A dead man's bottle seems to be little more than a dirt-encrusted, antique wine bottle of smoky black or green glass. The stopper is always shaped as a stylised, elongated human skull.
When the bottle is filled with alcohol and then poured upon a grave, any corpse up to 10 feet below the surface is affected as if by a Speak With Dead spell. Only the bottle's user can hear and speak with the dead, but the deceased is more responsive than with the usual Speak With Dead spell, and the dead of other alignments suffer a -2 penalty to their Will saves to avoid answering. The effects of the bottle last for 5 minutes, the bottle's user can ask two questions. After the first use, attempts to contact a spirit fail until 7 days have passed.
Prerequisite: Craft Wondrous Item, Speak With Dead
Aura: Faint Necromancy
Caster Level: 5th
Market Price: 22,500gp
Cost to Create:
Base Cost: 11,250gp
XP Cost: 900
AC: 7
Hit Points: 0
Hardness: 1
Break DC: 5
Weight: 8 ounces
Based on an entry in Dragon Magazine #300 October 2002 by Wesley Schneider