"Broken" or "Useless" ancient artifacts?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

Running a short 2 shot and at the end the players encounter a treasure room in a tomb. As well as gold, gems, and some usable magic items, I want a few things that seem to have once had a purpose, or to be warded against use, or simply that people have no use for any more. Its an egyption (marru) style tomb. The players will be level 5. Its a 3.P game.

Things I have so far are:

A small brass lamp which, when rubbed, declares “You are not my master” in an ancient tongue.
An iron box, cold to the touch and webbed with frost, that is impossible to open
A threadbare carpet that hovers feebly 6" above the ground when not carrying a load
A glass jar seemingly caked with dust. Something appears to be swirling inside
A series of weapons, each carefully broken in half
A shell that whispers in a long dead language

[Knaight]

Components of a greater system can work well here - a magical charging stone with a carefully made depression in it for another object that no longer exists, a large amulet in six connecting pieces (of which five still exist), a full alchemists kit with incredibly well made equipment and stoppered vials of ancient reagents which evaporated a long time ago, so on and so forth.

[ericgrau]

Hi all,
An iron box, cold to the touch and webbed with frost, that is impossible to open

Careful, your players are going to spend about an hour of real life time trying to open it. :smallyuk: This is after they waste an identify spell on every useless item and get mad.


Paints that, when activated, write on the stone walls whatever is dictated to them. But only in your ancient language. If another item is talking while the paints are activated, it could write what they say. The writing is still in a language the players don't understand without magic or skill checks.
A giant hand fan that creates a gentle breeze when activated and mounted to a wall or stand. No need for a slave to flap it. The breeze is too slow to have any mechanical effect. It is a bit unwieldy to carry around and too large to fit in the opening of a bag of holding. You could stuff it in a portable hole though.
Floating hair tie: This foot long cord keeps elaborate ancient hairstyles safely off the ground while you sleep. Could also be tied around other light objects to make them hover 2 inches from the ground.
Camel figurine: This statuette fits in the palm of your hand but transforms into a real camel when activated. This one might actually be a semi-useful pack animal. Turns back into a figurine when killed or deactivated. If killed, it can't be activated again until next day. If figurine is smashed (HP 15, hardness 10), it is destroyed forever.
Feather tokens: pyramid (20 feathers). When one of these ibis feathers is activated, it summons a 1 foot tall solid stone pyramid weighing about 20 lbs. At this point the magic is expended: You can't unsummon it. It's just a non-magical piece of stone. An ibis feather is a white feather with a black tip.

[Efrate]

Just check out the githyanki crafting guild items in the normal sourcebook. There is a lot of more or less useless junk items, take one and slightly modify it so it's one niche use doesn't work.

[Jay R]

A ring, necklace or other jewelry that sparkles and shines when worn. It was developed, not for adventurers, but for rich nobles to wear as ornamentation.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

365 figurines of workers. Each takes your place one day of the year when you are called to work in the afterlife. Also for every 10 workers a foreman.

[Bucky]

A 'mining ray' sorts out pulverized rock into its component minerals. If the party finds some gold ore, they can use it (and a hammer) to extract a few dozen GP of gold dust. Otherwise, it's too troublesome to use without the other industrial tools meant to be used with it. Of course it has no significant effect on large chunks of rock, much less creatures etc.

[lbuttitta]

For some less powerful suggestions which are more in line with your suggestions, maybe:

A bottle containing a vapor-like fluid which sparkles with many colors
A book exhaustively detailing fauna and flora from a place which no longer exists, or is impossible to find
The pieces to an ancient, forgotten board game, which move along the board on their own
An rough copy of an entrancing melody, annotated in the margins with arcane notes
The silver holy symbol of a long-dead god

For effects that would be more powerful, except for some limiting factor:

A crystal ball which seems all-powerful, but in truth only deludes its wielder's mind with a powerful figment
A conch shell which gives vital clues about the future, hidden in riddles and doggerel
The near-dead essence of a mighty and ancient extraplanar entity, trapped within a gem