Alembic of Unmaking

This large alembic is a glass retort supported by a bronze tripod and connected to a smaller glass container by a bronze spout. The bronze fittings are etched with arcane symbols, and the glass parts of the alembic sometimes emit bright, amethyst sparks. If a magic item is placed inside the alembic and a fire lit beneath it, the magic item dissolves and its magical energy drains into the smaller container. Artifacts, legendary magic items, and any magic item that won't physically fit into the alembic (anything larger than a shortsword or a cloak) can't be dissolved in this way. Full dissolution and distillation of an item's magical energy takes 1 hour, but 10 minutes is enough time to render most items nonmagical. If an item spends a full hour dissolving in the alembic, its magical energy coalesces in the smaller container as a lump of material resembling gray-purple, stiff dough known as arcanoplasm. This material is safe to handle and easy to incorporate into new magic items. Using arcanoplasm while creating a magic item reduces the cost of the new item by 10 percent per degree of rarity of the magic item that was distilled into the arcanoplasm. An alembic of unmaking can distill or disenchant one item per 24 hours.