Jormengand
2016-02-28, 06:57 PM
Over a decade ago, the necromancer Skrittek created a crystal that was meant to poison an entire country. The power of the crystal was so great that any creature who touched it was instantly slain, and became an undead wight. Even wearing adamantine gauntlets only partially protected the creature handling them, and even standing too close could be dangerous.
Skrittek was fortunately defeated by great heroes, although their leader died smashing the crystal. Worse, the crystal's power was not stopped, only divided into the thirteen fragments. Worse, each one still had the power to kill with a touch. To prevent this, the heroes' craftsman encased each one in magically-treated adamantine, specially designed to prevent the crystals from ever again
Later, the adamantine-coated crystal shards were forged into adamantine swords, each one still bearing a shard of the crystal. Recently, the necromancer's power has seeped even through the adamantine. Merely touching one of the weapons swiftly drains a creature to nothingness. Worse, even more power is moving through the adamantine coating every day...
Each of these thirteen magically-treated adamantine short swords is nonmagical in its own right, however, a detect magic aimed at one will invariably detect overwhelming necromancy and a detect poison spell will always consider them poisonous. The items are considered "Active" only 10 years after being forged. Any item that so much as touches the item radiates the following auras:
Strong for 1 round per 10 weeks the weapon has been active.
Then moderate for 1 round per week the weapon has been active
Then faint for 1 minute per week the weapon has been active.
Then dim for 10 minutes per week the weapon has been active.
Even touching one of these weapons inflicts 1d4 points of constitution damage, plus one per week the weapon has been active, to the creature who touches it (Fortitude 15 + 1/week active negates), and this repeats each round the weapon is held or each time it is touched against the creature. This is much like a contact or injury poison except that it affects even creatures immune to poison. Undead who touch the sword are healed at the same rate as they would take the constitution damage (they take negative energy damage instead of constitution damage).
This damage can be prevented by wearing gloves, but for each full two weeks the weapon has been active, the radiation's effect grows by a foot, thereby affecting creatures who approach within that range but only if they remain there one full round (contact still affects the creatures normally). The damage dealt is however reduced by 2 for each full foot away from the sword a creature is (so after 10 weeks, a creature contacting the sword takes 1d4+10 damage but a creature 3 feet away only takes 1d4+4).
In any case, the sword's power instantly turns any creature that reaches 0 hit points into a zombie of the same creature, except ignore the clause about dropping HD from class levels (so a barbarian 3/dragon 4 would become an undead 14, not an undead 8) and the clause that prevents zombies being made from creatures with more than 10 hit dice.
The swords stop getting more powerful after 30 weeks, after which point they are as powerful as the crystal itself. By this point, the swords will start spreading their power to anything they touch. Even after about 10 weeks, even adamantine or lead is no longer quite safe to touch the swords with. A sword left to its own devices will slowly poison the surrounding area and the people who travel with them.
The swords' powers can be regressed. The following spells can be cast on the sword to turn back the swords' powers:
Delay poison: 1 day.
Lesser Restoration: 3 days.
Neutralise Poison/Dispel Magic/Restoration: 1 week.
Greater Dispel Magic: 10 days.
Restoration, Limited Wish: 2 weeks.
Antimagic Field: 18 days.
Wish, Miracle, Disjunction: 3 weeks. Disjunction does not destroy the weapons.
In addition, certain materials will block some of the swords' necromantic power:
Leather, wood, etc.: 1 week's worth of power per inch.
Common metal: 3 weeks' worth of power per inch.
Stone: 5 weeks' worth of power per inch.
Lead: 8 weeks' worth of power per inch.
Adamantine: 10 weeks' worth of power per inch.
Magically-treated adamantine: 5 years per inch. The magical treatment of adamantine requires the use of 10 greater restoration spells over as many days as well as spending the entire time working, to produce as much adamantine as was used in each one of the weapons.
This means that it is safe to hold the swords in leather gloves for a few weeks, but it quickly becomes more dangerous to use them. As is perhaps evident, even the magically treated adamantine is prone to being taken over by the sword's power.
