Thought Bottle more RPish uses

[Avigor]

From Complete Arcane. Aside from the obvious cheese of infinite XP...

Has anyone seen these used for other, more innovative and RP related mischief?

Way I see it, removal of memories could mean, depending on how you handle the vague impression of what you put in the bottle (date of march third instead of day I stole the idol), that you might just now have plausible deniability if placed under a Truth effect (say, in a courtroom). Might take multiple bottles in some cases to get it all...

Perhaps even a super-boosted form of this (would almost have to be an artifact-level variant) to make a character into an amnesiac blank slate, saving all of his memories for future rebonding. Perhaps the BBEG's top lieutenant, who always wore a mask or closed helmet and has been strangely inactive of late, is actually a party member (a "foreigner") who now has extensive knowledge of the rebels and/or was an unwitting focus for a scrying sensor or teleport, ala Total Recall...

Also, I could easily see similar magic being used in some magically endowed nations to allow court officials to see the actual memories of witnesses (granted, some sort of magically-enforced truthfulness may be required).

I also saw a brief line somewhere while surfing Google results about sentient Thought Bottles but it didn't go into detail... Not sure how insane that could get, anyone care to make suggestions?

[geekintheground]

i know i would probably use one to store memories before fighting an evil wizard. protects from mindrape and whatnot.

[Avigor]

True, especially if it was extremely important and/or personal and the enemy specialized in mental invasions so he could get blackmail or mind*&#% material for later use...

Which makes me think of another potential use: Could bottling up some memories make one immune to certain magics that might force you to relive something? Like make you relive a nightmarish horror-show of your worst moment (you know, that time you got that atomic wedgie, then turned into a vampire and killed your own mom, all while watching your sis be eaten by a gibbering mouther)? Speaking in pure hypotheticals, of course...

Yes, I can't resist seeing if anyone tries to take that too literally...

[rmnimoc]

Could bottling up some memories make one immune to certain magics that might force you to relive something?
I don't see why not, but you'd still have to remember any other nightmarish things that happened. Like the time you got a wet willy, then turned you into a gibbering mouther and went back in time to eat your sister, all while watching a vampire kill your mother.
Purely hypothetically of course...

[Avigor]

lol I like the way you think

[Kelb_Panthera]

I actually saw one used in a FR novel.

Gromph Baenre, archmage of menzoberanzan, used one to overcome a mindflayer that nearly got him in, I want to say, one of the war of the spider queen novels. Or it might've been the archmage of one of the city's other major houses. (?) Been a while since I read it.

[Avigor]

I actually saw one used in a FR novel.

Gromph Baenre, archmage of menzoberanzan, used one to overcome a mindflayer that nearly got him in, I want to say, one of the war of the spider queen novels. Or it might've been the archmage of one of the city's other major houses. (?) Been a while since I read it.

Interesting... HOW exactly did he overcome the Mindflayer with it? Did he somehow feed the Illithid something it couldn't handle, or did he force the Mindflayer's own psyche into it somehow? The Forgotten Realms Wikia doesn't have it from what I could find; Gromph's article mentioned he owned "numerous thought bottles" but that's it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Interesting... HOW exactly did he overcome the Mindflayer with it? Did he somehow feed the Illithid something it couldn't handle, or did he force the Mindflayer's own psyche into it somehow? The Forgotten Realms Wikia doesn't have it from what I could find; Gromph's article mentioned he owned "numerous thought bottles" but that's it.

As I recall, and mind you it's been a couple of years, he stored some information that the creature needed or wanted in one bottle and a set of combat spells in another and then a vial of deadly poison all in the same drawer in the desk in his study. He had also contrived some setup to how they were arranged in his drawer to trick himself into picking the right one, all of this long before he ever knew that particular foe existed. This was simply how he had chosen to protect this piece of sensitive information.

With the illithid standing over him he chose the bottle that he had arranged to trick himself into picking, the one with the combat spells, then, under the illithid's instruction he drank it to recover the information and instead of telling the illithid what it wanted to know he smashed it in the face with a stilled, silenced prismatic spray. They did battle, wrecking his office, and Gromphe won.

At least I think that's how it went.

[Xar Zarath]

Interesting... HOW exactly did he overcome the Mindflayer with it? Did he somehow feed the Illithid something it couldn't handle, or did he force the Mindflayer's own psyche into it somehow? The Forgotten Realms Wikia doesn't have it from what I could find; Gromph's article mentioned he owned "numerous thought bottles" but that's it.

IIRC, Gromph had been captured by the Lichdrow Dyrr in an imprisonment spell. He was pushed into faezress by his rat familiar, allowing him to move inside the sphere. He was then captured by the illithid who happened to be a mage of some skill.
He offered it magical lore in exchange for his freedom, though he did not know exactly what lore it was since he had removed those memories but maintained a memory that made him to remember the bottles as a bargaining chip if he was ever captured.
The illithid freed him then made his drink the thought bottle thinking that the knowledge would be consumed by Gromph and then it could simply eat Gromph brains(kill 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak)
The thought bottle however contained a time stop spell which activated/completed when he drank the contents. He used an soul-eating axe the illithid acquired to chop off its head.

[Xar Zarath]

...he smashed it in the face with a stilled, silenced prismatic spray. They did battle, wrecking his office, and Gromphe lost
At least I think that's how it went.

This was actually the third book where Gromph faced off against the Lichdrow and lost...he did throw a prismatic spray at Dyrr.

The encounter with the illithid was in the 4th book

[Kelb_Panthera]

Is that how it went? Like I said, it's been a -long- while.

I really ought to read those again. War of the Spider Queen, right?