Really Mythic Items

[Catullus64]

As I may have mentioned by-the-by in another thread, I'm currently running a campaign set in a fantastical version of medieval Ireland. It's going well about five sessions in, and we're nearing completion of the first extended quest, so I figured it's time to start thinking about future quests that I could make for the PCs as they level up. I've had two ideas, one revolving around obtaining the Sword of Light (Claiomh Solais), and the other around trying to find and catch the Salmon of Knowledge. One is a sword that kills anyone it strikes; the other is a fish where eating it grants you all the knowledge in the world.

I'm toying around with the idea of having these things function exactly as they do in the myths. No messing around with bonuses, spells, special features or anything fancy. Composers of myths didn't have to worry about a balanced game.

Sword of Light
Magic weapon (sword), legendary, requires attunement
When you hit a creature with an attack from this magic sword, that creature is immediately slain.

Salmon of Knowledge
Wondrous item, legendary.
You must cook this fish over a fire for 10 minutes before it can be eatern. When a creature uses an action to eat the cooked flesh of this fish, it obtains all knowledge in the world.

How would you, as a DM, make an interesting story for your players once they've obtained one of these items, or a similar item from myth which is obviously game-breaking?

[Dark.Revenant]

In the upper half of the hit point pool, a hit isn't really a "hit", per se. I'd stat the Sword of Light similarly to a Vorpal Sword, except that if the creature has fewer than half their hit points, they are immediately slain. This would be in addition to the critical hit slaying. A legendary creature must burn a legendary resistance to avoid dying outright from this; otherwise, RIP.

I'd give the consumer of the Salmon of Knowledge a permanent +4 increase to Intelligence and Wisdom (to a maximum of 30); proficiency in all skills, tools, weapons, armor, and saving throws; the ability to add one's proficiency bonus to all ability checks and other d20 rolls; you know every spell and can cast them if you are of the appropriate level to cast a particular spell in your class; and the ability to recall any knowledge—either in a creature's head or written down—so long as the knowledge existed on the current planet and plane of existence at the time that the salmon was consumed. No check is required for most Arcana/History/Nature/Religion checks, as a result.

Note: These stats are meant to try to represent what these items do in the myths in a tangible way, not balance them out.

These are powerful items, but ultimately they're only personal power. You can't slay an entire army with the Sword of Light—it doesn't protect you from being slain, just makes you more effective at killing. Similarly, simply being knowledgeable doesn't give you the experience necessary to truly excel in a particular thing. I would make the players who acquired these items go on further journeys to test their mettle and acquire more traditional forms of power to supplement their items: armies, rulership, etc.

[Kane0]

Kills anyone it strikes - Hitting a creature that isnt a plant, ooze, construct or undead automatically causes them to fail a death saving throw, or two on a crit (three failures and you're dead regardless if what your HP is)

All the knowledge in the world - sets Int to 20 and Wis to 30, plus add half your proficiency bonus to all ability checks (stacks with proficiency but not expertise)

[Skrum]

The Sword of Light is the far less troublesome of the two. I would probably give the player some time to do crazy stuff, but have word of their deeds spread and attract the wrong kind of attention. Maybe introduce a Joker-like villain that comes to challenge the PC just cause they can, in a "it is my destiny to destroy you" type of thing. This villain should obviously be extremely cunning; luring the PC's into traps and ambushes, taking hostages, blackmail, the whole nine yards. Avoid a straight-up fight, for obvious reasons. Probably make them a caster so they can AoE lots of stuff and cause tons of collateral damage. Make them really despicable (within player tastes of course). Try to make the character regret ever getting the sword at all, just because now they have this nightmare coming after them.

The Salmon is extremely troublesome in that it's extremely vague. Read narrowly, a PC might just auto-succeed at all knowledge checks. Though even this presents problems - do they instantly know every life detail of every NPC they meet? Read more broadly, they could plausibly cast every spell in the game. I'm basically at a loss as to what to do with that, unless you want to jump into god-level campaigns.

So, my advice for the Salmon is decide what it's going to do, mechanically speaking, and go from there. Maybe the salmon is kind of cursed? Like the PC will gain knowledge of things, but be unable to act on their knowledge in a satisfactory way? Idk. That sounds hard to do and potentially frustrating for the players.

[Unoriginal]

How would you, as a DM, make an interesting story for your players once they've obtained one of these items, or a similar item from myth which is obviously game-breaking?

What did the people in the myths do, after they got the sword or ate the salmon?

That would probably be good inspiration for mythical adventures and challenges.

[Grod_The_Giant]

What did the people in the myths do, after they got the sword or ate the salmon?

That would probably be good inspiration for mythical adventures and challenges.
This is probably the best question.

The most common theme I can think of for mythical items like this is hubris--the power of the item inevitably leads to the protagonist's downfall. That's a hard thing to do in RPGs, and impossible to do well without the player's enthusiastic consent. Or better yet, the entire group's enthusiastic consent; you shouldn't hugely empower one player without making sure that everyone is okay with that sort of narrative. I've certainly had groups that I would trust to enjoy a campaign like that, but I've also had plenty that would get ripped apart by resentment and hurt feelings.

