High end secure storage

[Jowgen]

Lets say you've gotten your hands on some kind of Artifact-level doomsday McGuffin that is too dangerous to allow anyone to have but too important to destroy (may one day need it as a Nuclear deterrent or something). You resolve yourself to lock it away somewhere only you can get to it, and more importantly, where it has no chance of affecting anyone or anything else.

So, how would you go about keeping your McGuffin securely under lock?

As a baseline of security, lets take an extradimensional storage space (e.g. Enveloping Pit), containing a bunker made out of voidstone, which has Sigils of Antimagic (Drac) engraved inside and out.

[Emperor Tippy]

Step 1: Dump it in a Glove of Storing.
Step 2: Hit the Glove of Storing with Dispel Magic so that it becomes a non magical item.
Step 3: Hit the non magical Glove of Storing with Tenacious Spell: Shrink Item to make it into cloth.
Step 4: Hit the cloth-like shrunk Glove with Tenacious Spell: Permanency.
Step 5: Make an Ice Assassin of an Ice Assassin of yourself.
Step 6: Give the shrunk glove to the IA and order the IA to cast Hoard Gullet and consume the glove.
Step 7: Order the IA to not hand over the glove to anyone except you, and only when you meet specific qualifiers.
Step 8: Cast Smokey Confinement on the IA.
Steps 9-9,000,000: Cast IA and have them nested cast Smokey Confinement with each SC vial held in the next iterations Hoard Gullet.
Step 9,000,001: Create an Animated Object that is less than 100 pounds. Have it use a Craft Contingent Hoard Gullet to swallow the last SC vial. Order it to lower its immunity to spells that allow Fort saves so that you can cast a Tenacious Spell: Temporal Stasis on it.
Step 9,000,002: Get a Bag of Holding and cast Dispel Magic on it before dropping the Animated Object into it.
Step 9,000,003: Use Hoard Gullet to swallow the Bag of Holding after the Bag of Holding has become magical again.

There you go. To get to the item without authorization, even assuming that you know the entire chain, is virtually impossible (and requires defeating you over nine million times). Steps 1-4 alone are enough to make it very difficult.

[jindra34]

You know at some point these kind of questions seem like they are better done as just sending Tippy a PM asking him how to do it. Because his methods always seem pretty close to a last word on them.

[Darrin]

Something I'd add in there somewhere, either before or after the hoard gullet... cast flesh to stone on the creature holding the macguffin. This makes things more difficult for discern location, as the creature no longer counts as either alive or dead. If discern location targets the creature holding the macguffin, it fizzles as that's no longer a valid target for a spell looking for a creature. If they look for an object instead, they can't ask for the macguffin directly because it doesn't exist while turned to stone. If they ask for a statue of the creature that last had the object, then they have to know what sort of statue to ask for. You can complicate matters by turning the statue into a creature with animate object and/or polymorph any object, in which case asking for the location of an object fizzles. Then start in with the nested smoky confinement/ice assassin shenanigans.

[Doc_Maynot]

What if you animate the statue and then make a simulacrum of the animated object?

[Emperor Tippy]

You know at some point these kind of questions seem like they are better done as just sending Tippy a PM asking him how to do it. Because his methods always seem pretty close to a last word on them.

Please don't. There are very few people who will get a response from me consistently if they PM me. Short of something that I find truly interesting, I don't tend to respond (especially not if it takes me more than about two seconds to type up the response).

[Jowgen]

Thank you, dear Emperor, for gracing my thread with thy presence. Your expertise is most appreciated. :smallsmile:

Two questions.

1) I was under the impression that the "If an effect is suppressed or dispelled, the stored item appears instantly" line meant that dispelling the glove would cause the shrunk item to disappear. How does this not apply?

2) If the McGuffin in question turns out to be something above the 20 lb limit, does not meet the "held in hand" qualifier, or is for some reason impervious to transmutation; how would one adapt your process? Simply skip to Hoard gullet?


