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View Full Version : Major Artifact and Crux of My Campaign (PEACH)



Keinnicht
2010-11-29, 10:34 PM
I've recently gotten back into DMing, and figured I'd start off with a simple "go stop the guy with the horrible evil artifact and destroy said artifact" kind of quest. My RPing skills are not good enough at the moment to do much else, and I hope this will refresh them.

Anyways, so here's the artifact:

Blackened Skull of Nerull: The blackened skull of Nerull is quite possibly the most unpleasant and evil thing on the face of the planet. Not merely because of it's powers, but the way it can be in the possession of hundreds of different people over the course of centuries without a single person figuring out what it is. Periodically, The Blackened Skull of Nerull locates a suitable bearer, and telepathically informs it of it's powers, one of which is to turn the most pathetic weakling into a horrific powerhouse of necromantic magic, bringing death wherever he walks.

APPARENT POWERS

These are the powers available to a possessor of the Blackened Skull of Nerull who have not been chosen by it.

Animate Dead: Once per day, the Blackened Skull of Nerull can cast Animate Dead as a 7th level cleric, without any material components. Zombies created in this manner are actually under control of the Skull, but generally the Skull leads the bearer to believe they are under his control, unless for some reason the Skull decides to betray it's wielder (Which it does more frequently than you might think.)


REAL POWERS

The Skull's real powers and magnitudes greater than it reveals to those it has not selected as a potential ally.

1. Upon being chosen, the potential bearer immediately gains 1D10 levels in Favored Soul of Nerull. In addition, he may trade in any levels in other classes he currently has for additional levels of Favored Soul.

2. The bearer immediately gains a +6 bonus to all attributes except charisma, and a +10 bonus to Charisma.

3. The Skull now uses Animate Dead as a 20th level Cleric, and adds the HD of undead it can control (80) to the bearers, and in addition increases the number of HD of undead the bearer can control fivefold, including the 80 HD it adds (So a 6th Level Favored Soul could control 520 HD of Undead)

4. The Skull is intelligent and Neutral Evil. It has 20 ranks in Spellcraft, Bluff, Sense Motive, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive, and Int 28, Wis 25, and CHA 35. It can communicate telepathically, and speak all languages (although it typically will not speak) Its eye sockets glow a sickly green when it speaks.

5. The bearer is constantly under the effects of true seeing, detect undead, and deathwatch. He is also the center of a constant Desecrate spell, as cast by a 20th level Cleric. This is the undead bolstering Desecrate, not the deific cutoff desecrate.

6. The Bearer gains the following spell-like abilities:

At Will - Animate Dead, Command Undead, Death Knell
3/Day - Create Undead, Slay Living, Destruction
3/Week - Create Greater Undead, Wail of the Banshee

All are cast as a 20th level Cleric.

DETECTION

The Skull is adept at hiding until a suitable person finds it. If in no creature's possession, the skull registers nonmagical. If in a non-selected person's possession, it registers as moderate necromancy. If the skull has a bearer, it registers as overwhelming necromancy until one year after the bearer is killed.

Coming Soon: Fluff.

Satyrus
2010-11-29, 11:52 PM
Not going to comment too much on the mechanics of it but some the effects RP-wise the item might have and problems that could easily arise.

-First thing with any artifact like that you want to make sure the PCs keep it rather than just selling it off for some cash. This is especially a problem in this case because the skull's apparent power is raising undead once per day and many adventurers have an understandable dislike of such things especially if they want to destroy something evil like that.

-Second what happens if a bearer is chosen by the skull that is of opposed alignment or hates Nerull and then gets levels as a favored soul of Nerull, or would the skull simply not pick somebody opposed to Nerull at all?

-I'm curious about how you're planning on revealing this artifact and how they're supposed to destroy it (to Mordor? :smallbiggrin: )

Keinnicht
2010-11-30, 12:53 AM
Not going to comment too much on the mechanics of it but some the effects RP-wise the item might have and problems that could easily arise.

-First thing with any artifact like that you want to make sure the PCs keep it rather than just selling it off for some cash. This is especially a problem in this case because the skull's apparent power is raising undead once per day and many adventurers have an understandable dislike of such things especially if they want to destroy something evil like that.

They're not going to find it lying around, it's going to be "Oh crap, some guy has like 324432 undead and a horrific legendary artifact."

