DM

Interestingly enough, this is one of those cases where I think "I'm sure there's something in the rules for interacting with objects regarding adventuring gear!" but the rules are strangely silent. The only text for bullseye lanterns specifically is

A bullseye lantern casts bright light in a 60-foot cone and dim light for an additional 60 feet. Once lit, it burns for 6 hours on a flask (1 pint) of oil.

The other texts for lamps and hooded lanterns, and even torches, are not helpful either. The only slight clue is torches saying

If you make a melee attack with a burning torch and hit, it deals 1 fire damage.

You would need to be holding a torch to do this, but lanterns don't have this feature so ultimately this is unhelpful.

The section on Interacting with Objects is equally silent, in fact more or less states that it is up to the DM.

A character's interaction with objects in an environment is often simple to resolve in the game. The player tells the DM that his or her character is doing something, ... and the DM describes what, if anything happens.

If you are in combat, it would require the Use an Object action to light and attach the lantern to your belt or whatever. Whether that would be two separate Use an Object actions would be up to the DM.

So, at the end of the day, it is up to the DM whether or not you can. In my opinion, and from the real world, this will not break anything. You need a free hand to actually light it, but beyond that it simply produces light. Having it on your belt might make it sway a bit more, but not enough to really matter unless you're sprinting, which would be its own edge case to deal with as a DM.