Magnum Opus (5e Equipment)

Wondrous Item, artifact (requires attunement by an artificer of 14th level or higher, see footnote for additional requirements)

Questioning now his decisions, the gnomish artificer hesitates at the edge of the gilded tub of boiling saltwater. Fear grips his heart once again, but a gleam of the crystalline brilliance before him revives his conviction. Well over a lifetime of toil and loss has brought him to this moment, yet the greatest sacrifice lies still before him. He closes his eyes. He quakes his last. He leaps into the water.

Countless are they who seek to stay forever the cold hand of death, figures of legend and damned fools alike. They prove willing to sacrifice their souls, their sanity, their very lives to preserve mere flesh. Mordecai feared death, as most mortal creatures do. Rejecting the traditional consequences but finding immortality to be unattainable without sacrifice, Mordecai chose to leave the flesh and keep all else.

He saved only the necessities: his eyes, to gaze upon the glory of the realm, his brain, to have certainty that his mind would not wander, and his heart, for he knew not what he could become without it. For them, he created a vessel which could preserve the life, health, soul, and sanity of his remains indefinitely while providing all the means of a body and much more. So pleased was Mordecai with the brilliance of his thesis and impossibility of a superior work, he failed to produce a name more appropriate than "Magnum Opus."

Life Unending

The Magnum Opus is a transparent, hexagonal crystal (similar to quartz) with a gentle magenta hue. It is three feet long by one foot wide, coming to a point on both ends. It has flawless geometry, with perfectly smooth surfaces and sharp edges. It floats perfectly still and silent one foot above the ground.

While you occupy the Magnum Opus, your living heart, brain, and eyes are plainly visible suspended within the center of the crystal, arranged in the same manner as within your original body. They float comfortably in liquid chambers invisible to the outside eye, and you feel only a gentle warmth while the Magnum Opus remains intact. You also find yourself in control of a pair of floating, spectral hands and forearms in the same magenta hue, and you can fly nimbly and tirelessly.

You can cause the crystal to vibrate in order to produce strange but functional speech. Your appearance and "voice" are frightening to most people, who will generally assume you are a monster the moment they see or hear you.

Your size is Small, and your vessel no longer demands that you eat, drink, breathe, or sleep to survive. While the Magnum Opus does enable hearing, it does not provide means for smelling, tasting, eating, drinking, or smoking. The equipment you can use is limited to what can reasonably be equipped to the Magnum Opus or your spectral hands, such as rings, gloves, bracers, cloaks, and belts.

Most importantly, you do not age.

Crystalline Resilience. The Magnum Opus is incredibly durable and self-regenerative, offering protection to the user unparalleled by any armor:

• You have an AC of 10 + your Intelligence modifier + your Dexterity modifier.

• You are immune to damage from cold, fire, and poison, and you cannot be poisoned, diseased, exhausted, petrified, or put to sleep by magic.

• You have resistance to acid damage, lightning damage, and slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing damage from nonmagical weapons.

• You can use your Intelligence modifier instead of your Strength or Constitution modifier whenever you make an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw using Strength or Constitution.

• Your maximum Hit Points becomes 1. This is all that remains after being reduced to a set of organs.

• MHP: You gain a new, secondary pool of Hit Points for your Magnum Opus called MHP. Damage taken reduces your MHP before damaging your HP.

• You have maximum MHP equal to (10 x your Intelligence score) + 100.

• As long as your HP is not zero and you have not taken thunder damage since the start of your last turn, you regenerate MHP equal to 1d10 + your Intelligence modifier at the start of each of your turns.

• When your MHP is reduced to zero, the crystal shatters and dissolves into a thin liquid which huddles around your organs as long as you remain alive. Excess damage does not carry over to your HP unless it equals or exceeds 100.

• If you are reduced to 0 HP and you are stabilized, the Magnum Opus will begin to repeatedly cast mending on itself, solidifying and restoring 2d6 MHP after every minute if it takes no thunder damage during the casting. If not healed, you gain 1 HP after 2d12 hours.

• As an action, you can expend any number of your remaining Hit Dice to restore MHP. Roll the Hit Dice and add your Intelligence modifier for each die rolled to determine MHP restored.

• You cannot restore MHP with healing spells that do not affect constructs.

• Spells and effects that refer to your HP such as power word kill instead refer to your MHP.

• When a spell or effect refers to your armor or whether you are currently wearing armor, you can choose whether the Magnum Opus counts as armor or as an extension of your body.

Mobility and Carry Weight. The Magnum Opus is a supremely nimble vessel, allowing the user to escape danger with ease, but limiting them in what can be carried.

• You have a walking speed of 0 feet, a flying speed of 50 feet, and a swimming speed of 30 feet.

• You can use a bonus action on each of your turns to take the Dash or Disengage actions.

• When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

• You can carry 75 pounds of equipment with your body, but your speed is reduced by 1 foot for every pound over 25.

• You can carry a number of pounds equal to five times your Intelligence modifier in one hand, or fifteen times your Intelligence modifier with both hands. This does not affect your speed.

Magic Manus. You are in control of a pair of spectral hands and forearms that float freely anywhere within 10 feet of you. You can use these hands to perform any actions you could perform with your old hands. You can only sense pressure with your spectral hands, not texture. Because the Magnum Opus bears an infusion, you can cast spells by hand as if you were holding a spellcasting focus.