Oh, crap, I need to do some editing to explain why nobody finds this thing. The theory is that most people have heard a few legends about the skull, but nobody can know if they have it unless they're told. The skull simply refuses to work for them, and, as far as they can tell, it's just a cool magical doohickey for raising the dead.


-Second what happens if a bearer is chosen by the skull that is of opposed alignment or hates Nerull and then gets levels as a favored soul of Nerull, or would the skull simply not pick somebody opposed to Nerull at all?

I thought about thinking up some mechanism for this, but then I realized it didn't really matter. The skull won't pick any of the PCs, it's specifically designed to be the tool of one BBEG. It's going to fall into PC hands at some point, and I don't want to deal with "You fail your save. You're now neutral evil and gain ten levels of cleric."


-I'm curious about how you're planning on revealing this artifact and how they're supposed to destroy it (to Mordor? :smallbiggrin: )

Still considering the destruction method, but I know the reveal.

So, in our first session, the players got sent to investigate a rash of disappearances of villagers. They found a cleric of Nerull who lived on the outskirts of town, and killed two of his zombies and brought him to justice (Surprisingly, they actually carried him back to town and turned him over, rather than killing him.) During the conversation as they were receiving the reward, they mentioned killing two zombies. The mayor seemed surprised, and commented three villagers disappeared, but it was probably nothing.

The cleric actually had the Skull, but fell into the category of "people who thought it was just a zombie-making doohickey." He certainly knew of the skull, but presumed it was a cheap, albeit useful imitation. The third villager had actually not been killed and turned into a zombie, he had managed to outrun them.

Said villager was a fellow of questionable tastes. I haven't decided on a name yet, so forgive the constant use of "the villager." He was the D&D world equivalent of the 12 year old who sits around reading the Satanic Bible and Helter Skelter. So, naturally, upon hearing of the zombie-making cleric's imprisonment, he went to go poke around the shack where he had lived.

And it turns out this villager happened to meet the criteria for the Skull. Strong of mind, but consumed by impotent rage and alienation. This is the non-fluff reason for the sudden gain in cleric levels, to turn the random villager into a viable BBEG.

The theory for why the Skull would select a commoner is based on the theory that a weakling suddenly given unimaginable power will probably inflict a lot more death and destruction than an already powerful person made more powerful.

So the PCs are found by a messenger, telling them that villagers have started disappearing again and they need help. PCs return to find the village totally empty, set out to find out what is going on.

Rumors of whole villages being slaughtered and raised as part of an ever-growing army of undead start filtering through the taverns and libraries...

Dante & Vergil
2010-11-30, 12:56 AM
Inherent bonuses to ability scores cap out at +5 each. You should make it an untyped bonus instead, so it stacks with other kinds of bonuses and keeps the values you want.

Keinnicht
2010-11-30, 01:09 AM
Inherent bonuses to ability scores cap out at +5 each. You should make it an untyped bonus instead, so it stacks with other kinds of bonuses and keeps the values you want.

I'll do that.

Also, would it be too evil if I bent the rules so a lich could use this thing as his phylactery, and the PCs had to contend with destroying a major artifact just to get the BBEG to stop coming back?

I'm thinking yes.

Dante & Vergil
2010-11-30, 01:39 AM
I'll do that.

Also, would it be too evil if I bent the rules so a lich could use this thing as his phylactery, and the PCs had to contend with destroying a major artifact just to get the BBEG to stop coming back?

I'm thinking yes.

Maybe make it easier to become a Lich on top of it? It's a Major Artifact after all.

Keinnicht
2010-12-09, 02:24 PM
Maybe make it easier to become a Lich on top of it? It's a Major Artifact after all.

I think I'm going to skip the lich-dom. I've been working on his cohorts, and I've decided I'm going to have a super-duper-ultra-incredibly-old lich be the second in command that is actually pretty much first in command.

Any ideas on how to destroy this thing? I was thinking a little trek to the Positive Energy Plane and locating some kind of "heart" of pure positive energy and throwing it in.

Or, alternatively, for a more epic final battle, I was thinking of coming up with some kind of magical reaction between the positive energy and the skull's overwhelming necromantic energy, causing it to come to "life" as some sort of weird lich-construct.

Morph Bark
2010-12-09, 03:43 PM
What is its Ego score? Of all things, I'd reckon that to be rather important for this particular artifact.