Plating Canister (3.5e Equipment)
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Bloody Quicksilver Addled Men...
"That's a curious item. What is it, an Amblec?"
Joel looked up from the back of his shop when the voice spoke in the front. He bustled up to the front, carrying a jar of silvery liquid with him. He set it down on the counter, and turned to face the owner of the voice, a worn looking man, cloaked in a wool shawl. Despite his fatigued appearance, he smiled jovially.
"Nay sir, it is a new invention of mine. You are aware of the recent problems the berserk fey in the nearby woods?"
"Indeed, I was hired to deal with them."
Joel's already large grin grew even larger. "Well then, sir, do I have an offer for you. May I see your weapon?"
The man handed him his long sword, looking quizzically at Joel. "Why?"
"No, no, no question. Just come back in three hours or so."
The man left, and Joel quietly poured the silvery liquid into the hemisphere the man had originally pointed out, removing the top half. After he container was full, he dropped the sword into the liquid, and went back to work.
The man entered the forest, sword drawn. He hadn't gone more than a few feet when a nymph, driven mad with rage, leapt at him. He brought his blade up to block, and as the nymph struck it, she recoiled. The man, curious, looked closer. The nymph's hands, where it had hit the flat of the blade, were red and throbbing. Almost as if it had been hit with...
"Cold iron?"
Plating Canister
This glass apparatus, made of exquisite crystal glass, is necessary in the alchemical process of creating Plated Metal
The apparatus is made of a hemisphere. The top half pulls off to allow for the filling of the canister. The canister can operate without the top half, to allow for the plating of larger items.
The Canister costs 200 gp, is heavy, bulky, and is hard to move. If it is ever broken, it becomes useless.
Dissolved metal
In order to use the Plating canister, the object must be filled with a solution of dissolved metal. This solution is worth 10,000gp plus the cost of two pounds of the metal to be dissolved, such as cold steel. This liquid can be purchased from alchemists familiar with metal plating. The metal dissolved will grant the item it is applied to the special qualities of the metal dissolved, qualities like rust resistance, or resistance to magic, but not the mundane ones like hardness HP, and weight. For example, a steel sword plated with adamantine would have a hardness of 10 and an HP of 5, but it would bypass any hardness less than 20 when attempting to sunder.
Use
Once the solution has been placed in the canister, an item to be plated, the 'Base' item, is placed in the canister, and left to steep. Once the item has steeped for five hours, it is removed. The resulting item is now plated.
Reversal
A metal item can be used to create the plating solution, using the Plating canister. In order to do this, the user must fill the canister with a blank solution, worth 10,000gp, and place in a metal object. To create the solution, the canister must be electrocuted, using a lightning bolt spell or something to that effect. The item is destroyed, and the liquid left over is now a plating solution.
DM Notes
Plated metal was an invention of our DM before he quite understood the concept alchemical silver. Plated metal, by the way, is a metal with the physical properties of the base metal and the special qualities of the plate. The Canister was never in the possession of any of our party, but we saw one at work. The alchemist who owned it has a strange habit of casting lightning bolt on it whenever he wanted things to go in reverse.
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