how to destroy an artifact of true cold?

[SangoProduction]

So. Most magic that reduces temperature just makes the area around it "feel" cold, rather than truly draining entropy from the world. This item does the opposite. It's causing localized havoc, and transforming the otherwise tropical area in to an arctic wasteland. Storms are kicked in to the atmosphere by the temperature difference. And if left going for long enough, it will cause the heal death of the universe.

How does one stop such an artifact? I'd prefer to avoid using a volcano, though it does seem somewhat appropriate. I am the DM, and am wanting to use this artifact. It's just that no way to destroy it was ever actually printed. So... Yeah. Probably going to need a way for the players to get rid of it.

[Cruiser1]

How does one stop such an artifact? I'd prefer to avoid using a volcano, though it does seem somewhat appropriate.
A volcano isn't hot enough to destroy this Universe threatening artifact of cold. The PC's have to throw it into the Sun to get rid of it.

To actually get the artifact into the Sun, they could cast "Greater Teleport Object" on it. That spell doesn't actually exist, although both Greater Teleport (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportGreater.htm) and Teleport Object (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportObject.htm) do, so perhaps the quest is to research the spell themselves, or find an epic scroll they can use on it? Or maybe they can use the transport travelers safe usage of Wish (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wish.htm) to teleport the object (animating it first since an inanimate object doesn't quality as a creature)?

[ATHATH]

And if left going for long enough, it will cause the heal death of the universe.
Oh. In that case, just chuck it into the Plane of Negative Energy or something.

Maybe have a really powerful dragon (or group of dragons) breathe fire on it?

[noob]

Actually if there is an artifact that somehow make energy disappear in nothingness throwing it into the sun is probably a bad idea.
Black holes would be a better idea since it would slow down considerably(due to the distortion of space time caused by the black hole) the artifact basically making it stop having effect.(ps: it works on other artifacts too unless they somehow pertain to the time or eats black holes or is a black hole or some other silly thing artifacts do)

[Gusmo]

What level range are you looking at? An epic spell is one possibility. If they're not going to reach epic levels, maybe some sort of ritual. In either case, make the prescribed method only usable at high noon on the day of the Summer solstice, perhaps at a specific location, which bad guys will then know to attack.

[noob]

Put the artifact in sigil.
dm vs itself. Who will explode first:its desire to have the lady of pain not be defeatable or its desire to keep the campaign going?

[flappeercraft]

Some ideas:
1. Sphere of annihilation
2. Throwing it into a Demiplane
3. Disjunction
4. Throwing it to the Far Realm via Plane shift/Gate
5. Have a deity destroy it
6. Voidstone
7. HP Damage

[Deophaun]

Destruction is accomplished via a +7 McGuffin of DM-fiat. But, its effects can be contained with enough quintessence.

[Goaty14]

Why hasn't anybody suggested breaking it in half!?

Barbarian: Raaagh!

Game: Over

EDIT: Ninja'd

[noob]

Why hasn't anybody suggested breaking it in half!?

Barbarian: Raaagh!

Game: Over

EDIT: Ninja'd

If I remember well lord of the rings it ended when a dwarf destroyed the one ring by hitting it with his axe.

[SangoProduction]

Oh. In that case, just chuck it into the Plane of Negative Energy or something.

hahahaha! My god. I'm leaving that in, because that's funny.

[Deophaun]

Essentially, your artifact is a hole in the universe. What if to stop it, the party had to enter it?

[Captn_Flounder]

If I remember well lord of the rings it ended when a dwarf destroyed the one ring by hitting it with his axe.

I remember that, too.

"If the axe don't work, get a bigger axe!" -old Dwarven expression

[Nifft]

So. Most magic that reduces temperature just makes the area around it "feel" cold, rather than truly draining entropy from the world. This item does the opposite. It's causing localized havoc, and transforming the otherwise tropical area in to an arctic wasteland. Storms are kicked in to the atmosphere by the temperature difference. And if left going for long enough, it will cause the heal death of the universe.

How does one stop such an artifact? I'd prefer to avoid using a volcano, though it does seem somewhat appropriate. I am the DM, and am wanting to use this artifact. It's just that no way to destroy it was ever actually printed. So... Yeah. Probably going to need a way for the players to get rid of it.