Please don't. There are very few people who will get a response from me consistently if they PM me. Short of something that I find truly interesting, I don't tend to respond (especially not if it takes me more than about two seconds to type up the response).

I take it you don't do Afro-style Tippyverse Q&A threads for the same reason?

[Emperor Tippy]

Thank you, dear Emperor, for gracing my thread with thy presence. Your expertise is most appreciated. :smallsmile:

Two questions.

1) I was under the impression that the "If an effect is suppressed or dispelled, the stored item appears instantly" line meant that dispelling the glove would cause the shrunk item to disappear. How does this not apply?
You use Dispel/Shrink Item before you store the artifact. But you would be correct in that I forgot about that bit, which removes much of the security advantages of that particular bit.


2) If the McGuffin in question turns out to be something above the 20 lb limit, does not meet the "held in hand" qualifier, or is for some reason impervious to transmutation; how would one adapt your process? Simply skip to Hoard gullet?
Place in Enveloping Pit, store Enveloping Pit inside the Glove.


I take it you don't do Afro-style Tippyverse Q&A threads for the same reason?
At least in large part, yes.

[Extra Anchovies]

1. Cast Flesh to Stone on the nice old man who lives next door.
2. Cast Animate Objects on the statue of the nice old man who lives next door.
3. Cast Permanency to make the Animate Objects effect permanent.
4. Create a Simulacrum of the animated statue of the nice old man who lives next door.
5. Dispel the Animate Objects effect.
6. Move the statue of the nice old man who lives next door to some other location, and cast Stone to Flesh on it.
You now have a creature whose existence only you know about.
7. Dig a pit as deep as you like, and go to the bottom along with the Simulacrum and MacGuffin.
8. Cast Imbue With Spell Ability to grant the Simulacrum the ability to cast Hoard Gullet.
9. Give the Simulacrum the MacGuffin, and command it to cast Hoard Gullet and store the MacGuffin within.
10. Cast Imprisonment on the Simulacrum.
11. Leave the pit and fill it in.

The advantage of this plan is that it's easy for you to recall where the Simulacrum was Imprisoned (you've seen the creature, so just cast Discern Location), and easy for you to recover the MacGuffin (go to the spot, dig the pit, cast Freedom). For anyone else to get it, there's a few obstacles.
1. It is in the hoard gullet of an Imprisoned creature. Recovering the MacGuffin requires casting Freedom at the spot where it was imprisoned. This spot is deep underground.
2. The Imprisoned creature is the Simulacrum of an Animated Object of a statue of the nice old man who lives next door. Nobody other than you has any reason to suspect or even consider the possibility that such a creature ever existed.
Another character would need to a) know not only that a Simulacrum [Animated Object [Nice Old Man]]] has existed, but that the specific Simulacrum [Animated Object [Nice Old Man]]] which you imprisoned has existed, b) use Wish or Miracle to find where it is entombed, c) travel to the spot on the surface directly above that location, d) guess the exact depth of the pit you dug, e) dig a pit of exactly identical depth, and f) cast Freedom.

Edit: Freedom requires knowing the creature's name and background, so just knowing that the Simulacrum [Animated Object [Nice Old Man]]] is imprisoned at location X still wouldn't be enough to free it - I think that makes this all but infallible, even if you skip Hoard Gullet and just have the Simulacrum [Animated Object [Nice Old Man]]] hold the MacGuffin.

[Jowgen]

It has occured to me now that Hoard Gullet specifically mentions that it "otherwise functions as a bag of holding", i.e. creates an extradimensional space; and extradimensional spaces are specifically called out as qualifying as demiplanes in several RAW texts.

This strikes me as a potential weakness, as a lot of the suggested defenses could be circumvented if someone found a way to track down and access that specific Hoard Gullet spell's demiplane directly. The insides of Enveloping pits and such can be protected from such intrusion by Forbiddance (and I'm not aware of any means to circumvent that), but the extradimensional space created by Hoardgullet is a different matter.

