How about Igor Thrashpot's Magic Eight Ball of Occasional Scrying?
A dark, mysterious globe... the symbol for infinity etched into in a pearly white ring on its outer surface... opposite this powerful sigil is a small, unbreakable round window. Is it Laen? Eog? None can guess.
Afloat within the odd, blue liquid that seems to fill the bizarre receptacle is a twelve-sided solid; each face is that unholiest of shapes... a pentagon!
Igor Thrashpot, faced with a decision that could mean life or death, consults this eldritch artifact. Withdrawing the sparkling orb from his crimson robes, he furls his brow and carefully formulates his query:
"O Magic 8 Ball! Herald and oracle of forces both mickle and arcane! Does the terrible Bomaynee and his band await us in the cliffs above? Speak, O 8-ball, and be not silent! Hear us in our need, and bestow upon us the wonder and favor of your Occasional Scrying power!"
With a mighty thrust of his pale, gnarled hand Thrashpot shakes the 8-ball, gives a ululating cry, shakes it again, and again! At last, peering down from beneath his thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows, he waits for the dodecahedral declarer of doom to settle itself against the window. The party gathers round, an odd blue light shining from the window and reflecting upon their hopeful faces.
A cryptic message forms upon the face of the pentagon, and strange characters appear on its surface; barely discernible at first, but resolving into a message in the common-speech, a missive from the Place Beyond! Thrashpot's quivering, bloodless lips purse as he whispers the secret message of the Spirits to his compatriots:
"Message Unclear. Ask again later."
Usable once per day, Thrashpot's Magic 8-ball gave a 1 in 12 chance of delivering a truthful answer to one yes-or-no question. The rest of the time, it would give a stock 8-ball answer such as the one cited above. The fun part (for the GM) was when the 8-ball gave a simple "Yes" or "No". Since the players could not see the d12 roll, they had no way of knowing whether they were receiving a truthful "Yes" or "No", or whether they had failed the d12 and thus were receiving a random "Yes" or "No". Of course, sometimes on truthful replies, the 8-ball would add enough detail and verbiage to let the players know their magic item had indeed worked.
We actually kept a Magic 8-ball at the gaming table for this purpose.
Bet some of y'all have thought of that already, though.
CMC