Throw it into the 9th layer of Hell -- let it be a cold day there.

Throw it into an unused layer of the Abyss. Infinite entropy, meet infinite energy (which is horrible energy and totally deserves to be extinguished).

Find the other half (the Prismatic Hand), and return both of them to Mechanus, where they can be used to reconstruct Primus (the One and the Prime) to his former glory.

Take a long walk through the Plane of Shadow and throw it into another universe, let someone else deal with the heal death.

[Calthropstu]

Plane shift it to the elemental plane of fire. Alternatively the quasi-elemental plane of cold, then cast fireball on it.

It must be carried by cold elementals into a pool of lava... willingly.
It must be breathed on by both a red and silver dragon simultaneously, both at least ancient or older.
It must be struck with a vorpal weapon that deals fire damage held by a fire giant.
It must be masturbated on by a balor.
Something along those lines.

[Telonius]

I'm guessing the artifact was powered by trapping an extraordinarily powerful Demon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon). But, the artifact isn't actually increasing entropy all on its own; it's having to drain power from another plane of existence to do so. If the party can cut off that power supply, it will render the artifact useless, sending the Demon's spirit to the Void as a Vestige.

[Honest Tiefling]

I feel like this might be one of the few times a sphere of annihilation would be very useful. I suggest making it so that the amulet stays put as long as someone is holding onto it...But will teleport back to the tropical area once someone lets go of it. Forcing the holder of the artifact of doom to have high magical resistance (since normal cold resistance wouldn't work) AND have to get a volunteer to hold it in the sphere to avoid it going back home.

[DarkSoul]

It has to be thrown into the core of the elemental plane of Fire, the hottest location known in the multiverse. Because no one can carry this thing for more than a few seconds (it actually reduces anything it touches to absolute zero, subatomic particles stop vibrating, etc., etc., physics), it will require a portal be opened below it so it can drop directly into the core.

Problems:

The Core is sealed against magical intrusion of any kind. To even get close to it, they have to travel there physically.
The guardians and denizens of the area around the Core don't like outsiders, so the party has to find a way to enter the Core.
Once inside the Core, they need to find a way to allow, or force, a portal to open and let the artifact fall in.
At your discretion, introducing so much cold into the Core does destroy the artifact, but it also puts out the Core. Oops. :nale:

[Zaq]

Fantasy universe. Think like a fairy tale. Fire and heat effects aren't going to cut it. The important part isn't just that it's cold. Don't just think of it as cold. Think of it as winter. Winter isn't "defeated" by warm clothes and fires. Those help you endure winter, but winter doesn't fundamentally care how many fires you light. Winter ends when it's overtaken by spring.

So you've gotta get together some kind of "spring" effect that's equivalent in power to this "winter" effect. Brainstorm on that for a while. Maybe there's some ritual kept by the fey (there's a lot of seasonal fluff for a lot of fey, after all), but for (inscrutably alien) political reasons, they can't/won't perform it unless the party convinces the Seelie and Unseelie Courts to work together on it, which is gonna take a wee bit more than a simple Diplomacy check. Or maybe you've gotta get some kind of ridiculous fertility/rebirth effect concentrated all at once on the artifact. Or building on that, maybe you've gotta gather seeds of a certain number of crazy and wild plants and plant-like things from far-flung planes, plant them close to the artifact, and use some kind of nigh-Epic Druid-style magic to make them grow and flourish despite this black hole of cold being nearby.

Whatever it is, it should be creative, and it should basically have a baked-in quest. Destroying an artifact that threatens the universe should be basically a campaign in and of itself, so if it can be summed up in one sentence, that sentence had better imply a hell of a lot of other tasks. (E.g., if the one-sentence description is "throw it into Mount Doom," that had better imply that we can't just Greater Teleport over to Mount Doom.)

[Doctor Despair]

Some ideas:
1. Sphere of annihilation
2. Throwing it into a Demiplane
3. Disjunction
4. Throwing it to the Far Realm via Plane shift/Gate
5. Have a deity destroy it
6. Voidstone
7. HP Damage

In regards to Disjunction, I believe they'd need to cast that ~100 times to succeed (might be tough if they're on a time limit) and then they'd have to face up to whatever deity or entity created it coming down to smite them. With that said, it is certainly the most reliable of all the methods.

