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I gave out the Shipwreck in a Bottle (from the back cover of "The Wormwood Mutiny") as a piece of treasure in my game. Now I need to decide what it actually does. Any advice?
If anyone's interested, I think I've decided to have the Shipwreck in a Bottle act as a Grim Lantern. Differences being that when it's charged with soulstuff, the ship appears to be burning, it acts as a water proff standard lantern instead of a bullseye lantern and it's a standard action to uncork it to release the 5th level burning hands spell.
Grim Lantern
Price 5,800 gp; Aura faint evocation; CL 5th; Weight 2 lbs.
This macabre lantern is composed of a humanoid skull dangling from a short length of chain. A small fragment of soulstuff is trapped inside, burning slowly in a heatless flame. Its flickering light shines from the skull's eye sockets, casting light as a bullseye lantern. On command, the lantern can consume its soulstuff in a sudden blast of heat, as burning hands. Doing so extinguishes the lantern. Whenever a living creature with at least 1 HD is slain within 30 feet of an empty grim lantern, the lantern absorbs a fragment of that creature's soul, restoring its glow.
Construction Requirements
Cost 2,900 gp
Craft Wondrous Item, burning hands, creator cannot be good
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It could be like an Efreeti Bottle, but it sucks in / spits out a ship. Rather powerful.
For a less powerful use, it could create a Mirage Arcana to make your ship appear shipwrecked. That's a 5th level spell, and if usable 1/month, could be reduced in value a lot.
/cevah
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For my part it a magical bottle, use like a bag of holding that can carry up to 1 ship inside of it. When the pc find it there was a broken ship inside of it with half is crew alive that swear to help the pc. When they find the witch lair she was dead and her spirit was controling a Ship in a Bottle, Bottled Armada. They found other magical item for the sea in her lair.
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I like the grim lantern version. My PCs are just reaching 5th level, so the ship-storing version seems too powerful for this stage in their careers.
Aside from the power issue, I plan to use harbor fees (among other expenses) to prevent the party from getting too rich, too soon. If they could carry their ship away from the dock in a bottle, it would be hard to charge them for a berth.
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I'm thinking of working this into a campaign, probably as the "bottle of holding" version. I have some ideas of ways to keep the crew from using it to just pocket their ship, though.
First of all, being magically pulled into the bottle isn't going to be comfortable. Think of the people being transported in "Galaxy Quest", where they get stretched, and thrown across the galaxy, and arrive quivering and in shock. I plan to describe an effect similar to that; it won't do damage to any sailors, but none of them will ever want to go through it again. In fact, some will be torn by wanting out of the bottle right away, and dreading going through the experience again on the way out. (Actually, I plan to just 'poof' ships OUT of the bottle.)
Second, once inside the bottle, everything can be upset if the bottle is badly shaken. The idea comes from this thread.
Shaking the bottle does upset the contents but they eventually settle into the same or other formation of a shipwreck. The survivors feel pain and panic as their world trembles and heaves but they recover automatically when the abuse ceases. The slow settling process after being shaken is reminiscent of a snow globe.
I will assume that due to the magic of the bottle, neither the ship nor the crew inside the bottle take actual damage from being shaken, nor can someone die.
With these two things combined, no ship's crew will ever consent to go into the bottle a second time, and they would fight to avoid it. On the other hand, putting a ship in the bottle without a crew is not a good idea either. The ship itself might not be harmed if the bottle is shaken, but supplies could be washed overboard or other troubles arise. I don't intend that the crew will be able to use the bottle as a convenient way to escape docking fees or being spotted in a port.
Sucking in a ship also allows you to suck in an enemy ship. You don't care about enemy sailors do you? It could also be used on the docks to grab any ship there. As soon as you get someone with teleport 2/day, they could steal a ship a night, and no one would know what is happening.
/cevah