While the effects of the crystals on creatures more than 15 feet away are not dangerous on a round-by-round timescale, they are dangerous over a long time. The crystals' effects spread through water and soil, gradually poisoning people. In general, people within 9 miles of an exposed crystal are endangered within just one day of the crystal's exposure, although this is dependent on terrain type (rocky deserts are less prone than wetlands to this effect). This effect isn't linear: it travels a little less each day: 8 on the second, 7 on the third, 6 on the fourth, and so on. This limits the crystal's influence to 45 miles. Creatures within the range of influence take 1d4 points of constitution damage every day and rise as zombies if they are killed from the constitution damage. A fortitude save negates this effect: the DC is between 40 and 10: divide the distance into 30ths (for example, 1/3 of a mile increments on the first day) and creatures on the very edge of the effect take the DC 10, and the DC increases by 1 for each increment closer they are. You may wish to divide into only 6 increments (each of 4.5 miles on the third day, for example), each of which represents a +5 DC increase, to make it easier to calculate this.
Obviously, the DM should not bother rolling a fortitude save for each and every creature affected! Instead, if it becomes relevant how many creatures are affected, roll a single fortitude save for an entire community. If it is passed exactly or failed by 1, then about half of the creatures are affected. Alter this by 5% (fewer for a higher roll, more for a lower) for each point difference from this. If the roll is failed by 10 or more, all creatures are affected; if it is passed by 10 or more, none are.
The swords only start having this effect after 10 weeks, and they only have 1/15 of the power for each week after 10th. This means on the 11th week the distance is only 3 miles (on this scale, it's much easier to assume that the increase in distance is linear, and so is 3/7 of a mile every day, rather than dealing with even weirder fractions) and the save DC only goes between 10 and 12. However, on a failure, the damage is still 1d4.
The swords themselves are nonmagical even though they are magically treated, and are most certainly not artifacts, so they can be destroyed much as any other adamantine. Then, the following steps must be taken to destroy each actual crystal:
Place the crystal in an overlapping Hallow and Consecrate effect.
Cast Wish, Miracle, Disjunction or Greater Restoration on the crystal
Cast Disintegrate on the crystal (This doesn't actually disintegrate it).
Smash the crystal with a bludgeoning weapon with at least a +5 effective bonus.
Alternatively, it is possible to join the crystals together. Any necromancy spell of at least 3rd level that creates any number of undead creatures can instead be directed at two crystals held together and they will join and their power double.
Obviously, they're a bit complicated, but I'm happy to handle that (and if you want to use them too, you aren't obliged to follow the rules to the letter - better to have more rules and some people ignore them than fewer and some people are looking for rules that aren't there). More to the point, I'd rather PEACHes focus on anything about the items that doesn't work, or that is massively out-of-proportion with the other effects, or that you actually don't even understand, or whatever else.
Skrittek was fortunately defeated by great heroes, although their leader died smashing the crystal. Worse, the crystal's power was not stopped, only divided into the thirteen fragments. Worse, each one still had the power to kill with a touch. To prevent this, the heroes' craftsman encased each one in magically-treated adamantine, specially designed to prevent the crystals from ever again
Later, the adamantine-coated crystal shards were forged into adamantine swords, each one still bearing a shard of the crystal. Recently, the necromancer's power has seeped even through the adamantine. Merely touching one of the weapons swiftly drains a creature to nothingness. Worse, even more power is moving through the adamantine coating every day...
Each of these thirteen magically-treated adamantine short swords is nonmagical in its own right, however, a detect magic aimed at one will invariably detect overwhelming necromancy and a detect poison spell will always consider them poisonous. The items are considered "Active" only 10 years after being forged. Any item that so much as touches the item radiates the following auras:
Strong for 1 round per 10 weeks the weapon has been active.
Then moderate for 1 round per week the weapon has been active
Then faint for 1 minute per week the weapon has been active.
Then dim for 10 minutes per week the weapon has been active.
Even touching one of these weapons inflicts 1d4 points of constitution damage, plus one per week the weapon has been active, to the creature who touches it (Fortitude 15 + 1/week active negates), and this repeats each round the weapon is held or each time it is touched against the creature. This is much like a contact or injury poison except that it affects even creatures immune to poison. Undead who touch the sword are healed at the same rate as they would take the constitution damage (they take negative energy damage instead of constitution damage).
This damage can be prevented by wearing gloves, but for each full two weeks the weapon has been active, the radiation's effect grows by a foot, thereby affecting creatures who approach within that range but only if they remain there one full round (contact still affects the creatures normally). The damage dealt is however reduced by 2 for each full foot away from the sword a creature is (so after 10 weeks, a creature contacting the sword takes 1d4+10 damage but a creature 3 feet away only takes 1d4+4).
