[Mythical Arsenal] Stheno's Bow! (Patreon)

Stheno’s Bow

Weapon (any bow), rare (requires attunement)

Component: monstrosity (medusa) hair

The first of these bows was found in the abandoned lair of an ancient medusa who preferred to slaughter her victims rather than turning them to stone. After years of meticulous reverse engineering, L'Arsène Upin was able to recreate its ophidian enchantments, and each of the resulting bows bears the name of its original creator, who has yet to be found.

This bow has 8 charges and regains 1d6 + 2 expended charges daily at dawn.

Serpentine Shot. Once on each of your turns, when you make an attack with the bow, you can spend 1 charge to imbue the arrow with the bow’s magic. After the attack hits or misses, the fired arrow transforms into a poisonous snake, which appears in an unoccupied space of your choice within 5 feet of the target. The snake shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It’s hostile only to the target of the initial attack and doesn’t obey commands, always spending each of its turns moving towards and attacking its target. The snake disappears if it drops to 0 hit points, or after 1 minute.

Volley of Snakes. As an action while holding this bow, you can shoot an arrow and cause it to split into multiple copies in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in the cone must make a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw, taking 3d8 piercing damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The arrows then transform into snakes and assemble into a swarm of poisonous snakes, which appears in a space of your choice within the cone. The swarm is friendly to you and your companions for the spell’s duration. In combat, it shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It obeys verbal commands that you issue to it (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any, it takes the Dodge action. The swarm disappears if it drops to 0 hit points, or after 1 minute. Once this property of the bow has been used, it can’t be used again until the next dawn.

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Uncommon variant: The Volley of Snakes property doesn’t deal damage. Instead, it just shoots multiple snakes, which form a swarm of poisonous snakes in a space in the cone.

Very rare variant: Increase the save DC to 16 and the damage to 5d8. The snakes created by the Serpentine Shot property are giant poisonous snakes instead of poisonous snakes.

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