I suppose one could swallow a temporarily suppressed Weirdstone, but then, as soon as it came back online, the Hoardgullet would be effectively shut from the inside.

[Telok]

Oddly enough this sort of thing has come up no less than three times in my group's history. Although given that the original four of us have been gaming for 15 years or so maybe that's not so odd.

1) Make nice with a Force Dragon and give him an item of Hoard Gullet if he can't cast it himself. Bonus points if it's already a demi-god.

2) This one's lower level. Take a large iron cauldron, fill it about 1/3 full of molten lead and let it cool. Cast Resist Energy (Fire) on the item, if the DM is picky cast the spell on a rat and tie the thing to the rat. Place the item in the pot an fill it the rest of the way with more molten lead. Shrink it for easy transportation. Bury it. We were about 5th level and put the thing in the city walls but a better choice is under a treant druid or in the library of a nearby archmage.

3) Oddly easy but definitely not fool-proof. An adamantine box with a permanent antimagic field inside. Cover it with quintessence. In the saddle bags of a paladin's mount. Of course then the paladin has to never summon the mount again. Some people may opt to kill the paladin and destroy his soul.

[daremetoidareyo]

Just destroy the artifact. It is pure danger. If you can do whatever is necessary to destroy it, you can just as easily find another way to deal with your nuclear threat.

[Name1]

The insides of Enveloping pits and such can be protected from such intrusion by Forbiddance (and I'm not aware of any means to circumvent that), but the extradimensional space created by Hoardgullet is a different matter.

Technically Wish can circumvent Forbiddance, since the transportation-function of wish is no teleportation effect, as cheesy as it is.

[Segev]

1) Use the best divination magics you can get your hands on for this purpose to determine when the earliest you will need the doomsday artifact is.

2) Use manifester-level-enhancing shenanigans to create an item or just enhance a Nomad (psion discipline specialist in psychoportation) to cast time hop on the artifact with a duration equal to that length of time.


Due to time hop's unique property of making the target simply not exist for its duration, there is nothing to dispel to bring it back early. It simply doesn't exist until the earliest possible point you could need it. Repeat until you want to reclaim it.

[weckar]

In a screw the rules sort of way I'd research a spell to store it in my own mind.

[Name1]

In a screw the rules sort of way I'd research a spell to store it in my own mind.

Dream Walk already does that I think...

[Jowgen]

Technically Wish can circumvent Forbiddance, since the transportation-function of wish is no teleportation effect, as cheesy as it is.

Indeed, the "lift from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions" wording is rather all inclusive.

Well, this sort of unforseen circumvention is why, for the security base line example, I used a locked bunker with Voidstone and Anti-Magic. You can, e.g., wish yourself in; but good luck getting out without access to magic and without failing the save against the Voidstone

[Name1]

Indeed, the "lift from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions" wording is rather all inclusive.

Well, this sort of unforseen circumvention is why, for the security base line example, I used a locked bunker with Voidstone and Anti-Magic. You can, e.g., wish yourself in; but good luck getting out without access to magic and without failing the save against the Voidstone

I think a Cleric/Archivist Initiate of Mystra should be able to cast Archivist spells inside an AMF, which can be wish if he added it to his spellbook via a scroll of wish made by a cleric with an Envy-Domain drought. If he is wished inside, he could ready an action to cast Surge of Fortune when he arrives and expend it as an immediate action to automatically succeed on his save against Voidstone.

[Segev]

Even wish can't transport something that currently doesn't exist. So time hop remains effective against it.

[Name1]

Even wish can't transport something that currently doesn't exist. So time hop remains effective against it.

...That makes me wonder: What happens if you cast Time Hop on the Astral Plane?... I wanna do that now.

