Ideas for dungeon artefact

[Leshy]

Ok, I need some help with this. And although my group still has few sessions before they get to it, I need some ideas about major artefact they could find in the dungeon, after they beat the boss, and that will not be of a much importance to them, but still very important for the kingdom and, of course, to drive the main plot after they leave the dungeon.

Thanks in advance.

[Yora]

That depends entirely of what the plot after the dungeon will be.

[Xeratos]

So, basically something that'll help a lot of people, but not be so useful to them individually? Like the Holy Macguffin of magical sandwich generation? Feed thousands, save Ethopia!

Or maybe an artifact that will avert some sort of natural disaster like a volcanic eruption or hurricane? Some sort of weather control artifact that allows for extremely good farming?

[Jormengand]

The shielding devices are always a good one. If one is placed on each of the six "Sides" of the planet (imagine it's a cube) they generate a force field which protects from, say, an imminent meteor strike.

[Knaight]

Some sort of sanitation device could work well, particularly if there are large cities involved. As a more complete example that can be simply dropped in a campaign:

The Cleansing Totem of Jin Wei
Appearance

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The Cleansing Totem of Jin Wei consists mostly of a terracotta statue of a young scholar, wearing neat and tidy clothing including a small square hat, carrying a scroll case and unwrapped scroll. Below this statue is a long stone spike, coming down from the base of the statue as a pentagonal pyramid, each side marked with a rune.

Background

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Jin Wei was originally the son of a minor merchant, but he excelled in all his studies and ended up with a much larger place in the world. A true polymath, he split his time between magic, architecture, city administration, sculpture, and military engineering. Late in his career he took an apprentice, Sun Biyu. She excelled even beyond Jin Wei, and the two of them built a city in the center of farm land with the most sophisticated running water system that had ever been devised, with everything from indoor plumbing to irrigation. Unfortunately, this water system was deliberately contaminated by enemies, causing a plague to break out in the city, killing many - including Sun Biyu. Jin Wei made the cleansing totem in her honor and carved it in her likeness, installing it in the center of the city to prevent another catastrophe like that from ever striking it.

Effect

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The Cleansing Totem of Jin Wei must be embedded in the ground to work. Once there, it cleans the air and water around it of all mundane diseases and toxins, in an area that starts as a one foot radius and grows by a foot every day, until it eventually protects everything within 10,000 feet.

To drop this in the campaign, say that there is a large capital, where sanitation is questionable, there are occasional plague breakouts, and some level of illness is simply common. There is a lot of potential in this city, with a number of very capable people, but many of them are particularly susceptible to illness - and insuring that they don't get ill and administer a city that doesn't either will be a great boon to the kingdom.

I'd also recommend seeing to it that the dungeon has very, very clean water supplies in it, which are specifically highlighted, and that anything released into the air (e.g. smoke) dissipates faster than normal and seemingly into nowhere. That should foreshadow the item some.

[Lapak]

Ok, I need some help with this. And although my group still has few sessions before they get to it, I need some ideas about major artefact they could find in the dungeon, after they beat the boss, and that will not be of a much importance to them, but still very important for the kingdom and, of course, to drive the main plot after they leave the dungeon.

Thanks in advance.

The first thing that leaps to mind is the Source Stone from Neverwinter Nights; without snagging that specifically the general theme of 'artifact that passively alters a hostile environment' works pretty well for this. Variations on the theme:

- prevents soil exhaustion regardless of farming
- wards off tornadoes in a region otherwise prone to them
- draws water up from the earth in an area that would otherwise be a desert
- reverses the airflow over the kingdom, either warding off a harmful effect (smoking volcanoes or poisonous air from undead-infested fens just over those mountains!) or encouraging a beneficial effect

Or you could go political with a Sword In the Stone / One True King-detector. The ruler is dying, without the artifact being retrieved (and then authenticated and then kept safe from theft or secret replacement) the country will descend into Civil War.

[Leshy]

That depends entirely of what the plot after the dungeon will be.

Well yeah. There is no plot yet. If I get a good idea for artefact I'll come up with a story for it.

The shielding devices are always a good one. If one is placed on each of the six "Sides" of the planet (imagine it's a cube) they generate a force field which protects from, say, an imminent meteor strike.

I was thinking about something less epic (it doesn't even have to be important for kingdom welfare, but it has to be important enough so the group has a motivation to obtain it, but still not important to them so that they don't get extra powerful), and if possible, something that doesn't have "parts" that have to be collected around the world as I have them already going back and forrth on the map to get access to the dungeon in the first place.

Think outside the box. It doesn't even have to be artefact, but "artefact". It doesn't have to be an item. Maybe huge maple leaf, or rabbit's leg, or dragon egg. Or mysterious liquid. Just anything that can drive the plot after the dungeon.

