Starmetal Blaster (Patreon)

Weapon (any crossbow), rare

This crossbow doesn't use a standard bowstring or groove for loading bolts. Instead, it uses a pair of electrically charged metal arms to suspend sling bullets above a third strip of charged metal along the weapon's body. When the crossbow's trigger is pulled, a sling bullet is electrically propelled from the weapon at dizzying speeds. Ranged attacks with this magic weapon deal bludgeoning damage instead of their normal damage type, and the first target hit by it on each of your turns takes an extra 1d6 lightning damage.

You can use an action to preload the crossbow with up to 4 sling bullets, which hover in a single-file line above its charged metal strip until they're fired. While the crossbow is preloaded in this way, you can choose to ignore its loading property. When you do, you fire one of the preloaded bullets for each attack you make with it after the first. Alternatively, you can choose to fire any number of preloaded bullets from the weapon as part of a ranged attack you make with it, making a single roll for the attack regardless of the number of bullets fired. On a hit, the target takes the weapon's damage plus an extra 1d4 bludgeoning damage for each bullet that was fired from the crossbow after the first.

The elite Polaris Defense units were outfitted with blaster and blade to combat resistance from any range. The city didn't take kindly to law-breaking, after all, and ne'er-do-wells rarely came peacefully.

The Magistrate saw to it that their guard were equipped with the best of the best. Dissent and divergence must always be met with an iron—or starmetal—fist.