This small, lusterless black pearl-like sphere feels unnaturally cold and seems to absorb nearby light. Shadow Plane variants often whisper faint echoes of despair when held.
Type Minor;
Level 11;
Price 300 GP;
You throw the bead up to 60 feet (no range increment penalties). It explodes on impact in a 10-foot burst.
Each creature in the burst takes 6d6 force damage (DC 28 basic Reflex save).
On a failure (or critical failure), a creature that is Medium or smaller and fully within the burst is trapped inside a sphere of force (see below). Creatures that succeed are pushed to the nearest edge of the burst.
The sphere is a transparent, immobile globe of force with the following statistics:
Hardness 15, HP 60 (BT 30).
Immunity to critical hits, precision damage, and non-force physical damage.
Creatures and effects cannot pass through the sphere (including line of effect for most spells and attacks). Only air passes through.
Duration: 1 minute or until the sphere is destroyed (e.g., by disintegrate, dispel magic heightened to 6th level or higher, or sufficient damage).
A trapped creature can spend an Interact action to push the lightweight sphere up to half its Speed.
While trapped inside a shadow bead, a creature takes 1d6 mental damage at the end of each of its turns (DC 28 basic Will save) from the crushing gloom and echoing memories. On a critical failure, it is also frightened 1 (cumulative up to frightened 2). This represents the plane’s despair bleeding into the force effect.