Help designing magical time mcguffins

[KyleG]

I have 3 items I am wanting to get the party to collect, each with a "time" theme. I'd like each to be having an effect on the environment, people nearby.

The first is shaped like the flux capacitor from Back to the future. It is the symbol for a monastery of monks who have all gone mad/feral for some reason.

The other two are a time turner/pocket watch (harry potter) and a blue box (doctor who) - unless someone has better suggestions.

The two locations for those items is 'the boneyard' a crypt of sorts where a demon is trying to access one item for some reason?And a pirate cove/township where the localised affect has a pirate lord (and his cohorts near him?) have been using the power of the item to maintain power.
Only the locations "boneyard and demon" and "town and pirate lord" are locked in with maps.

Would love some ideas to finish these off.

Thanks in advance.

Summary request:
1. Magic item and local affect ideas needed
2. Dont want item to affect players in same way. (Eg. They dont go mad, get a big power hike.

[John Out West]

Could have the time-turner have a groundhog day thing going on. Maybe while a cult was summoning a demon, a wizard used the time-turner to lock everyone in a small hamlet in an endless loop that is localized just to that area. Every day the demon is summoned but it reverts at midnight, and the players are unable to leave the local area until they stop the demon from being summoned. (Or kill the demon after being summoned) I would assume that only the players remember the loop, since they were outside of it when it started.

For time-turner abilities: As part of their action at the start of a turn, the user can activate the Time Turner. At the start of their next turn, time reverses just for them to the start of their previous turn. This reverses all non-magical damage, healing, and status effects, but not curses or magic damage. I imagine this ability would require at least a level 1 spell slot to activate.
You could potentially use this to activate a trap-switch which would normally be suicide, and you would revert back to your normal self at the end of the turn. You could also use it while tanking.

For the Tardis, maybe it works like a time-space Bag of Holding. The item is a wand that allows items to borrow unused space from other time periods, allowing it to have almost infinite space inside. (more space for older items or items that will exist for a long time) When cast on an object that can hold things, such as a bag, boat or house, the inside can double in size multiple times, while remaining the same size on the outside.
The pirates use it on their ship, who store the time from the winter months, allowing them to have twice the crew inside during their raiding season. (As you can imagine, its pretty hard to fight off a boarding party when the enemy has twice the crew) They also use it on their vaults to store their treasure hoard. The pirate lord is respected among the people in the town. The players sneak onto their ship, or are captured during a raid, and must navigate the huge insides of this vessel.

For the Tardis Wand abilities: As an action, the wand can double the holding space of an object or building. This requires a spell slot, and can be cast multiple times on a single item. The space inside of the object returns to normal 24 hours later, unless the wand is used again on it. (This can either maintain it, or double the space AND maintain it)
Players can use this to create bags of holding, infinite water jugs, increase the size of an indoor battlefield, etc.

I hope that helps!

[Draconi Redfir]

i just watched a movie on netflix called "Time Trap" that could be an inspiration. a group of people looking for someone find themselves stuck in a cave that has a much slower time then the outside world, every second in the cave is like, a year for everyone else.

while perhaps not that extreme, maybe one of the remaining objects has something similar going on. Maybe the pirates cove uses this area of slowed time as a prison, throwing someone in there to humanely make sure they will never be seen again. Or perhaps the affected area is a bit faster then the rest of the world, letting the pirates quickly replenish their numbers by just supporting live-in families inside a faster-time bubble that send out their children when they come of age to join the pirate lord's crew.

[KyleG]

John Out West - Wow that's some imaginative ideas. I may have not been exactly clear on the effect of the "artifacts". I want the effect to be something that is "on" and affecting the environment. The tardis box is going to be fantastic, thank you so much. The pirate ship a veritable labyrinth but should the item be taken with the players it will make the streets longer and the journey itself longer. It may also randomly give those in the vicinity a second action (haste). But the key is that it is not subject to a characters whims.

The groundhog day effect was also just cleared (a fourth part of the magic -sands of time). Maybe I need another pop culture item for the demon to be trying to get to. Heck even something that just relates to time, the hands of a clock or something. Its not like my kids will even get the flux capacitor reference (personal nostalgia) let alone how it makes monks go feral.

[KyleG]

i just watched a movie on netflix called "Time Trap" that could be an inspiration. a group of people looking for someone find themselves stuck in a cave that has a much slower time then the outside world, every second in the cave is like, a year for everyone else.

while perhaps not that extreme, maybe one of the remaining objects has something similar going on. Maybe the pirates cove uses this area of slowed time as a prison, throwing someone in there to humanely make sure they will never be seen again. Or perhaps the affected area is a bit faster then the rest of the world, letting the pirates quickly replenish their numbers by just supporting live-in families inside a faster-time bubble that send out their children when they come of age to join the pirate lord's crew.

Hmmm, that gave me pause to think that perhaps the item the demon seeks is the "time stone" to be used as a weapon (maybe I'll give him a Thanos vibe). Maybe a random aging effect. Or add in some Harry potter, "only those who don't seek it for themselves can possess it without consequence".?????

That could work and that'll leave just finding a reason the monks went mad/feral.

Love the ideas they are inspiring. Please keep them coming.

[D&D_Fan]

There's a magic item in Prince of Persia called the Dagger of Time. It grants you the ability to see into the future. It opens the hourglass of time spilling the sands of time. the sands of time summons monsters. These could be legendary monsters from myth and ancient history. The dagger can be used to destroy other time artifacts.

[KyleG]

There's a magic item in Prince of Persia called the Dagger of Time. It grants you the ability to see into the future. It opens the hourglass of time spilling the sands of time. the sands of time summons monsters. These could be legendary monsters from myth and ancient history. The dagger can be used to destroy other time artifacts.

Whilst I don't want the players to get a useable affect from the item your suggestion made me think that maybe divination (seeing the future) might be able to be worked into the effect it is having. Hmmmm. I could have the demon wanting to usurp his superior somehow.

[Bohandas]

2. Dont want item to affect players in same way. (Eg. They dont go mad, get a big power hike.

Make the villain a member of an immortal race and make the artifact age the user several years every time it is used

[KyleG]

Make the villain a member of an immortal race and make the artifact age the user several years every time it is used

I was toying with the idea of a 1d4 years (odds up/evens down) for each turn/or step within the area. The artifact itself cannot be USED. It acts on the area and the villain (whatever it ends up being) wants access to it for some reason. Maybe they can control it, but certainly not the PCs. Or at least they are not able to direct its aura effect, maybe when holding it they get something minor but the artifacts are designed to be either destroyed/collected depending on what the players decide to do. The key is getting to them with the 4 level 5 characters, past creature obstacles and artifact effects.

[Draconi Redfir]

could be easy enough to give or have the players get some item or substance that counteracts the mcuffin's aura effects.

Say you have an orb that speeds up the aging of everything inside it's radius while their perception of time remains the same. So you could walk in there, perceive ten seconds passing, but your body ages ten years and what not. The Baddies have been using this orb to quickly grow children into dumb adult mooks or something, but your party has a sack that will cancel out this effect. so one player needs to walk in, suffer it's effects, and wrap up the orb in the sack. then everyone else can walk up too and touch the orb (through the sack) without issue.

after that you could say the orb-in-sack offers a bonus to like, acrobatics or something. and particularly creative players can open the sack a tiny bit to blast a plant with the aura at very short-range so the plant grows up super quickly.