[Segev]

...That makes me wonder: What happens if you cast Time Hop on the Astral Plane?... I wanna do that now.

What happens if you cast any spell (or manifest any power) with a duration on the Astral Plane?

[Name1]

What happens if you cast any spell (or manifest any power) with a duration on the Astral Plane?

It's permanent until dispelled... On second thought, maybe I'll push doing that back for later...

[Nettlekid]

My addition would be, once you've taken all your other precautions and locked up the MacGuffin as tight as you can, give it to Neth, the Plane that Lives from the Manual of the Planes. Neth doesn't have stats and being a plane rather than a creature cannot be targeted by death effects. It would make an excellent guard, and could probably be convinced to do so just by telling it stories.


It's permanent until dispelled... On second thought, maybe I'll push doing that back for later...

Not to derail the thread topic, but this makes me wonder - what happens if you're native to the Astral Plane and cast Planar Bubble? Would the duration of the spell never elapse? Move over Persistent Spell, that would be the king of extending buffs.

Casting Time Hop while on the Astral Plane is probably the easiest way to get to the Far Realm, since it'll only wear off when time ends.

[Name1]

Not to derail the thread topic, but this makes me wonder - what happens if you're native to the Astral Plane and cast Planar Bubble? Would the duration of the spell never elapse? Move over Persistent Spell, that would be the king of extending buffs.


I'm pretty sure that's what it actually does. Of course, this also applies to all negative effects...

[Telok]

Y'know... There's a reason I don't have the astral plane as published in my settings. It's because people like you and me exist.

[Jowgen]

I think a Cleric/Archivist Initiate of Mystra should be able to cast Archivist spells inside an AMF, which can be wish if he added it to his spellbook via a scroll of wish made by a cleric with an Envy-Domain drought. If he is wished inside, he could ready an action to cast Surge of Fortune when he arrives and expend it as an immediate action to automatically succeed on his save against Voidstone.

The Voidstone triggers the save repeatedly, but you are right. AMF-ing the voidstone deathbox isn't enough. Perhaps there is some kind of mundane hazzard(s) that could be added that would trigger high Concentration checks or otherwise impede casting further?


Neth, the Plane that Lives

I personally wouldn't trust it, but its an option.

[Jormengand]

Even wish can't transport something that currently doesn't exist. So time hop remains effective against it.

Quintessence might also be useful to pull the item out of the time stream.

[Segev]

Quintessence might also be useful to pull the item out of the time stream.

More questionable, since you can point to a definite spot the item is, rather than merely where it last was and probably will be again. Moreover, you can physically reach into quintessence to pull the item out, wiping it clean. So if your fingers can do that, I'd assume a wish could, as well.

With time hop, it's not frozen outside the time stream; it's literally skipped all the time between the moments of its existence. Just like with teleport, you haven't moved very very fast from point A to point B; you've literally just stopped existing at point A and started existing at point B. (Okay, this is a weaker example in D&D where they use the Astral Plane as a transport medium, but I hope you at least get the idea.)

[arrowed]

This question seems quite similar to the Gate Conundrum in OOTS: there was a thread called 'well how would you defend the gates?' a while back which produced a lot of ideas. Ultimately, the fact that the person securing the item needs access to it prevents any perfect security I think. If you leave a you-shaped gap in your defences, there will probably be some shapechanging shenanigan that can get a hostile through it too.
But for maximum realistic security? There is no kill like overkill. Put yon artefact in a vault of solid adamantine in an antimagic field built into one of ten identical epic-level construct guardians, all hidden at the centre of a deathtrap dungeon of a demiplane with Forbiddance across the entire expanse and plenty of traps designed to blast Wish-wielding interlopers to ash. But do remember to leave a safe route in for you when you need the item.
Back on your home plane, set up an organisation (read: Sapphire Guard) to purge the world of knowledge of the artefact, or do it yourself. Make sure none of those members has sufficient knowledge to locate the artefact themselves, and make some decoy demiplanes just in case.
And then throw half a dozen other ideas for protecting the artefact in. It kind of depends on power level, since deities can pretty much steamroll any mortal defences and an epic spellcaster can brew up an epic spell to overcome any nonepic defence spells, and a 20th level spellcaster can overcome most if not all nonmagical methods of protecting the artefact. So if you're trying to hide the item from a god and you are not one yourself, this is pretty much an exercise in futility. I think the methods described above would all be effective against 99.99999% of beings in d&d, though.

