The Soul Cannon

[Dimitri]

Okay, so a little background first:

In the land of Antioch, there is a legendary place known as the Abyss, which is supposedly the source of all magical energy in the land. There is evidence to support this, because the closer you get to the center of the continent, the more powerful arcane spells become.

An evil necromancer has gotten an idea to head for the Abyss in order to create the Soul Cannon, a gigantic cannon powered by the very energy of the Abyss itself. The Soul Cannon, when fired, creates a targeted blast that removes the souls from everyone within a certain radius, leaving just the bodies as empty shells. The souls are then funneled into the Soul Cannon in order to do...something. I haven't quite figured that out yet, but that's not why I'm here.

I can't figure out the logistics of the Cannon itself. (I'm not all that knowledgeable with the magic system, so forgive me.) I want to make the blast powerful, but not so powerful that the Heroes can't withstand it. So what I'm looking for are these:

Save

Save DC

Effect of a Successful Save


A bit of information you may need:

Caster level: 10-15

Radius of the blast: Enough to encompass a town of about 50-100 people

The Cannon charges for about an hour, drawing magical energy directly from the Abyss itself. Once the Cannon has fired, it takes 2-3 days to cool down before it can fire again.

Please help me, O Giant Board members!

[Forrestfire]

You should probably use a modified Circle of Death
My suggestion is that you should increase the maximum hid dice affected to, say, 20; boost the caster level to 200(?), and increase the area to a sphere with a 750-1000ft diameter. This would give you a sphere large enough to encompass a town, killing up to 800 hit dice of creatures.
The save should be will, and the DC should be around 30, to ensure a lot of people will be killed.
My last suggestion is that the machine should require energy (150-200 HD worth of souls?) to draw magic from the abyss.

[kemmotar]

Well if you ask me such a mighty sounding cannon should not just kill 50 to 100 people...wiping out a town large town is what constitutes a threat. Also it's range must be significant, depending on the setting, so that it can affect most kingdoms and their cities as to actually be threatening.

A modified circle of death is also a good idea, though the idea of a cannon per se is problematic. How are you going to aim it? what if the town is hidden behind a mountain? Instead make it a magic device requiring a ceremony, perhaps, or something of the like, to create an effect where you want it to be. Also where do the souls go? A good idea would be that it effect wrenches the souls out of the bodies that fail the save and binds them into the abyss or into some container that will power the BBEG's other weapons? Maybe the weapon drains the Abyss's power so that the pcs also have to save the world from a magic-less world should the BBEG be allowed to overuse his "cannon".

A good place you can get ideas is full metal alchemist, a really good anime, that has alot of soul wrenching in human transmutation so you can add that for SFX, if you see the anime you'll get what i mean:smallbiggrin:

The DC can depend on your setting, for example if a natural 20 gives you automatic success then around 30DC is fine. However, if natural 20 equals 40 on the dice then you can make the DC 41 or it can be dependent on hit dice, thus a really high DC (about 60) for HD1 and the DC goes down as HD increases.

If you ask me however, this weapon, powered by the abyss and all is quite the ultimate weapon so a save would actually be weird unless you're a god or demi god...What's the point of a super weapon if it only wipes out the weak and the powerful can just survive, get mad at you and get back at you? The meaning of such a super weapon would be to wipe the whole town out of the face of the earth...or at least the souls of the people within, no exceptions.

The problem is that it has to be caster level 10-15...you could make that the BBEG's caster level and he received aid from the equivalent of demons or devils in your setting to make it. Thus the cannon is very powerful but due to the relative weakness of the BBEG to the weapon he needs a ceremony to fire it that will take time and it needs to cool down.

If you want to make it a save you could make it a double save. If they lose the will save they get their souls wrenched out and transported to the container at the BBEG's disposal to power something else more powerful...If they succeed on the will save ( probably a DC 30 save as mentioned before) they have to roll a fortitude so that the forces trying to wrench the soul out do not permanently scar the soul of the person, so DC for insanity, comma?

[Quietus]

I suppose that depends entirely on what kind of city/town you intend to drain. If it's a typical "We're all level 1 commoners", you can set the DC at 20, and only a very few will survive - might even play into the BBEG's love for suffering, if he has any. The only thing more evil than killing a full village of 100 people, is killing 95 of those people and Scrying on the remaining 5 to enjoy their tortured wailing.

The Circle of Death idea is a good one, as well - make it a Maximized, Empowered Circle of Death for 120 HD worth of killing. It won't affect anyone of 9 HD or more (though, as a DM, you can simply say that that doesn't apply if you'd rather it not), but really, if your small towns of 100ish people have ANYONE of that level, that's pretty spectacular.