[The Rose Dragon]

There is a mountain, in the colder parts of the world. In tunnels beneath its surface, there is a city where men and mountain folk dwell. Their meals consist of mushrooms flavored with imported spices and game meat, their water comes from an underwater river that is painstakingly diverted throughout the city, their heating and light comes from crystals that respond to the caress of cloth for activation and deactivation. Few people ever leave the city. Fewer still enter to stay.

Yet the current inhabitants of the city are not the first. And in the depths of the tunnels still unexplored, there is something left behind by those who came before. It is an egg, carved of jade, the size of a man. On its surface, there are rows and rows of calligraphy in a forgotten script. Beneath it, there are mechanisms of clockwork that were never seen by mortals. The mechanisms, by themselves, do nothing but keep turning and whirling and ticking. Their song, however, radiates outwards into the surroundings, solidifying the fabric of the world so that it will not be torn open into the chaos.

Now, the mechanisms inside the egg are broken. This flaw introduced a subtle dissonance to the song, and while reality hasn't broken down around it, the tunnels are slowly filled with madness, the physical laws malfunction increasingly often, and monsters are stepping into the world from the lines between shadow and light, the moments between heartbeats and the spaces inside the river. The monsters need to be stopped, and the mechanisms need to be fixed before the dissolution spreads beyond the mountain.

There are two problems. One is that the egg is supposed to be impervious to the interference of mortals, and to last forever without needing maintenance of any sort. It is difficult to imagine what kind of power can introduce the flaw to the perfected workings of the egg. The other is that the egg can only stabilize a small patch in the weave of creation. While its effects cover a couple hundred kilometers outside the city, the song only travels so far before fading into silence. Either the reality of the mountain has been deliberately weakened that it needed the jade egg to protect it, or there is a network of such eggs spread over the world. If one egg can be sabotaged, who says the others are safe?

[Lapak]

Think outside the box. It doesn't even have to be artefact, but "artefact". It doesn't have to be an item. Maybe huge maple leaf, or rabbit's leg, or dragon egg. Or mysterious liquid. Just anything that can drive the plot after the dungeon.

Ah. Well, in that case, I roll back on my One True King detector and replace it with a Stone Of Scone. No magic involved or required, but the item is a key traditional element of the kingdom's coronation ceremony (or equivalent.) If you don't get crowned sitting on the stone / holding the sceptre / wearing the cloak of authority / under the gaze of the statue of the first king of the land / whatever, you're not really the king in most people's eyes.

The Thing of Authority either been stolen or the dungeon is its official resting place between kings. Once the party gets it, every contender for the top job is going to be interested in them.

[Deathkeeper]

-A book containing the last memoirs of a famous saint/ruler, whose final words and secrets could start (or end) a war.
-The body/ashes of an important figure that multiple groups have claimed for political/religious reasons.
-A very large but only somewhat valuable gemstone needed to feed a newborn dragon; its mother has a second life as a public figure and can't leave to do so.
- an item which protects a specific kind of creature from its inherited weakness, and is therefore fervently sought by that group (necklace of Protection from Sunlight/Silver/Cold Iron, etc) who are about to make a move on the unsuspecting country.
-The trapped soul of an important person that must be freed to be resurrected.

[Jay R]

Several ways to make it useless to the PCs:

1. It takes two months to operate.

2. It takes ten people to operate.

3. It can only be used when embedded in the altar carved into the mountain-citadel which is the capital of the kingdom.

4. It can only be used by the true king.

5. The person who uses it can never again use any other magic item.

6. It can only be used by somebody with an NPC class.

7. The true artifact is still safe in the castle. They are seeking the key without which it cannot work.

But I would make it something which has an effect which is useless for the player characters. Options include:

1. It preserves the health of the kingdom's people, or improves crop yield, or some such.

2. Once set in place and kept there for a month, it will protect a fortress from attack, but only as long as the owner stays there. (Useless for an adventurer who travels.)

3. It enables the user to see an entire battle, and give orders to all units directly.

4. It shows the biggest threat to that kingdom, and nothing else.

Hope this helps.

[JustSomeGuy]

What about a religious/historical 'artefact' of great cultural significance, but turns out it doesn't actually do anything when they find it, because it's just an old book/scrolls/crown/chalice/chest/stone tablet/codpiece.

[Leshy]

I got some ideas, thanks everyone for your suggestions.

[Rockphed]

There is a mountain, in the colder parts of the world. In tunnels beneath its surface, there is a city where men and mountain folk dwell. Their meals consist of mushrooms flavored with imported spices and game meat, their water comes from an underwater river that is painstakingly diverted throughout the city, their heating and light comes from crystals that respond to the caress of cloth for activation and deactivation. Few people ever leave the city. Fewer still enter to stay.

