Thursday, December 1, 2011

The Drunkard's Gonne (Wermspittle)

Bacchune of Spandra was notorious for putting together a number of prototype weapons and odd mechanisms that were mostly only ever partly finished. Even the most complete and functional of his prototypes are only partially manifest, being strange half-spectral, irrational objects that remain poised in-between full material existence and some nebulous dream-like state. But what does one expect from a half-crazed perpetually-drunk ex-monk who claimed to be descended from wine-maiads?


One such prototype is Bacchune's infamous Drunkard's Gonne.


Drunkard's Gonne
(+2 to hit, Alignment: Neutral, Charisma: 12, Psyche: 6, Willpower: 11, only interested in wine...)
Cost: It went for 1,200 gp last time it was auctioned off...price will vary depending on location and circumstance.
Range: Line of sight of wielder, including dream-sight, blindsight, or use of clairvoyance or dreaming.
Damage: 1d4 per 1 gp value of wine used in the gonne*. Does double damage to immaterial/incoporeal, triple damage to Oneiric/dream-state entities.
Weight: 15 lb.
Special Ability: Gain an additional bonus of +1 to hit per 10 gp value of wine used in gonne.
(*One can also make use of the Dismemberment Table if the wine is of exceptional vintage...)

This is a simply constructed weapon wrought entirely from bars or strips of a peculiar form of scythian electrum that have been banded by some odd pot metal that has a lot of silver in it. The mouth of the barrel (and the interior of the gonne) appears to have been inlaid or annealed with a layer of black hepatizon. It weighs a good bit, and is every bit as unwieldy as a typical gonne of its type, but what makes it unusual and much sought after is that somehow, someway, Bacchune was able to get his gonne to use wine in place of gunpowder. Yes, wine. The more expensive and rare the vintage, the more powerful the gonne becomes and the more damaging the shot that appears in the barrel of the thing after the wine is poured into the touch-hole. One still uses a slow match or a spark spell to set it off, but it loads itself, once it has been given wine.

Warlords have been known to have slain massive beasts and truly terrible things with this nigh mythical and highly unconventional fire-arm.

The Drunkard's Gonne is only ever interested in wine and doesn't bother using its psyche/willpower for anything other than trying to acquire more and better quality wine. If a user tries to pour an inferior quality wine into the gonne's touch-hole, it forces a reaction roll upon the user whom the gonne will try mightily to persuade to give it something better to drink. Failing to come to some accommodation in regards to the quality of wine being used has a base 20% chance that the gonne decides to not fire. Each time the gonne fails to influence the same user via a reaction roll, the chances to seize-up or even misfire will increase by 10%.

The Drunkard's Gonne is only telepathic enough to communicate with one person at a time, usually the person holding it, and it tends to sound something akin to Foster Brooks.

It is rumored that the half-manifest nature of the Drunkard's Gonne might pose a subtle threat to those who use it for prolonged periods of time. It is believed by the Syndics of Komthume that the Drunkard's Gonne will, over time, cause the wielder to become increasingly less real and more dreamlike, until at last they are entirely caught-up within the dream-realms and no longer able to find their way back to waking reality. But that is most likely just a rumor.

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