Welcome, fair adventurino, to yet another installment of the Infinite Corpse of Nonsense. I divvied up the contents of his body into halves in Part One and Part Two. And while I gave the corpse in question, Bottomless Bob, something of a backstory and some closure, that doesn’t mean we covered everything.

I mean, when you see the word “infinite” you knew I was angling for an eon of nonsense content to taunt players with right? 

So here’s the deal, there’s just one item I’m adding here in Part Three of Infinite Corpse of Nonsense. And it’s something you can put in any corpse just to mess with folks, ideally to counter a constant “let’s loot everyone and everything” impulse, dropped by you only as a sort of elaborate passive taunt by the universe. Put this item in the pocket (or stomach, if they’re nasty) of any fallen creature.

Your players will see a pocket watch—but keep in mind that clockwork that refined doesn’t exactly exist in the world of D&D, so this is going to look like an exotic piece of mad engineering at first glance. But, as is the tradition with bottomless Bob, this is actually just complex trash meant to confuse players and delight you, the DM.

Ornate Thingamajig

All players will see the pocket watch dangling from an external pocket of Bob’s jacket by a gold chain, and think it a very fancy bit of insanity, indeed. Gold jewelry is one thing, but a gold accessory? That’s what reality shows are built around, and though this universe probably won’t have “shows,” I’m sure it has “egos.” 

Plucking this pocket watch out and holding it up to even dim light will reveal it, like the chain it dangles from, has the very valuable appearance of gold. A character that examines it can make an Intelligence (Investigation) check. Depending on the result of the check, you can describe it as…

DC 5: A mysterious round object made of metal. 

Or…

DC 10: An ornate double-sided, palm-sized gold medallion of some kind. It's ticking.

Or…

DC 15: A gold-plated bit of mechanical artifice with a white face covered in numbers, written in Common with a fine hand. Its mechanical sophistication is far beyond anything you've ever seen before. There's a little knob on the side.

Or…

DC 20: This is the sort of device only whispered about in the powder chambers of refined folk. It's not a construct or an automaton per se, but rather a non-sentient device meant to track the exact progression of a day or night, even in a darkened dungeon with no sun or stars to suggest the passage of time. There's a small knob on the side, perhaps to affect the functioning of the device.

It’s kind of lame to just say “It’s a pocket watch!” so I’m trying to help you out here.

The watch is not solid gold, unfortunately, but the paint used to make it appear gold will make it appear rather valuable. This magic will wear off soon though, and the pocket watch will take on a sickly yellow-green color like one might find on the belly of a slaad or the little emoji that looks like it’s about to vomit.

Also, it ticks, but it does not keep track of time. More on this later.

The Knob

The knob that sits atop the watch, as if it meant to adjust the hands, does no such thing. The moment a player holds up or examines the watch, it will begin to whir, rise up, and fly around the room. Like a cruel metal gnat.

Smaller than a thumbnail, the knob is extremely fast (30 feet per turn but able to pivot on a dime mid-air) and can only be caught if a character makes a successful DC 22 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check as an action.

Once caught, it will spin hard into the catching creature’s hand, dealing 2 (1d4) piercing damage. It then falls motionless again. This is merely a safeguard to dissuade thieves, and has no other purpose than to annoy. If a player attempts to place the knob back in the watch, they find the metal grooves are now stripped and the knob falls out.

The Fish

Once the knob flies off, the back panel of the watch will click and open slightly. This is clearly visible to the naked eye. This panel reveals tiny whirring gears and springs. And if the panel is left open for more than 5 seconds they will begin to pop out.

These are not functioning gears and springs, but merely there to make the watch hands spin in random directions and intervals. They are enchanted catfish. As the bits of metal touch the ground they will instantly polymorph back into their original forms. They are grey, slimy, and confused. They will stare at you and mouth something that looks very much like "WHY?" as they gasp for water-breath.

The ground is now covered in suffocating catfish, each about the size of a large boot. Up to 25 catfish, if the watch is not quickly closed. I recommend letting players try to stop the springs from popping out and automatically failing, catfish popping up everywhere with wet "SHLOOOOYP" sounds. They must be placed in water or else the party will have to deal with the lingering guilt they felt at the end of that Faith No More video where the goldfish is left out in the air.

The Tick

Perhaps most frustrating at all is the power source, the heart of the watch.

Beneath the springs (that is, the catfish) lies what looks exactly like a pale, blue diamond. Only, it's ticking. Loudly. A character that succeeds on a DC 20 Intelligence (Arcana or Investigation) check realizes that it has been ticking because of a weak and irritating enchantment.

This enchantment was designed to make an object rhythmically repeat the most recent acoustic wave that struck it. Some time ago, a light tap was made on the top of the gem, creating a sound much like a clock ticking, and it's been ticking away ever since. Though it has been encased in the watch where it repeated this tick for years, the noise bouncing back in a feedback loop, it will now after start absorbing and loudly repeating back any noise that hits it. This enchantment takes effect as soon as the characters remove it from the watch.

The watch case was enchanted to protect the echo effect and repeat the tick, which will now pulse your players’ voices, cat meows, farts, anything it hears at an increasingly intolerable and distracting volume. The only sensible recourse is to drop the gem, which is so irritating that only someone craving a desperate distraction will find it remotely valuable.

The entire watch was designed to simulate clockwork by Bottomless Bob’s sloppy enchanter friend. Now it exists purely to disappoint his looters, and hopefully make your adventuring party question the value of rifling through pockets in certain morally questionable circumstances.

Dan Telfer is the Dungeons Humorist aka Comedy Archmage for D&D Beyond (a fun way they are letting him say "writer"), dungeon master for the Nerd Poker podcast, a stand-up comedian, a TV writer who also helped win some Emmys over at Comedy Central, and a former editor of MAD Magazine and The Onion. He can be found riding his bike around Los Angeles from gig to gig to gaming store, though the best way to find out what he's up to is to follow him on Twitter via @dantelfer.