[Dervag]

Maybe the Cannon uses souls as a catalyst to draw the energy that powers the cannon. In that case, it will become more powerful (affects more HD) with each shot fired. It's up to you to figure out how fast it can be fired and how rapidly its power grows, but that would definitely impose some time limits on the heroes' efforts to destroy the Cannon. The longer they wait, the more power the Cannon has, the more people die with each shot, and (presumably) the more powerful the bad guy's other weapons become.

[Dimitri]

Maybe the Cannon uses souls as a catalyst to draw the energy that powers the cannon. In that case, it will become more powerful (affects more HD) with each shot fired. It's up to you to figure out how fast it can be fired and how rapidly its power grows, but that would definitely impose some time limits on the heroes' efforts to destroy the Cannon. The longer they wait, the more power the Cannon has, the more people die with each shot, and (presumably) the more powerful the bad guy's other weapons become.

I like that idea! It's much easier to take the PC's from 1st to 15th level this way.

I also like the Circle of Death thing that everyone else has given. I had to go back and look it up when you guys mentioned it, and it seems like the way to go.

Now I just have to figure out how to start the campaign...

Another time, maybe. Thanks, everyone!

[SydneyLosstarot]

or maybe you can say the the cannon's effect is ultimate and even the heroes cannot withstand, and still arrange it so that they don't get shot but rather see the destruction caused (e.g. approaching the town being shot at) and get really mad at the BBEG =)

or it may have some time to deliver the shot, so that people see some illumination(like a vertical ray of light on the horizon) and can still run for their lives.

or just fix the effect - like, anyone below 9 HD is immediately killed and his soul sucked into the Abyss, while everyone above 9 HD is left at 0 hp and suffers some ability damage. This can be made more dynamic if some monsters appear at the scene after the destruction, so the heroes can get some survival horror experience =)

[Dervag]

I like that idea! It's much easier to take the PC's from 1st to 15th level this way.

I also like the Circle of Death thing that everyone else has given. I had to go back and look it up when you guys mentioned it, and it seems like the way to go.

Now I just have to figure out how to start the campaign...

Another time, maybe. Thanks, everyone!Umm... if you're going to do it that way, then the growth rate on the cannon's power, or the frequency of the shots, must be really low. After all, it will take days of game time for the heroes to level up even once under the best of conditions. Over the months of time for the heroes to go up to, say, 15th level, the cannon would become a world-killing weapon unless its power grows very slowly or it can be fired only very infrequently.

In which case you're going to have to introduce other factors to make the cannon a believable threat. After all, if it can only be fired once every two weeks, it's not very dangerous in and of itself until it becomes powerful enough to destroy cities.

Of course, if it is powerful enough to destroy cities, and it can only be fired once every two weeks, and if the guy who owns the cannon is in communication with the nations of the world...

then every ruler will be trying very hard to persuade him to fire the cannon at someone, anyone else, because that will automatically give them a two-week period during which they are in no danger from it.

[Shalist]

Basically, no save--if you're in the area without strong wards or a specific type of personal magical protection that's not too hard to get if they can figure out some of the mechanics about what the guy's trying, you die. You can give them a dc25 save vs. level loss every round or some such if they complain, but really, everyone dies. It's designed more to turn tons of peasants into fuel than to kill PC's, after all.

Ever read jim butcher's "dresden files?" If you haven't read his books yet, don't read this--they're good books, and I'd hate to ruin the read for someone, even if this isn't exactly plot-breaking. In Dead Beat, they did this. A bunch of big name rival necros came to town to find their deceased master's legacy, which was basically the key to a ritual that'd suck the life outta everything within however many miles and use it to fuel the caster's ascension into godhood. Main char had to be protected by necromantic energy--to which there's a death penalty for dabbling in--in order to get anywhere close to the maelstorm without being sucked lifeless.

For the purposes of the game, I'd say let it be a ritual to become a lich or demilich, or at least majorly kissing some god's bottom to snag some other nifty template. If the pc's find a way to get close enough to do enough damage, or disrupt the overly complicated ritual, they win (even if he gets away, he's stuck his neck out so far on this one that there's a dozen other baddies more than happy to sever it for him).

If they don't, they get to go lick their wounds and bulk up and try to find some ancient artifact to help a bit, a task made more difficult as this guy's utterly smashing all his old foes--good and evil, as well as anything conceivably strong enough to oppose him, ie paladin orders, kingdoms, monastaries and libraries, and big name npc wizards. The later route could be very interesting--almost like in FF3 when kefka came to power, or zelda 64 when link wakes up to find the world a bleaker place, except they get to watch it happen, too small and impotent for him to even bother finishing off (it'd be more cruel to let them see their failure, or some such).

---

On a side note, it's always better to make the PC's feel important, so let's just make one of the the last descandant of some famous epic hero, and his blood, or something he does, or whatever is somehow required for the whole thing to work--killing an innocent, thus tainting his bloodline and releasing an ancient seal, come to mind.