Black Pudding Power Bomb (Patreon)

Wondrous item, rare

This magic iron bomb is the size of a large fist and weighs 6 pounds. A black, sticky ooze has partially leaked from the bomb's top. Holding the bomb and touching the ooze for longer than a few seconds begins to numb your hand.

You can use an action to throw the bomb at a point that you can see within 60 feet of you. Its cap splits open upon impact, releasing a blast of electricity from it in a 20-foot-radius sphere and allowing its contents to spill out. The bomb is then destroyed. Each creature within the area of the electric blast must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 6d6 lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. Immediately after the blast, two Medium black puddings appear in the nearest unoccupied spaces within 10 feet of the point of impact. Each Medium pudding's hit point maximum is half of a normal Large one's (rounded down). The puddings are hostile to all creatures except each other, and they remain until reduced to 0 hit points.

The dark geleton bent over his work table, eyes fixed on the red seal. As tar bubbled from under it, he sighed, preparing to toss the iron shell out into his pool of failures. Then it froze, the gel pulling the seal tighter than he'd ever set it.

He watched a few minutes longer, and… it was stable. Secure? No. Safe? Gods no. But by the skull painted on its side, it was perfect.

The skull icon had belonged to his bones' old owner, before their traitorous crew had thrown them overboard into the blacked pit; it was one of his few memories, now. They—the old crew and captain alike—couldn't have guessed that this body would be formed anew from that same pit. He clutched the amulet that hung from his neck, its once necrotic magic now apparently spent.

The skull icon would be his again, in this second life, by his right and the might of his newfound flesh.