[Seasonal Armoury] Gelid Hunter (Patreon)

Gelid Hunter

Weapon (any crossbow), rare

Component: elemental (ice mephit) core of water

Carefully constructed for maximum efficiency in extreme cold, this tactical crossbow includes an automatic reloading system requiring no ammunition and a bright flashlight for the darkness of winter. The deer head adorning it may not be a real one, but you’ll have no trouble hunting one down when armed with this weapon.

Ice Shot. This weapon doesn’t use normal ammunition. Instead of firing bolts, when you make an attack with it, an icicle forms already loaded into the crossbow and ready to fire. At the start of your turn, you can choose to ignore the loading property of the crossbow until your next turn, taking 1d6 fire damage as the weapon vents heat into you to form more icicles.

Deer Head Lights. As an action while holding the crossbow, you can cause the deer’s eyes to emit bright light in a 30-foot cone, or turn the light off. When you activate the light, you can choose to have it flair with momentary intensity, forcing each creature in the cone to make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature is blinded until the end of its next turn, and its speed is reduced to 0 feet while blinded in this way. Once the crossbow has been used to blind creatures, it can’t be used to do so again until the next dawn.

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Uncommon variant: Remove the Deer Head Lights property.

Very rare variant: Increase the DC to 16 and the duration of the blinded condition to 1 minute. A creature blinded in this way can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. The weapon has the Icicle Barrage property.

Icicle Barrage. At the start of your turn while holding this crossbow, you can choose to take 2d6 fire damage as the weapon vents even more heat into you. If you do, you can make two extra attacks with the crossbow when you take the Attack action before the end of your next turn. Once this property of the crossbow has been used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

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