Ooh, a white hot piece of iron inside a macerator scroll would make a wonderful flashbang.
You get a moment where the surface area of the white hot metal is huge, meaning the amount of light emitted is correspondingly large. But the fact that each particle of iron is near significantly larger volume of cooler air means that the local temperature doesn't rise all that much. It also means that the particles of iron would cool off much more quickly, leading to a short burst of intense light with very little damage for anyone not caught directly within the sphere where iron particles appear.
Mind, depending on the exact settings of the macerator seal someone caught in the blast could experience a wide range of things:
- Tiny first degree burns everywhere that's exposed to open air. (like the ones you get when a spark from a sparkler touches your skin, just everywhere)
- A much smaller number of progressively worse burns. (This would probably only happen if the flashbang is set to look like a flood of sparks or fireflies, which means it's not all that good as a flashbang.)
- A thin coating of incredibly fine iron oxide everywhere that isn't particularly dangerous. (It's most likely to just give you a coughing fit if it makes your mucus really thick. Iron Oxide is basically inert and isn't in a form that can cause iron toxicity or liver failure if it's not directly introduced into your bloodstream. At least that what a quick google search seems to say.)
If we aim for the latter (smallest possible particle size), I think we might have a genuinely good non-lethal option for delaying and disorienting an enemy.
