Weapon (shortbow), artifact (requires attunement)
Weapon (shortbow), artifact (requires attunement)
Forged from a flexible, black planar iron by nomadic horse lords, this legendary weapon lacks a physical bowstring, featuring instead a taut wire of humming golden energy.
You gain a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this artifact and its base damage die is 1d8. While attuned , you gain the following benfits:
- Accelerated Impact. You add 5 (1d10) Force damage when you hit with a ranged attack.
- Speed of the Steppes: You gain the benefits of the Sharpshooter feat. Additionally, when you take the Attack action with this bow, you can make one additional attack as part of that same action.
- Spears of Lightning: The bow creates its own ammunition of pure energy, dealing 1d8 lightning damage on a hit. If you load a physical arrow, the attack deals its normal piercing damage plus an extra 2d8 lightning damage.
- Storm Calling: The bow has 5 charges and regains 1d4+1 charges daily at dawn. You can expend charges to cast the following spells (Spell Save DC 18): Lightning Arrow (1 charge) or Lightning Bolt (5th-level version, 2 charges).
- Electrical Immunity: You are immune to lightning damage.
The Curse of Gesen Khan. The bow contains the indomitable spirit of Gesen Khan, who despises cowardice and reliance on others.
- The Nomad's Vow: Upon attuning, your alignment immediately shifts to Chaotic Good.
- Pride of the Khan: If you decline a challenge to single combat, flee a battle, or accept any beneficial support spells (such as Bless or Haste) from allies during a duel, the golden string vanishes. You must succeed on a DC 16 Charisma saving throw or the bow instantly teleports to the Elemental Plane of Air, breaking your attunement.
Destruction. The bow can only be destroyed by two means:
- Surrendering it willingly to the Wandering Shadow of Gesen Khan in the Elemental Plane of Air.
- Striking it 1,000 consecutive times with the long-lost Hammer of Gesen upon a planar anvil, detonating it in a 10-mile electrical storm.
Proficiency with a Shortbow allows you to add your proficiency bonus to the attack roll for any attack you make with it.
This weapon has the following mastery property. To use this property, you must have a feature that lets you use it.
Vex. If you hit a creature with this weapon and deal damage to the creature, you have Advantage on your next attack roll against that creature before the end of your next turn.
Notes: Ammunition, Range, Two-Handed, Vex
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Posted Oct 7, 2026Lore Appendix: The Iron Bow of Gesen
1. The Creator
The artifact was forged in antiquity by Gesen Khan, the divine-blooded progenitor and legendary first chieftain of the nomadic Tuigan horselords within the endless steppes of the Hordelands. Driven by ancestral pride and a desire to elevate his people, the master bowyer sought to build the greatest hunting and war weapon ever conceived. He engineered the weapon from planar iron to channel the raw gale-force winds and lightning of Chan, the Princess of Good Aerial Creatures, ensuring no ordinary mortal could ever bend its frame or withstand its terrifying shafts.
2. The Turning Point
Before the forging of the bow, the Hordelands were a fractured, bleeding expanse of warring clans constantly slaughtering one another. Gesen Khan utilized the absolute, terrifying range and elemental majesty of the bow to establish martial supremacy over the steppes. The devastating weapon acted as the ultimate political catalyst, forcing rival chieftains to submit or be struck down from miles away. This bloody unification marked the historic birth of the unified Tuigan nation, fundamentally reshaping the geopolitics of eastern Faerûn.
3. The Most Devastating Battle
During the initial pacification of the steppes, Gesen Khan faced the horrific threat of a manggus—a monstrous, ancient earth demon immune to standard mortal steel that was systematically butchering nomadic travelers. Wielding the bow from horseback, the Khan pinned the colossal beast to the earth with endless, blinding spears of lightning, stripping away its elemental defenses. Though the final death blow was dealt in a three-day wrestling match utilizing the Hammer of Gesen, the bow's initial barrage shattered a mountain ridge and permanently scorched the local earth into a barren, glass-fused crater.
4. Suppression & Loss
The artifact was never banned by gods, but rather torn apart by mortal greed and fatal betrayal. As an aging Gesen Khan prepared to pass his armaments down and retire, a trusted household servant—secretly a ruthless rogue infiltrated into his court—stole the weapon. The thief turned the planar bow string against its creator, executing Gesen Khan with his own masterpiece before dying in a retaliatory fire that engulfed the estate. In the chaos of the centuries that followed, the bow was broken into fragments to hide it from the tracking divination spells of the Cowled Wizards.
5. The Modern Legacy
By the late 14th century DR, the bow remained completely sundered, its key components hidden across the Amnian capital of Athkatla. The artifact's heavy iron shaft was hoarded deep within a macabre basement belonging to a murderous tanner in the Bridge District. Concurrently, the sentient golden bowstring fell into the hands of a subterranean hive of Mind Flayers lurking within the city's complex sewer networks. Today, the weapon can only return to the multiverse if a master dwarven smith—such as the famed smith Cromwell—reforges the pieces for an exceptionally high price.