Help with designing a time-based minor/major artifact

[Gemini Lupus]

Hey all,

So I'm usually pretty confident in homebrewing magic items and the like, but I've run into a bit of a block. I have a time-travel/time-manipulation based item that I would like to homebrew, but I don't know quite what all sorts of powers it would have. My idea is for it to have 4-8 runes on it, which if pressed in a particular order, will manipulate time or transport the user through time. For the time being, we can have the runes be represented by numbers. My idea is for there to be a four digit code for each power, with no two numbers being able to be present in the same code.

For example, 4321 would be the code to go back in time one week. 1234 would be the code to go forward one week.

What do y'all think of this idea? And could you help come up with different codes to do different things? The codes could be original effects or reproduce spell effects, but I want them all to be time based.

So, if you don't mind, please help me in this endeavor.

[TheOneWhoWalks]

This actually seems like a kind of cool idea, although fair warning: anything to do with time manipulation that can reach more than a few rounds in either direction can be a nightmare to implement. But, if you can handle it from a DM perspective, than it opens some cool territory for adventure ideas. Before I attempt to contribute anything, I have a couple questions. First, It's time only, right? Not space? So if you travel a week into the future, you arrive in exactly the same place you vanished from, just a week later? And second, Is it a small-ish, hand-help item? Or more like a standing stone or obelisk, large difficult to move?

[Gemini Lupus]

This actually seems like a kind of cool idea, although fair warning: anything to do with time manipulation that can reach more than a few rounds in either direction can be a nightmare to implement. But, if you can handle it from a DM perspective, than it opens some cool territory for adventure ideas. Before I attempt to contribute anything, I have a couple questions. First, It's time only, right? Not space? So if you travel a week into the future, you arrive in exactly the same place you vanished from, just a week later? And second, Is it a small-ish, hand-help item? Or more like a standing stone or obelisk, large difficult to move?

Time travel can be pretty tricky, especially if you don't have all the rules of it figured out, so as to prohibit paradoxes and the like, a la Back to the Future. Part of the narrative for the campaign that I am potentially going to implement this in is that a character from a dystopian future found a way to the past and is trying to prevent the same from happening to the current timeline, like Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Z or Lucina from Fire Emblem Awakening.

To answer your questions, it is only time, not space and I am thinking of this being a hand-held item, allowing for possibly up to 6 companions to come with the user. Maybe. I haven't quite figured that out yet.

I want this to be one of a few items in the game to deal with time travel/manipulation, the others being an item based on the Phoenix Gate from Gargoyles, which would affect space as well as time, but be more restricted to /day and /week abilities, and whatever the Trunks/Lucina expy used to travel to the past, possibly the large, difficult to move obelisk you mentioned...

Anyway, thanks for the questions and the potential input! :smallbiggrin:

[iTookUrNick]

The following idea works equally well as a compact hand-held item or a large structure. Basically, it consist of a cylindrical shape with various rings of engraved runes (hardly a new image, I know): one for the direction of travel (back/forward in time), one for the ammount of time to travel (round, minutes, 10s of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years; always include some randomness in the result e.g. 1d4+1 rounds forward, or based on the UMD check if any), one for the target group (i.e. self, group, target, area, etc) and a button (perhaps at the top) to confirm the command. Stick figure instructions at the bottom are optional, suggestions can be found with quests, detailed instruction are out of the question. :smallamused:

Now, to make things a little more interesting, you could have (say) 8 runes on each circle, with repeating values (i.e. 4 backward and 4 forward runes on the first circle, and 2 for each target on the second), and assign a value rom 1 to 8 to each. Then you can set an arbitrary rule to make the device work. As an example, you could establish that the device only works if the total sum of the runes is a prime number, and/or is less than the charges remaining in the device for the day/week, and/or the total is less than or equal to the UMD check to make it work. With 8 runes and 3 circles you get 512 combinations, with little chance of players "stumbling" on the exact combination they want, but 1 in 3 chances of something time-related happening. One or more runes might be cracked, rendering particular combinations unavailable (and decreasing viable combinations %). Finally, if you feel particularly devious, you can add an explosive effect (proportional to the magnitude of the desired effect) every time the device is used incorrectly, as the arcane energy build-up is released in the ambient.

As your players realize how the thing works, they might start using it as a weapon (it's a simple fact of life that weaponization is the norm for PCs). Adding (difficult to replenish) charges, akward usage or the ever-present danger of an explosion might help keeping things in check.

Bonus point if you print and assemble a working model of the device. If you do not want to risk a 3d project, concentric circles of paper of decreasing radius stacked on top of each other migh work.

I hope that you might find some inspiration in what I wrote. And do let us know how it goes!

[Gemini Lupus]

The following idea works equally well as a compact hand-held item or a large structure. Basically, it consist of a cylindrical shape with various rings of engraved runes (hardly a new image, I know): one for the direction of travel (back/forward in time), one for the ammount of time to travel (round, minutes, 10s of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years; always include some randomness in the result e.g. 1d4+1 rounds forward, or based on the UMD check if any), one for the target group (i.e. self, group, target, area, etc) and a button (perhaps at the top) to confirm the command. Stick figure instructions at the bottom are optional, suggestions can be found with quests, detailed instruction are out of the question. :smallamused:

Now, to make things a little more interesting, you could have (say) 8 runes on each circle, with repeating values (i.e. 4 backward and 4 forward runes on the first circle, and 2 for each target on the second), and assign a value rom 1 to 8 to each. Then you can set an arbitrary rule to make the device work. As an example, you could establish that the device only works if the total sum of the runes is a prime number, and/or is less than the charges remaining in the device for the day/week, and/or the total is less than or equal to the UMD check to make it work. With 8 runes and 3 circles you get 512 combinations, with little chance of players "stumbling" on the exact combination they want, but 1 in 3 chances of something time-related happening. One or more runes might be cracked, rendering particular combinations unavailable (and decreasing viable combinations %). Finally, if you feel particularly devious, you can add an explosive effect (proportional to the magnitude of the desired effect) every time the device is used incorrectly, as the arcane energy build-up is released in the ambient.

As your players realize how the thing works, they might start using it as a weapon (it's a simple fact of life that weaponization is the norm for PCs). Adding (difficult to replenish) charges, akward usage or the ever-present danger of an explosion might help keeping things in check.

Bonus point if you print and assemble a working model of the device. If you do not want to risk a 3d project, concentric circles of paper of decreasing radius stacked on top of each other migh work.

I hope that you might find some inspiration in what I wrote. And do let us know how it goes!

I'm afraid this isn't quite what I was thinking, but is an excellent aparatus for time travel! I will see if I can cannibalize any of this though...:smallcool:

[Leviting]

4123 to go back one round, essentially to get an extra round of action
1432 could be used to go foreward one round, to protect oneself from any horrible things they are expecting.
1324 could be used to lock oneself in a temporal stasis lasting 1 + 1d4 rounds, while
2423 could be used to lock oneself in a temporal stasis lasting 2d6 years, and
4213 could be used to lock oneself in a stasis for 90 + 1d10 years.
3241 could be used to stop time for everything within five feet (including the user), isolating them together.

Just a few I thought of.