Yet the current inhabitants of the city are not the first. And in the depths of the tunnels still unexplored, there is something left behind by those who came before. It is an egg, carved of jade, the size of a man. On its surface, there are rows and rows of calligraphy in a forgotten script. Beneath it, there are mechanisms of clockwork that were never seen by mortals. The mechanisms, by themselves, do nothing but keep turning and whirling and ticking. Their song, however, radiates outwards into the surroundings, solidifying the fabric of the world so that it will not be torn open into the chaos.

Now, the mechanisms inside the egg are broken. This flaw introduced a subtle dissonance to the song, and while reality hasn't broken down around it, the tunnels are slowly filled with madness, the physical laws malfunction increasingly often, and monsters are stepping into the world from the lines between shadow and light, the moments between heartbeats and the spaces inside the river. The monsters need to be stopped, and the mechanisms need to be fixed before the dissolution spreads beyond the mountain.

There are two problems. One is that the egg is supposed to be impervious to the interference of mortals, and to last forever without needing maintenance of any sort. It is difficult to imagine what kind of power can introduce the flaw to the perfected workings of the egg. The other is that the egg can only stabilize a small patch in the weave of creation. While its effects cover a couple hundred kilometers outside the city, the song only travels so far before fading into silence. Either the reality of the mountain has been deliberately weakened that it needed the jade egg to protect it, or there is a network of such eggs spread over the world. If one egg can be sabotaged, who says the others are safe?

And a campaign idea is formed. Now just to get together a group and decide on system. What system works well for this? Hmmm.

Ah. Well, in that case, I roll back on my One True King detector and replace it with a Stone Of Scone. No magic involved or required, but the item is a key traditional element of the kingdom's coronation ceremony (or equivalent.) If you don't get crowned sitting on the stone / holding the sceptre / wearing the cloak of authority / under the gaze of the statue of the first king of the land / whatever, you're not really the king in most people's eyes.

The Thing of Authority either been stolen or the dungeon is its official resting place between kings. Once the party gets it, every contender for the top job is going to be interested in them.

Maybe it is used to decide between claimants to the throne, and this is the first time succession has not been clear in a thousand years.

[The Rose Dragon]

And a campaign idea is formed. Now just to get together a group and decide on system. What system works well for this? Hmmm.

I wrote it for Blue Rose, though not the specific setting of Aldea, just a similar romantic fantasy setting. Its primary inspiration came from Exalted, but Exalted takes away most of the challenge from it unless you really amp the opposition, and don't play Solars.

[Bulhakov]

An epic artifact I thought up but never got to use:

Moon Pearl
A white orb the size of a melon. When exposed to moonlight it starts glowing with a nearly blinding light. All undead exposed to the light are damaged by it and if they survive prolonged exposure extremely weakened. All good alligned allies get some sort of a buff. The catch - to work, it has to be carried by a female virgin of pure heart.

I intended to use it to allow the PCs to have a balanced battle with a dracolich right when they left the dungeon (an NPC priestess that opened the tomb/dungeon for them would wield it), but the main use for the item is to turn the tides of battle in an invasion of an undead army.

[nedz]

You could go for a locale (basically a very pretty room), examples:

• Amber Room
• Large Geode, in situ
• Chamber of Statues
• Large Mural/Fesco
• Library

[Bulhakov]

Here's an interesting artifact I invested too much time into developing:

Atomic stone
To make the stone active it must burn in a smith's furnace for a full day. While still glowing hot it can be activated by a spell phrase and it will turn the most abundant (weight wise) element in a 1m radius sphere into another element. The stone came in a magic plated box, which could optionally contain the effect of the change, limiting to whatever the box was filled with.

Depending on the level of bonding with the artifact, the shifts could be only +/-1,2,3 or 4 along the periodic table (with a bit more leeway for fantasy effects and disregard for a lot of chemical bonding rules). E.g. -1 shift along the periodic table could turn gold into platinum, but a +1 shift would turn the gold into mercury. At lvl 4 the players could turn lead into gold.

I had a whole sheet written basing on wikipedia articles on various elements and effects depending on where the stone was activated (thrown in air, water, burried in sand, surrounded by iron, gold, silver or other precious substances). Some of the fun effects was turning steel into lighter or stronger alloys to modify weapons and armor. I intended to let the players experiment with it, but few wanted to devote time to it, and finally the party left it in the hands of a legendary weaponsmith that would put it to good use for the final epic battle with the forces of evil (i.e. making a small army of various alloy golems).