[Nettlekid]

Hmm, that whole Astral Plane Time Hop thing seems like it's a pretty good bet, if it can be fiddled with somehow. Imagine getting some perfect servant, probably an Ice Assassin of an Ice Assassin of yourself or something of that nature. You manifest Forced Dream on the servant, give them the MacGuffin, and then use Time Hop on them while on the Astral Plane. They'll only ever reappear at the end of all time, when the Astral Plane ceases to exist. If you never need the MacGuffin again, then it's taken care of, it'll never reappear. If you do need it again, then you go to the Astral Plane and manifest Time Hop and you'll reappear next to your servant holding the MacGuffin, at which point you tell them the circumstances that led to you needing the MacGuffin (perhaps using Twinned Synchronicities or Arcane Fusion: Sanctum Spell Arcane Fusion + Celerity for extra time if you need to get all that talking in before their one turn is over) and command them to activate Forced Dream. They'll reappear back at the point before you sent them to the end of time, and can tell you why you needed to retrieve the MacGuffin. Then the only problem is keeping it safe between then and the time you need it, but at least you have more information.

I think "the end of time" is a pretty darn good hiding place.

But rewinding a little, is there anything that can explicitly thwart Wish transporting someone somewhere? I'd like to think that the OP's suggestion of a vault of Voidstone should be pretty much impenetrable to anyone apart from someone casting Wish. If you placed a Weirdstone inside a vault of Voidstone then nothing external could penetrate the Voidstone and no Conjuration effect could take you into the vault. The Weirdstone would even block a trick using Remote Viewing and Retrieve to snatch it. Because the Weirdstone blocks even Su, Psionic powers, and SLAs which imitate Conjuration effects, you could argue that an SLA of Wish can't get through because that's an SLA which imitates the teleportation effect. But the wording does leave it open for actual spells of non-Cojuration teleportation effects. That's pretty much just Master Earth (blocked by the Voidstone) or Wish. Can anything outright stop Wish?

[Jowgen]

Ultimately, the fact that the person securing the item needs access to it prevents any perfect security I think. If you leave a you-shaped gap in your defences, there will probably be some shapechanging shenanigan that can get a hostile through it too.

I see it as a passcode vs decoding type deal. To each protective measure, there are one or more counter-measures. You line up a series of measures that require very specific counters, and then the other side has to "digit by digit" figure out what counter to employ in combination.


It kind of depends on power level, since deities can pretty much steamroll any mortal defences and an epic spellcaster can brew up an epic spell to overcome any nonepic defence spells, and a 20th level spellcaster can overcome most if not all nonmagical methods of protecting the artefact. So if you're trying to hide the item from a god and you are not one yourself, this is pretty much an exercise in futility. I think the methods described above would all be effective against 99.99999% of beings in d&d, though.

Level 20 spellcasting is the name of the game. Epic Spellcasting makes everything moot (especially notions of game balance), so I don't think it ought to be included in such deliberations.

Now Deities I think one might be able to find a means to handle. There are several things that they flat out can't or won't do, and one of them is bound to be useful here. From the top of my head, they can't use their powers sufficiently close to the Spire of Sigil, can't overcome the anathemic secrecy power of Elder Evils, can't mess with the Soul fonts on the PEP, have no influence on the far realm, and -if in play- can't do anything in/about the space between Crystal Spheres.

Anybody happen to know some others?