Probably your best bet for including mythological god-items like these is to tie them in to the campaign's finale. "The dragon-king is so powerful only the Sword of Light can slay him," or "the Salmon of Knowledge is the only way to discover the demon lord's true name." The players get the relic at full power, have a session or three to enjoy its power, and then the game is over.

[Rynjin]

The Sword of Light is the far less troublesome of the two. I would probably give the player some time to do crazy stuff, but have word of their deeds spread and attract the wrong kind of attention. Maybe introduce a Joker-like villain that comes to challenge the PC just cause they can, in a "it is my destiny to destroy you" type of thing. This villain should obviously be extremely cunning; luring the PC's into traps and ambushes, taking hostages, blackmail, the whole nine yards.

"Nyeh he he, Man-He, your sword is entirely worthless here, I've-" *gets beaned in the head by thrown sword, dies instantly*

[da newt]

Sword: Once word gets out, everyone wants to take it from you, and you learn that the sword doesn't do anything to the undead and anything that isn't alive. OR if you roll at nat 1 on an attack with the Sword of Light, you fumble and cut yourself, dying instantly.

Fish: Once you know all, you realize how pointless everything is and become inconsolably depressed. Nothing is new or interesting. Everyone you deal with is infuriatingly stupid. Life looses all meaning and you yearn for your former ignorant happy life.

[dafrca]

As I may have mentioned by-the-by in another thread, I'm currently running a campaign set in a fantastical version of medieval Ireland. It's going well about five sessions in, and we're nearing completion of the first extended quest, so I figured it's time to start thinking about future quests that I could make for the PCs as they level up. I've had two ideas, one revolving around obtaining the Sword of Light (Claiomh Solais), and the other around trying to find and catch the Salmon of Knowledge. One is a sword that kills anyone it strikes; the other is a fish where eating it grants you all the knowledge in the world.

Given the players I have right now, I would not give these to the party, ever. First it woudl cause friction like little kids. "Why did he get the on hit sword and i didn't?" and second to have to deal with the amount of crazy chaos that woudl come from them knowing everything.

I am sure out there are lots of players who could make it fun to have such uber-power items. Just not in my groups. :smallsmile:

[MrCharlie]

The sword is simple, everyone now wants it from you and you are the target of assassins and rogues from across the lands. Wizards attempt to ambush you and paralyze you to prevent you from using it, knaves attempt to poison you, and in general the sword proves antithetical to the adventuring lifestyle. Sure, it's epically powerful, but it's too powerful. Better instead to go offer it to some King for a position in his court, or use it to carve out your own kingdom as a symbol of royal power-where it can be guarded and used as needed.

(Let the players figure out what to do with it on their own of course, that's simply where I'd take it as a player-Don't assume reason from them)

The salmon is more difficult. If it works to give them all knowledge ever, and it can be shared amongst multiple people, then all challenge should vanish as they basically know everything, at least in a typical fantasy world. Unless you want to go some "You know too much and are sad!" route (which I detest), the characters should be able to basically do anything. After all, knowing how to use knowledge is also knowledge. It's basically omniscience. At that point, the character can Rube-Goldberg reality to their whims-it's more of a question of what they want then how it happens. This is a campaign send-off item.

On the other hand, look up the concept of cognitohazards. If one or more of these are present in your world, you can settup some situation where the character must immediately make a wisdom save on eating the fish, and their result determines how their new omniscience reacts. Outside of a 20, they lose some portion of this knowledge as they lock away broad swaths of the knowledge of the world away to protect their minds from the hazardous information. If the fail by enough, they then know that they failed to protect themselves, instead merely slowing the spread-and that they need to find and destroy the hazard entirely to avoid having their mind shatter within weeks once the knowledge spreads past their barriers.

[Catullus64]

On the other hand, look up the concept of cognitohazards. If one or more of these are present in your world, you can settup some situation where the character must immediately make a wisdom save on eating the fish, and their result determines how their new omniscience reacts. Outside of a 20, they lose some portion of this knowledge as they lock away broad swaths of the knowledge of the world away to protect their minds from the hazardous information. If the fail by enough, they then know that they failed to protect themselves, instead merely slowing the spread-and that they need to find and destroy the hazard entirely to avoid having their mind shatter within weeks once the knowledge spreads past their barriers.

I was toying around with this idea; the fish's knowledge is overwhelming. Not only do the players need to share it amongst themselves in order for their minds to survive the strain, but they even need to go on shared dream-quests to unravel the meaning of the knowledge, which their minds instinctively couch in riddles and symbols.

[Yakk]

We can back up to the actual myths.

The sword of light didn't auto-kill everything. In fact, for many foes, they have to find the creature's soul to kill it.

The fish didn't give the eater access to all knowledge; only when they say the rhyme and suck their thumb. (All knowledge was put into their thumb, not their brain).

Both Myths and D&D want interesting stories.

[Catullus64]

We can back up to the actual myths.

The sword of light didn't auto-kill everything. In fact, for many foes, they have to find the creature's soul to kill it.

The fish didn't give the eater access to all knowledge; only when they say the rhyme and suck their thumb. (All knowledge was put into their thumb, not their brain).

Both Myths and D&D want interesting stories.

I'm familiar with the latter variation about the fish and Fionn Mac Cumhaill's thumb, but not the former part about needing to find a creature's soul. If you'd care to expand on the particular story in question, I'd be keen to hear it.