[noob]

In regards to Disjunction, I believe they'd need to cast that ~100 times to succeed (might be tough if they're on a time limit) and then they'd have to face up to whatever deity or entity created it coming down to smite them. With that said, it is certainly the most reliable of all the methods.

By the time you can cast disjunction you are probably level 17 which means that you have 17% chance of destroying the artifact by by casting of disjunction.
Possibly get one random cl booster and you get 18% chance per casting(like grab that ioun stone or whatever) then you can prepare around 3 disjunctions per day so you get three attempts at 18% chance per day.
You are likely to have destroyed the artifact by the end of the week but if you are unlucky it might take more time.(The artifact have 1.55% chance of surviving a week of disjunction)
ps: have a fatespinner nearby or someone who can cast wish so that instead of having 5% chance of losing all spell-casting(at the destruction of the artifact) you have a lower probability of losing it.
You can even reduce the chance of spell-casting loss to 0 if you take the right luck feat(there is a luck feat that turns a natural 1 on a save in a natural 20)

[Captain Kablam]

I'VE GOT IT!

https://media.makeameme.org/created/lets-just-take-59e1e0.jpg

[noob]

I'VE GOT IT!

https://media.makeameme.org/created/lets-just-take-59e1e0.jpg

Works fine if you have an hulking hurler.
Putting the universe somewhere else is easier: the universe have no protection against being moved unlike artifacts.

[Hamste]

I would suggest cooling the artifact off. If it is draining that much energy that quickly then it probably needs it to continue to function. If you put it somewhere at absolute zero it can't take any heat and destroys itself as it eats its own energy.

[Dimers]

I would suggest cooling the artifact off. If it is draining that much energy that quickly then it probably needs it to continue to function. If you put it somewhere at absolute zero it can't take any heat and destroys itself as it eats its own energy.

That was my first thought, too. "Brown mold" writ large -- the solution should be to freeze it, not burn it.

Zaq's "spring" answer makes the best story, Nifft's Abyss solution has the bonus of just desserts*, and the black hole thing should work to the extent that physics does.

* Though inevitably some demon would then retrieve it and put it back in play.

[ngilop]

That was my first thought, too. "Brown mold" writ large -- the solution should be to freeze it, not burn it.

Zaq's "spring" answer makes the best story, Nifft's Abyss solution has the bonus of just desserts*, and the black hole thing should work to the extent that physics does.

* Though inevitably some demon would then retrieve it and put it back in play.

ugh... with the 'because science in the real world' answers in fantasy always annoys me. toss in real world rules of reality and said item just simply winks out of exhistance.


anyways I have 2 suggestions;

1) the fire tower that burns hotter that any fire in exhistance in the center of the plane of fire.

2) the flame that burns eternal in the demi-plane of ice.

[Bohandas]

So. Most magic that reduces temperature just makes the area around it "feel" cold, rather than truly draining entropy from the world. This item does the opposite. It's causing localized havoc, and transforming the otherwise tropical area in to an arctic wasteland. Storms are kicked in to the atmosphere by the temperature difference. And if left going for long enough, it will cause the heal death of the universe.

How does one stop such an artifact? I'd prefer to avoid using a volcano, though it does seem somewhat appropriate. I am the DM, and am wanting to use this artifact. It's just that no way to destroy it was ever actually printed. So... Yeah. Probably going to need a way for the players to get rid of it.

How about plunginging it into the heart of a red dragon or powerful efreet while on the element plane of fire?


Actually if there is an artifact that somehow make energy disappear in nothingness throwing it into the sun is probably a bad idea.
Black holes would be a better idea

Or a sphere of annihilation

[Flickerdart]

Why would you want to destroy it? All power plants operate on an energy gradient; build a generator around it and kickstars an industrial revolution with free energy.

[Nifft]

What if putting it on the Plane of Fire extinguishes the Platonic concept of Fire?

[Fire] spells: gone.

Fire Domain: no power, no spells.

Now you're in a universe where the sun provides warmth, but only because the Sun Domain is separate from the Fire Domain.


Maybe Hellfire is separate enough that it still burns.

Red Dragons all become Shadow Dragons or Hellfire Wyrms.

What bargains will a man make to get back a smidgen of warmth in winter?

