[Dark Carnival] Macabre Marionette (Patreon)

Macabre Marionette

Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)

Component: aberration brain

This puppet is not alive. This puppet cannot move on its own. This puppet’s eyes do not work and cannot follow your movement. This puppet does not have a voice and cannot whisper in your ear. This puppet is not your friend. If you doubt any of these statements at any point, you’d do well to remember, for your own safety: this puppet is not alive.

Combat Dummy. The puppet is a magical object with AC 15, 40 hit points, and immunity to poison and psychic damage. While holding the puppet, you can cause fine threads of magic to form between the puppet and your fingers (no action required), allowing you to manipulate it in one of the following ways:

As a bonus action, you can cause it to move up to 20 feet in any direction. The puppet can’t be moved farther than 20 feet from you by any means. If you are moved farther than 20 feet from the puppet, it is pulled in the same direction so that it remains within that range.

When you take the Attack action, you can replace any number of attacks you make with attacks made by the puppet with its built-in weapons. These are melee weapon attacks that you are proficient with, use your Dexterity or Charisma modifier (your choice) for their attack and damage rolls, have a reach of 5 feet, and deal 1d10 bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage (your choice) on a hit. Alternatively, the puppet can cast the poison spray cantrip (save DC 13) in place of an attack.

If a creature moves out of the puppet’s reach, you can use your reaction to have the puppet make an opportunity attack against it using its built-in weapons.

The puppet regains all of its hit points daily at dawn. If a creature casts the mending spell on the puppet, it regains hit points equal to 2d8 + the caster’s spellcasting modifier, after which it can’t regain hit points from this cantrip again until the next dawn. If the puppet drops to 0 hit points, it isn’t destroyed, but you can’t use it until it has at least 1 hit point.

Curse. This item is cursed, and becoming attuned to it extends the curse to you until you are targeted by the remove curse spell or similar magic. While cursed, you are unwilling to part with the puppet, keeping it within reach at all times. In addition, you are convinced that the puppet is alive and sentient, and regularly engage in one-sided conversation with it. Whenever you finish a long rest, there’s a 50% chance that you awake to find the puppet propped up beside you, watching. If this happens, you take 3d6 psychic damage.

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Rare variant: Increase the puppet’s hit points to 60, the DC to 15, the damage of poison spray to 2d10, and the curse damage to 4d6. The puppet’s attacks deal an extra 1d4 poison damage on a hit.

Very rare variant: Increase the puppet’s AC to 17, its hit points to 80, the DC to 16, the damage of poison spray to 3d10, and the curse damage to 5d6. The puppet’s attacks deal an extra 2d4 poison damage on a hit.

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