Archmagus Manipulators (5e Equipment)
Wondrous Item (gauntlets), artifact (requires attunement by an arcane magic user)
A pair of gloves handed down through the ages from some archaic Archmagus geezer, long forgotten and even longer dead, so old that even the gods themselves have trouble remembering if such a person existed. These plain-looking gloves are so ungodly ancient that they emit a constant aura of myst pent up from sitting around for untold æons. They come from a time so distant in the past that it seriously begs the question whether there was a world that existed before the coming of the primordials. It is believed that fewer than a dozen beings are even aware that something that old could possibly exist. Those who do know them may be aware that more than one pair of these gloves exists, though no one knows how many or even if there are an even number of gloves.
The Archmagus Manipulators are devilishly difficult to distinguish from common gloves, such that only the most wizened of the scholars of the arcane could tell them apart from a random pair of gloves enchanted with a harmless unusual effect. A successful DC (30) Intelligence (Arcana) check is capable of identifying one or more of them as the powerful artifacts of pre-myth.
Random Properties. The Archmagus Manipulators has the following random properties:
- 3 minor beneficial properties
- 1 minor detrimental property
- 1 major detrimental property
Attunement. The Archmagus Manipulators are attuned to as a pair, occupying one attunement slot when attuned in this way. A pair of usable Archmagus Manipulators is always composed of a left and right glove, and they cannot be used if both halves are not worn by a user.
- The gloves additionally are incredibly nuanced and subtle with how their magical effects are triggered, requiring an intuition of the arcane that casters of the divine, and common plebs, simply cannot grasp. As a result, the gloves can only be attuned to by arcane spellcasters, such as the artificer, bard, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard; or subclasses capable of casting arcane spells, such as the eldritch knight and arcane trickster.
Malleable Form. The gloves can magically shape themselves to fit any non-foot or non-wing appendage, such as a six-fingered hand, handless stub, or tentacle. A pair of Archmagus Manipulators is always strictly split into a left and right glove, and they will never fit on an appendage located on the wrong side of the body.
Many Hands. While attuned to the Archmagus Manipulators, the user may cast and sustain up to ten independent instances of mage hand simultaneously.
- These mage hands do not require concentration to maintain.
Master Hands. While attuned to the Archmagus Manipulators, you may use an action to cast Bigby's hand twice. You may sustain both instances of the spell using concentration when casting Bigby's hand in this way, and may use your bonus action to issue a command to each hand.
- An instance of Bigby's hand cast through this spell has an AC of 17 and has 35 hit points. Each hand has a Strength score of 26 (+8) and a Dexterity score of 16 (+3) when making their own ability checks.
- When you make spell attacks with Bigby's hand, your spell attack modifier is +8. Should a hand incur a saving throw, the Spell Save DC is 17.
- The spell ends when its duration ends, you lose concentration, or you use the Many Hands ability of the Archmagus Manipulators.
- You may use this ability again after one minute has passed since the previous use of this ability.
Destroying the Archmagus Manipulators. The Archmagus Manipulators are not a unique pair of gloves, but they are absurdly rare, and finding even one glove is something that is not likely to happen a century. A pair can be destroyed only by manually ripping them to shreds whilst wearing another pair of Archmagus Manipulators. This requires a DC(16) Strength check to do.
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