• Reach: When you make a melee attack, your reach for it is 10 feet greater than normal. When you cast a spell with a somatic component, it can originate from any point within 10 feet of you.

• As a bonus action, you can conjure a set of spectral artisan's tools in your empty hands. The tools remain indefinitely as long as you maintain concentration. You must have proficiency with the artisan's tools you intend to summon.

Magnum Missile. You can attack foes by flying into them at high speed. If you fly at least 10 feet straight towards a target, you can ram into them as an action. You are proficient with the attack, and you add your Intelligence modifier to the attack roll. On a hit, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d6 + your Intelligence modifier. The damage increases by 1d6 for every additional 10 feet you fly before attacking to a maximum of 5d6, and the damage counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical damage. The Magnum Opus counts as a simple, magical melee weapon for this purpose. This attack cannot benefit from increased reach.

Interactions with Artificer features. The Magnum Opus is designed to interact seamlessly with the artificer's other abilities, absorbing their many powers.

• You can enhance the functionality of the Magnum Opus with up to three additional infusions from the following list: Boots of the Winding Path, Enhanced Arcane Focus, Enhanced Defense, Enhanced Weapon, Helm of Awareness, Mind Sharpener, Radiant Weapon, Repulsion Shield, Resistant Armor, Spell-Refueling Ring, Replicate Magic Item.

• You can make the Magnum Opus the target of your Magical Tinkering and Spell-Storing Item features.

• Alchemist: You can consume an Experimental Elixir or any potion by pouring it over yourself as an action. The Swiftness and Flight effects from the elixir both increase your flying speed by 10 feet for their listed durations. Chemical Mastery now grants immunity to acid damage and paralysis, resistance to necrotic damage, and allows you to restore MHP with your healing spells even if they do not normally affect constructs.

• Artillerist: As an action with tools in hand, you can infuse an Eldritch Cannon's power into the Magnum Opus, or change its type. You gain the activation property of the chosen cannon and benefit from features that enhance it. You can only give the Magnum Opus the properties of one cannon at a time. Explosive Cannon's active ability no longer destroys the cannon when used. You can also make your vessel the target of your Arcane Firearm feature.

• Armorer: The Magnum Opus gains all the benefits of your Arcane Armor feature (except restoring lost limbs,) and you can add your proficiency bonus to your AC. You can apply two additional infusions to the Magnum Opus, for a total of five.

• Battle Smith: Your Steel Defender becomes crystalline. It has 20 AC, a flying speed of 50 feet, and +4 to all ability scores. It gains the resistances and immunities of the Magnum Opus and can target you with Repair to restore MHP. It also gains the Absorb Magic reaction: while within 30 feet of you, the Defender can use a reaction to become the target of any spell or magical effect that targets only you. Arcane Jolt can restore HP or MHP at your choosing.

• Other specialist: Consult your DM. In general, features that target objects should work with the Magnum Opus, such as Eldritch Cannon, or become more powerful by themselves, such as Steel Defender. Features that are redundant with abilities granted by the Magnum Opus should be replaced or modified to be useful while remaining thematically appropriate, such as for the AC bonus granted to Armorers.

• Soul of Artifice grants a +3 bonus to all saving throws for being attuned to the Magnum Opus, and you can use the reaction ability even if damage taken would have killed you.

Creation, Attunement, Destruction
The Magnum Opus has only one physical component required for its production: the blood of a god, offered willingly to the artificer, in any amount.  Precisely how this blood is crystallized to form the Magnum Opus is a secret known only to its creator.  The magical properties of the Magnum Opus are not entirely present within artifact itself; it requires a unique infusion which the artificer researches and develops over a number of years equal to (100 x 1d4) + 1d100.
Attunement to the Magnum Opus is permanent.  The user must soak the crystal in a gold-lined tub of boiling saltwater with no less than five feet of distance between the center and any edge. The user enters the tub and clings to the crystal while both applying the infusion and attuning to it.  Pain is felt only for a moment, followed by a gentle warmth and the feeling of melting into the Magnum Opus before passing out. The user awakens six to twelve hours later within the vessel, the transformation complete.
* Research of the Magnum Opus infusion is highly taxing on the mind, demanding the artificer replace the knowledge of seven known infusions to develop it.
* Being at once a wondrous item, a coat of armor, and a spellcasting focus, the Magnum Opus infusion consumes the same resources of the user as three normal infusions.
* Without flesh to bind them, each of your remaining organs must be attuned to the Magnum Opus separately, consuming three potential attunements.
* You cannot end the Magnum Opus infusion with your Soul of Artifice feature, but you can end other infusions affecting it.
* If the user of the Magnum Opus is killed while still attuned to the Magnum Opus, the crystal dissolves into its original component.
* If the god who offered their blood for the Magnum Opus decides to take it back, the artifact can be destroyed instantly by their touch, killing the user.
* Attunement to the Magnum Opus can be ended only by a wish, killing the user and ending the infusion.  If it is not the user's wish, the user makes an Intelligence saving throw against the caster's spell save D.C.  On a success, the spell fails.

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