In any case, the sword's power instantly turns any creature that reaches 0 hit points into a zombie of the same creature, except ignore the clause about dropping HD from class levels (so a barbarian 3/dragon 4 would become an undead 14, not an undead 8) and the clause that prevents zombies being made from creatures with more than 10 hit dice.
The swords stop getting more powerful after 30 weeks, after which point they are as powerful as the crystal itself. By this point, the swords will start spreading their power to anything they touch. Even after about 10 weeks, even adamantine or lead is no longer quite safe to touch the swords with. A sword left to its own devices will slowly poison the surrounding area and the people who travel with them.
The swords' powers can be regressed. The following spells can be cast on the sword to turn back the swords' powers:
Delay poison: 1 day.
Lesser Restoration: 3 days.
Neutralise Poison/Dispel Magic/Restoration: 1 week.
Greater Dispel Magic: 10 days.
Restoration, Limited Wish: 2 weeks.
Antimagic Field: 18 days.
Wish, Miracle, Disjunction: 3 weeks. Disjunction does not destroy the weapons.
In addition, certain materials will block some of the swords' necromantic power:
Leather, wood, etc.: 1 week's worth of power per inch.
Common metal: 3 weeks' worth of power per inch.
Stone: 5 weeks' worth of power per inch.
Lead: 8 weeks' worth of power per inch.
Adamantine: 10 weeks' worth of power per inch.
Magically-treated adamantine: 5 years per inch. The magical treatment of adamantine requires the use of 10 greater restoration spells over as many days as well as spending the entire time working, to produce as much adamantine as was used in each one of the weapons.
This means that it is safe to hold the swords in leather gloves for a few weeks, but it quickly becomes more dangerous to use them. As is perhaps evident, even the magically treated adamantine is prone to being taken over by the sword's power.
While the effects of the crystals on creatures more than 15 feet away are not dangerous on a round-by-round timescale, they are dangerous over a long time. The crystals' effects spread through water and soil, gradually poisoning people. In general, people within 9 miles of an exposed crystal are endangered within just one day of the crystal's exposure, although this is dependent on terrain type (rocky deserts are less prone than wetlands to this effect). This effect isn't linear: it travels a little less each day: 8 on the second, 7 on the third, 6 on the fourth, and so on. This limits the crystal's influence to 45 miles. Creatures within the range of influence take 1d4 points of constitution damage every day and rise as zombies if they are killed from the constitution damage. A fortitude save negates this effect: the DC is between 40 and 10: divide the distance into 30ths (for example, 1/3 of a mile increments on the first day) and creatures on the very edge of the effect take the DC 10, and the DC increases by 1 for each increment closer they are. You may wish to divide into only 6 increments (each of 4.5 miles on the third day, for example), each of which represents a +5 DC increase, to make it easier to calculate this.
Obviously, the DM should not bother rolling a fortitude save for each and every creature affected! Instead, if it becomes relevant how many creatures are affected, roll a single fortitude save for an entire community. If it is passed exactly or failed by 1, then about half of the creatures are affected. Alter this by 5% (fewer for a higher roll, more for a lower) for each point difference from this. If the roll is failed by 10 or more, all creatures are affected; if it is passed by 10 or more, none are.
The swords only start having this effect after 10 weeks, and they only have 1/15 of the power for each week after 10th. This means on the 11th week the distance is only 3 miles (on this scale, it's much easier to assume that the increase in distance is linear, and so is 3/7 of a mile every day, rather than dealing with even weirder fractions) and the save DC only goes between 10 and 12. However, on a failure, the damage is still 1d4.
The swords themselves are nonmagical even though they are magically treated, and are most certainly not artifacts, so they can be destroyed much as any other adamantine. Then, the following steps must be taken to destroy each actual crystal:
Place the crystal in an overlapping Hallow and Consecrate effect.
Cast Wish, Miracle, Disjunction or Greater Restoration on the crystal
Cast Disintegrate on the crystal (This doesn't actually disintegrate it).
Smash the crystal with a bludgeoning weapon with at least a +5 effective bonus.
Alternatively, it is possible to join the crystals together. Any necromancy spell of at least 3rd level that creates any number of undead creatures can instead be directed at two crystals held together and they will join and their power double.
Obviously, they're a bit complicated, but I'm happy to handle that (and if you want to use them too, you aren't obliged to follow the rules to the letter - better to have more rules and some people ignore them than fewer and some people are looking for rules that aren't there). More to the point, I'd rather PEACHes focus on anything about the items that doesn't work, or that is massively out-of-proportion with the other effects, or that you actually don't even understand, or whatever else.