Transmuter's Forge (3.5e Equipment)

Transmuter's Forge
''The furnace lit into supernatural white flames which were blinding to look at, and there was a dull but fierce grinding noise and the hiss of steam. When it had finished, they drew out the blade they had put inside, a blade somehow shimmering like silver yet edged with black. The weight of mithral and the strength of adamantine in one blade!''

The transmuter's forge is a heavy iron block large enough to fit a man inside, with a heavy door and tinted glass window. The inside is covered floor to roof with red alchemical symbols and magic runes, and a anvil-shaped table in the center. Containers on the wall look like they are meant to hold something, and several tools are magically afixed to the wall. By placing an metallic object on the center table and pouring in metal ore or ores on the side containers, the forge is primed.

Closing the door, the room lights up in supernaturally bright white flames and the sound of forgework can be heard. The transmuter's forge functions by combining two substances into an alloy with the properties of both, such as a mixture of mithril and adamantine, which both counts as adamantine for bypassing hardness, damage reduction, and its own hardness, and is as light as mithril. Some properties may cancel each other out, such as metal which doubles the weight combined with metal which halves the weight. When you close the door you must make an appropriate Craft check DC 20 with a +5 bonus for the process to succeed, otherwise the alloying fails and you must try again. Materials are not lost on failure, just time and effort.

The cost of this alloy metal is 75% of the cost of each metal used, times 1.5. For example a masterwork cold iron and adamantine rapier would cost 75% of a masterwork cold iron rapier (465 gp) and 75% of an adamantine rapier (2265 gp) times 1.5, for a total of 4095 gp. It bypasses cold iron and adamantine damage reduction, is as hard as adamantine, and costs an extra 2000 gp to enchant like cold iron.

The forge can also be used to strip materials from an item, or change a pre-existing material into something different. Stripping a material from an item gets you half of its value in raw ore, which can be used for other items. For example if you strip the adamantine from a cold iron adamantine rapier, you gain 1500 gp worth of adamantine ore. If you strip away the only metal it has, you obtain the ore but the item is destroyed. Alternatively you can transform a pre-existing material, in which case you simply strip away the last material (gaining the ore), and apply the new one at the normal cost of forging an item out of that material. To transform a masterwork steel greatsword (350 gp) into an adamantine greatsword you need 3000 gp of adamantine ore, and obtain 175 gp of steel.

Regardless what function is used, be it alloying, stripping, or replacing a material, the forge takes 1 day for every 1000 gp value of the change. The door will not re-open until the process is done short of destroying the forge (and ruining the item inside). In addition, the forge is rather heavy and large, making it immobile and ill suited for adventurers on the go. However a more expensive version for 9000 gp is capable of shrinking down into a tiny box (even while its in the middle of forging) and can be carried, and offers a +10 bonus on the Craft check to succeed.

Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item, stone shape or metal meltSpC, crafter must have 10 ranks in Craft Metalwork, Craft Weapons, or Craft Armor.

Cost to Create: 2250 gp, 180 EXP, 4 days (immobile version); 4500 gp, 360 EXP, 9 days (portable version).