Elemental Firearms

During the last war faced with the arcane might of Aundair and the undead armies of Karrnath, Breland turns to the gnomes of Zilargo, masters of the alchemical arts the Zilargo built many powerful weapons that allowed Breland to hold its own. Towards the end of the war a few handheld elemental firearm prototypes had been constructed but with the signing of the treaty of Thronehold they never saw the light of day. The elemental firearms consist of 2 main parts that are interchangeable, a Frame and one or more Core Gems. As these weapons where never finished you can not in most cases buy them in a shop, they should be treated as extremely rare and whilst the technology used in their construction is similar to that used in airships and lightning rails the differences are however so significant that it is unlikely they can be replicated without the original blueprints.

Core Gems are the power source for elemental firearms, the gems are created when magical creatures are bound inside arcane vessels. There are 3 qualities of core gems, the number of charges they can hold is shown in the table opposite. The most common Core Gems have Elements from other planes bound inside them, depending on the element bound they deal fire, cold, lightning, thunder or acid damage. It is however rumored that another kind Core Gem Exists, theses Aberrant Gems have other magical creatures bound to them, which gives them unique Damage types and properties.

Aberrant Core Gems Along with the more standard Core Gems a set of unique Core Gems that are extremely difficult to come by can be obtained, these can be created by your DM and placed throughout the world. Two examples of such Core gems found in an abandoned research facility in the Mournland are:

Dawnstar a lesser sized core gem created by binding a celestial in place of an elemental, this core gem deals radiant damage and regains all of its expended charges if it is left in the sun for an hour.

Ather a Standard sized Core gem that deals necrotic damage, the gem seems to draw in shadows and causes any frame it is in to deal an extra 1d4 when a charge from the gem is consumed to make an attack in darkness.

Charges, the Creatures bound into the Core Gems have a limit to the magical energy they can provide, this limit is represented by a number of charges, each frame shows how many charges are consumed per attack made with the weapon, this is called the drain. A Core Gem regains all expended charges at dawn, alternatively once per long rest a Core Gem can be force charged, a willing creature can spend one spell slot and use an action whilst within 5ft of a Core Gem to restore a number of charges equal to 3 X spell slot level to the Gem but never over the maximum limit.

Gem slot, each frame has one or more gem slots in which Core Gems are placed. It takes 10 minutes to remove or insert a Core Gem in to a Frame. Certain Frames especially the larger ones have more than one gem slot, the maximum number of different elements that can be placed into a frame is equal to the number of damage dice it possesses, for example a Celesta Frame can only have one type of core gem but could hold 2 of that type (2 ice Core Gems or 2 thunder Core Gems for example). However, the Gonmaw Frame can hold 2 Core Gems that can be of 2 different elements, (1 lighting and 1 fire core gem for example) in this case each damage dice takes on one of the elements. A frame functions normally even if not all the gem slots are filled and can draw on only one core gem if the other slot is empty or contains a depleted gem.

Overcharging certain frames have the capacity to overcharge an attack, you can activate the Overcharge using a bonus action. The (overcharge x / y) shows the effect and the cost, x represents the amount of extra charges consumed and the y represents the extra damage dice gained. When a frame is overcharged it can not be used again until the end of your next turn. For example if we overcharge the Gorgon we would make an attack that drains 6 charges but deals 2d12 damage.

Core Gems

Type Charges Lesser 15 Standard 25 Greater 40

The physical appearance of Core Gems Core Gems are spherical Crystals about 2 inches in diameter, they are clear and colorless when they contain no bound creature and take on a color associated with the bound creature. For example, a Core Gem that has an ice elemental bound inside it may appear to be light blue with tiny ice crystals swirling inside it. As a Core Gem losses charges its color fades, when it has 0 charges left the color is very faint.