Item Seed: Eggplant Bombs

Eggplant Bombs

Solanum melongena ruptio

They’re not very explosive.  No shrapnel, either.  They’re just eggplants that have been treated with Vita-Rays to well beyond the Royal Biological Artifice Society’s recommended guidelines for enhanced vegetables.  To activate an Eggplant Bomb, simply press the pre-installed button to inject vinegar to the Bomb’s insides, smack the Bomb smartly to start the chemical reaction inside, and throw very, very hard.

It takes about five seconds or so for an Eggplant Bomb to explode under those circumstances, and when it does explode it will generate a concussive blast that might knock an unprepared man down, but will certainly send loose items flying, as well as make people caught in the blast radius (about a yard) woozy and unhappy.  A successful detonation also creates a thick cloud of purple smoke (about 2 yards in radius) that obscures line of sight through it. The smoke is not fatally irritable, but it’s not really fun to breathe in — and smells vaguely of vegetables and vinegar, for fairly obvious reasons.

Eggplant Bombs are actually fairly popular military items, assuming a nation-state has a biological artificer that can grow them; they’re not lethal on their own, but an Eggplant Bomb makes for a serviceable steampunk equivalent to a flash-bang grenade.  Sometimes they get used to secure a room without shooting anybody inside. Sometimes they get used to make sure that everybody in a room gets shot before they can react.

What they do not get used for, however, is cuisine.  Eggplant Bombs taste horrible.  The legend that a slice of one will explode in your stomach is just that — a legend — but they are simply awful for one’s digestion.