[Bohandas]

ps: have a fatespinner nearby or someone who can cast wish so that instead of having 5% chance of losing all spell-casting(at the destruction of the artifact) you have a lower probability of losing it.

Or just make it into a scroll and have the rogue cast it

[Bohandas]

Why would you want to destroy it? All power plants operate on an energy gradient; build a generator around it and kickstars an industrial revolution with free energy.

And on the fantasy end it could be useful on a spelljamming vessel. You could actually keep your torches lit in pholgistonic space

[Buufreak]

Essentially, your artifact is a hole in the universe. What if to stop it, the party had to enter it?

Yea, the more I'm reading about this, the more it sounds like a self contained black hole.

Well, good news is that until it reaches a volume of the moon, it isn't going to be catastrophic enough to become a self sustained vacuum of doom. Bad news is, unless it reaches that size, it will blink out of existence within millionths of millionths of a second, because that's just how quickly these things work, and it will run out of resources in measurements incomprehensible to most humans.

That is, of course, your game gives a crap about actual real world physics.

[Chronikoce]

Don't try and use any answer that involves an idea based on physics because this item is complete nonsense physically (side note: entropy increases to cause heat death, not decreases. Maximum Entropy = heat death).

So pick a really cool story/quest. Maybe you've got to convince/defeat the deity that created it before you can dispose of it properly.

You could also make it a quest to obtain an artifact that does the reverse (reduces entropy to zero, I. E. The big bang) and have them cancel each other out. Maybe this requires gaining the favor of a greater deity, but you've got to solve his problems first.

[Thurbane]

Have it thrown into a furnace in the palace of the ruler of the City of Brass?

[Bohandas]

If an intelligent item, perhaps if it found true love

[rferries]

People joked about using the Positive Energy Plane, but I'll suggest it seriously. The Negative Energy Plane is the plane of entropy/destruction, so an artifact of entropy should be destroyed in the opposite plane (alternatively, a plane of Law, for the entropy = Chaos interpretation).

[Bohandas]

cold is lack of entropy.

[Westhart]

Hmm, Do you have any smith style gods? If so take it to their forge... or maybe an ascended dragon's fire?

[daremetoidareyo]

Actually if there is an artifact that somehow make energy disappear in nothingness throwing it into the sun is probably a bad idea.
Black holes would be a better idea since it would slow down considerably(due to the distortion of space time caused by the black hole) the artifact basically making it stop having effect.(ps: it works on other artifacts too unless they somehow pertain to the time or eats black holes or is a black hole or some other silly thing artifacts do)

What a black hole slow down and become a star?

[Calthropstu]

What a black hole slow down and become a star?

Yes, it would become a star and hang out with other stars in space hollywood and audition for parts in a galactic comedy.

[Westhart]

Yes, it would become a star and hang out with other stars in space hollywood and audition for parts in a galactic comedy.

Awesome, where do you find tickets for its first movie :P

[Chronikoce]

cold is lack of entropy.

This is misleading. The net entropy of the system increases by a large amount in order to cool a single item to very low temperature.

For example, to cool a crystal to extremely low temperatures (micro Kelvin) requires a massive expenditure of energy in a laboratory environment. That massive expenditure of energy is a huge increase in entropy in order to achieve the very low temperature and entropy in the crystal.

Anyway, physics and d&d don't mesh well together. I'd stick with it being an artifact of cold and don't try to bring any physics logic into the solution.

[Bohandas]

This is misleading. The net entropy of the system increases by a large amount in order to cool a single item to very low temperature.

For example, to cool a crystal to extremely low temperatures (micro Kelvin) requires a massive expenditure of energy in a laboratory environment. That massive expenditure of energy is a huge increase in entropy in order to achieve the very low temperature and entropy in the crystal.

That's a non-sequitur (or at best a tangent), the part that's actually cold lacks entropy

[ericgrau]

Center of the earth and/or heart of the plane of fire perhaps. Or special location in the plane of fire. The great forge in the city of Brass or some such. A flaming pit found in the 9th layer of hell. Etc. Besides center of the earth these are all made up btw.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Clearly you need an artifact of True Hot to cancel it out.

[Thurbane]

Clearly you need an artifact of True Hot to cancel it out.