[Leshy]

Ah. Well, in that case, I roll back on my One True King detector and replace it with a Stone Of Scone. No magic involved or required, but the item is a key traditional element of the kingdom's coronation ceremony (or equivalent.) If you don't get crowned sitting on the stone / holding the sceptre / wearing the cloak of authority / under the gaze of the statue of the first king of the land / whatever, you're not really the king in most people's eyes.

The Thing of Authority either been stolen or the dungeon is its official resting place between kings. Once the party gets it, every contender for the top job is going to be interested in them.

So, I decided to go with this idea and it to be the chair where the next king has to sit during the ceremony and if you don't you're not actually the king etc... Before they found and entered the dungeon I spent half a session explaining how important is that certain dungeon to the kingdom, how no one except royal family knows where it is located, how it's only a legend but if it is true it is major thing, but my players being my players, hack and slash kick in the door type of players, entered, slayed everyone and everything inside, spent the whole 10 seconds arguing should they bring this beautiful chair they found with them, and decided against it.

Now, 4 in-game days and one session later, king is ill, chair is gone, and my players are all like "that was boring, I didn't get to kill anyone this session".

[Lapak]

Well then. Now the players are assumed by everyone paying attention to be in the employ of [Shady Contender For the Throne A], who nipped in and snagged the now-unguarded chair when his actual minions let him know that something was afoot at the Dungeon of Destiny. He's stashed it in an undisclosed location - not at his own home, naturally, that would be far too dangerous if exposed - where he can easily produce it if need be.

They will soon be attacked by assassins sent by [Shady Contender for the Throne B], who is a reckless type and hopes they haven't handed off the chair yet or don't know what they [don't] have.

They'll also be pestered by the minions of [Shady Contender for the Thone C], who is a more circumspect type. This gang will try to interrogate them on the sly, Charm one of them if they can get him alone, steal their unguarded stuff for clues to the chair's whereabouts, and so on.

Finally, the loyalist forces of [King Sickly the Ill] will be after them. If they were actually sent there on purpose, in order to find out what the heck happened; if they were not, in order to beat the location of the chair out of them. Pity they don't have it and don't know where it is, given how much attention they're about to have. The chair is, of course, defended from scrying and other Divinations (or it wouldn't be much of a secret) - but divining 'who kicked in the doors at at the Dungeon of Destiny' is way easier. The longer they remain clueless, the more factions are going to trip to the fact that this gang was responsible for the Chair's disappearance and come after them. They will get all the people to kill that they can handle unless they make an effort to right the record.

Which [Shady Contender A] likes just fine; it keeps focus off of him. He may even start some juicy rumors himself, both to destabilize the throne further -

"Did you hear? The Chair of Coronation has disappeared! The king must have lost the favor of the gods!" -

and to keep people chasing anyone but him -

"Did you hear? A group of outlanders slew the inhabitants of the Cavern of the Chair and made off with it! They must be agents of [Enemy Kingdom!] Oh, if only we had a strong leader like [Shady Contender A] to put those jerks in their place!"

[Mordar]

Can always use a non-D&D artifact definition (and even give it magical powers if you want) like:

• A piece of a saint's remains
• A standard of great importance (like a battle standard from the most important hero or unit
• The true crown of the kingdom
• A sword that is vital for the kingdom in a non-combat sense...and is useless in combat

Any of these can help sculpt the remainder of the campaign, from as simple as "find more of the saint" to discover the true heir to the kingdom via the crown. I kind of like the sword option at the moment...a feeble blade with no useful enchantments...yet it is the only weapon that will defeat the liche/daemon/mushroom man that will otherwise overthrow the kingdom (and then the world).

Anyway, those could be good - but make sure the players recognize that it has more value than a quick resale to HoboMurderPawn Emporium.

- M

[Jay R]

Another possibility is to make is useful to the PCs once. If it can grant a minor Wish, or Heal, or some such, only once for each person, than a king can call a different subject up to use it each time it's needed. This lets the PCs use it for their own benefit, but then they would have no incentive to keep it.

[Bulhakov]

Lapak's idea is great. Make the players' bad decision come back and bite them in the ass.

However, you might want to tailor future campaigns to your players a bit more. They seem to like direct violence a lot more than political intrigue, so maybe give them some bounty-hunting quests or dungeons with practical combat-oriented artifact rewards.

[Lapak]

Lapak's idea is great. Make the players' bad decision come back and bite them in the ass.

However, you might want to tailor future campaigns to your players a bit more. They seem to like direct violence a lot more than political intrigue, so maybe give them some bounty-hunting quests or dungeons with practical combat-oriented artifact rewards.

I thought about adding that at the end; if your players aren't interested in a political game forcing one on them won't help matters. If they might be interested and just need a kick in the teeth to get their attention, you can go with something along the lines I described.