Thrumming Propulsor (Patreon)

Wondrous item, very rare (requires attunement)

Using parts harvested from a creature that glides through the cosmos, this pack allows its wearer to fly through mysterious means. It is composed of a hard carapace strapped to the wearer’s back with two thrumming bladders that emit strange hues.

Saccadic Flight. You can use a bonus action to cause the bladders to activate and tether you to the astral energies it uses to move through space, shedding bright kaleidoscopic light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet. While the bladder is active, you gain a fly speed of 40 feet, a thin membrane envelops your head providing breathable air, and you cannot be moved against your will except by a DC 30 Athletics check or by a force exceeding 8000 lbs. You can use a bonus action to deactivate the bladders ending these effects. When this property has been used for a total of 10 minutes, the bladders cease to function until you finish a long rest.

Refractive Field. The plates of this propulsor can bend light around the wearer. While attuned to this pack, you can use an action to turn invisible as though by the Invisibility spell. Once you do so, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest.

Colors Beyond Imagining. As an action you can cause the thrumming bladders to release a wave of colorful extrastellar energy. Each other creature within 30 feet of you must succeed on a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw or be affected by the Confusion spell for 1 minute. A creature that fails this save by 5 or more is afflicted by short term madness for 1d10 minutes. The creature rolls on the short term madness table to determine the effect. Once you use this property it can’t be used again until you finish a long rest.

The space beyond the stars is home to many preternatural creatures. In the “nothingness” that exists between each planetary body, beings of an eerie persuasion call the cold expanse home, filling the void like plankton in an endless ocean. The weird adaptations these monstrous creatures have developed to thrive in the empty blackness of space can be harvested to grant us mortals a means of transport wholly alien to our world, alongside the terrible glimpses into the unknowable they grant us.