Maybe the Vest of Fabio?

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/6e/bf/95/6ebf95d882366ea252ce33d799e84484--that-awkward-moment-awkward-moments.jpg

[OracleofWuffing]

Is the artifact feeding off the entropy being messed with in all this, or is it just straight-up obliterating it? I guess figuring out how the artifact works is easily part of a quest line hook, but if it doesn't cause the thing to get any stronger or faster, some doofy set up with a Decanter of Endless Water and a Sphere of Annihilation could at least keep the artifact busy with a constant source of "stuff" to work through before it hits the world at large- just epic-ify water for whatever suits the tone of the quest, lava, pyrotheum, blood of innocent orphans, whatever. And even if you do want it to feed off of what it drains, containment is at least an option for a brief quest while you get a more permanent solution.

I also kinda wanna move it to a plane of ice, because I mean, really, are they gonna complain about me turning that plane into an arctic wasteland? :smalltongue:

[arkangel111]

I say whatever you do make it a super epic adventure and then pull a m knight shyamalan, have it be stopped by holding it over a candle.

[Knaight]

cold is lack of entropy.
This is a terrible definition for a few reasons, which will be detailed below.


That's a non-sequitur (or at best a tangent), the part that's actually cold lacks entropy
It's also low enthalpy, low internal energy, low average molecular velocity*, generally low ionization, low high-energy electron orbital fraction, low volume, and otherwise displaying a whole host of traits different to a hotter object. If you're going to pick one of them as actually counting for the definition of cold it might as well be temperature - entropy might sound more scientific, but it's a vastly worse definition. Among other things, there's fun cases with mixtures where you can make higher temperature mixtures colder by that definition. Even more fun is phase change - a bunch of 90 C steam has way more entropy than a bunch of 100 C water, but it's still clearly colder and to suggest otherwise is flatly ridiculous.

*Different ways to average things have a tendency to wildly proliferate in more complex physics and chemistry, so there's a lot of these that are subtly different.

[Calthropstu]

Place it in a cube of force making sure the edges touch the artifact. No matter what the artifact does, it can't break the cube of force and since corners are always 90 degrees, the artifact will warm up.

[Nifft]

Place it in a cube of force making sure the edges touch the artifact. No matter what the artifact does, it can't break the cube of force and since corners are always 90 degrees, the artifact will warm up.

The artifact decides to cool down the corners anyway, and suddenly across the universe right angles become wrong angles.

[Svata]

Throw it into the 9th layer of Hell -- let it be a cold day there.

Nah. Chuck it in the 8th layer. Cold enough there they wouldn't even notice.

Carceri is also always an acceptable solution. NOTHING gets out of Carceri.

[Chronikoce]

That's a non-sequitur (or at best a tangent), the part that's actually cold lacks entropy

My point is ditch the word entropy for this artifact because it's being used in a completely non-sensical way. People like to use the word entropy because they think it sounds more scientific but it's pointless if it's just being used incorrectly.

The artifact isn't cold, it's cooling everything around it. This means it must be using an absolutely absurd amount of energy from somewhere else to achieve the cooling.

Now if you want to ditch science, call it entropy, and solve with cool story reasons, then go for it. But trying to use science to counter an artifact that doesn't function based on science doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Seto]

Throw it into the 9th layer of Hell -- let it be a cold day there.

What? No!!
Do you have any idea how much **** is supposed to happen at once "when Hell freezes over?"

[Dr_Dinosaur]

What? No!!
Do you have any idea how much **** is supposed to happen at once "when Hell freezes over?"
New BBEG idea. Self-proclaimed "agent of chaos" trying to freeze Hell in order to upend the laws of probability

[Knaight]

My point is ditch the word entropy for this artifact because it's being used in a completely non-sensical way. People like to use the word entropy because they think it sounds more scientific but it's pointless if it's just being used incorrectly.

Some of them cross beyond pointless and get into actively detracting from the work by being wrong (e.g. defining cold as a lack of entropy). This is generally true of thermodynamics - blather about "laws of thermodynamics" by people who don't understand them has a tendency to look much more exciting than equation representations of said laws (other than the third law, which is just establishing a standard zero point to make state functions easier to work with regardless of how one spins it).

*Because the sign conventions there actually make sense.