# How to destroy an artifact?



## fba827 (Oct 24, 2008)

So, for the campaign I'm DMing, an artifact has come to the center of the current story arc.  The players discuss the possibility of destroying the artifact.

While I do have something in mind (I won't say what because some of my players read these boards).  I thought I'd fish out there to hear stories from other players and DMs.

When coming across an artifact that could be (or has to be) destroyed, what methods have you used (or at least planned) for its destruction?  Or did it usually revolve around the the LotR concept of tossing the artifact back in to the fires that created it?


Of course, if my players are reading this, I'll just give you a hint that chances are the necklace artifact will kill you long before you get to kill it


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## malraux (Oct 24, 2008)

I'm not sure which 3.5 book it is in (DMG 2 IIRC) but there's a full page art piece of a party with the wand of Orcus throwing it into the mouth of the tarrasque.


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## Angrydad (Oct 24, 2008)

malraux said:


> I'm not sure which 3.5 book it is in (DMG 2 IIRC) but there's a full page art piece of a party with the wand of Orcus throwing it into the mouth of the tarrasque.




LOL. Freakin' sweet. I'd recommend something equally as spectacular or difficult to accomplish. Perhaps they must take it to Asmodeus on the 9th level of Hell and have him cast some epic spell, or maybe he just needs to grind his teeth on it. Something a little absurd and something a little awesome= memorable moment.


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## Hunter In Darkness (Oct 24, 2008)

A few I have used over the years.
Kissed by the daughter of a barren woman
Drowned in the heart of a star
Smashed at midnight on the eve of years by a twice blessed deadman
Washed in the blood of a sinless man
buried in heart of the world the without use of spells or mans hand
broken by the hands of a  dawf with a 1000 children
eated by a dragon that can not die
Cast into the endless sea by a man who knows it not
bathed it the glow of sunlight on the darkest night of the year
Broken for the love of a man who has killed all he has loved


that's the ones I recall


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## malraux (Oct 24, 2008)

Hunter In Darkness said:


> A few I have used over the years.
> Kissed by the daughter of a barren woman
> Drowned in the heart of a star
> Smashed at midnight on the eve of years by a twice blessed deadman
> ...




Umm, does destroying an artifact come up all that often?


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## grodog (Oct 24, 2008)

The 1e DMG suggests a number of different (and mythic-propertioned) ways to destroy artifacts and relics.  I co-wrote a pair of articles with Erik Mona on Greyhawk artifacts in Dragon 294 and 299, and there's some extra material available from the articles that weren't published.  See "Artifacts of Oerth Article: B-Sides and Errata" since the sidebar details provide some good advice on introducing artifacts into campaigns, including destroying them.

The Necromancer Games Book of Artifacts also has some info on methods to destroy them, IIRC??


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## Mouseferatu (Oct 24, 2008)

grodog said:


> The Necromancer Games Book of Artifacts also has some info on methods to destroy them, IIRC??




Indeed it does. Every artifact in the book has at least one, and usually two or three, suggestions.


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## Hunter In Darkness (Oct 24, 2008)

malraux said:


> Umm, does destroying an artifact come up all that often?




In 16 years yeah a few


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## Khuxan (Oct 24, 2008)

Hunter In Darkness said:


> buried in the without use of spells or mans hand




I'm really interested to find out where the artifact had to be buried.


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## Hunter In Darkness (Oct 25, 2008)

Khuxan said:


> I'm really interested to find out where the artifact had to be buried.




eh heart of a mountain, sorry fixed that


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## Angrydad (Oct 25, 2008)

malraux said:


> Umm, does destroying an artifact come up all that often?




Maybe Indiana Jones is one of the PCs?


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## Hunter In Darkness (Oct 25, 2008)

Well In one game there was 8 artifacts of the deamon lord Justicar  That needed gone.
Other then that It does pop up from time to time


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## blargney the second (Oct 25, 2008)

malraux said:


> I'm not sure which 3.5 book it is in (DMG 2 IIRC) but there's a full page art piece of a party with the wand of Orcus throwing it into the mouth of the tarrasque.



Yep, it's towards the back of the DMG2:





-blarg


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## Ed_Laprade (Oct 25, 2008)

The one or two times I've had a character who needed to we decided to toss it in the nearest volcano. If that didn't destroy it, someone else would have to deal with it... later.


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## Rechan (Oct 25, 2008)

I would link the destruction of the artifact to a manner of its nature or construction.

The One Ring, after all, had to be thrown into the fires of Mt. Doom, where it was forged. 

If it's something related to fire, than for one day and one night it must be frozen in the center of an iceberg, in the coldest part of the world on the shortest day of the year. If it's a necromantic artifact, then worn by a mother giving birth somewhere that the Positive Energy plane bleeds through. 

Look at the artifact's history, and ask yourself "What's appropriate for the theme of this item?"


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## El Mahdi (Oct 25, 2008)

malraux said:


> Umm, does destroying an artifact come up all that often?






Hunter In Darkness said:


> In 16 years yeah a few




Yup.  I played in an FR game where the Scepter of the Sorcerer Kings fell into our laps.  Of course we didn't know what it was before our cleric started using it.  After we found out no less than 5 priesthoods had lost contact with their patron deities, and did an indepth Legend Lore on it (with some info on destruction), we decided it was our duty to destroy it.  Since one of the possible means of destruction was to kill a god with it, my slightly hyperactive and stupidly fearless Gnome character decided on a plan that would kill two birds with one stone: taunt Cyric until he showed up and then kill him with the scepter.  Simple!  The ensuing scene with the rest of the group chasing my Gnome around, trying to catch him to shut him up (I was launching a steady stream of insults directed at Cyric), made for a very entertaining game night.

Not quite as epic a scene as Frodo destroying the One Ring, but it was memorable for us.

I like Hunter in Darkness's ideas, but I also tend to prefer a means of destruction that has something to do either with it's powers or it's creation.


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## Cryptos (Oct 25, 2008)

Hunter In Darkness said:


> broken by the hands of a  dawf with a 1000 children




I'm trying to imagine what kind of campaign that must have been for the Dwarf PC.

On second thought, _no_....


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## Asmor (Oct 25, 2008)

It cannot be destroyed, it can only be un-made. The PCs have to travel back in time and prevent the artifact from being forged in the first place!


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## Hunter In Darkness (Oct 25, 2008)

I left it out but it always has something to do with the item, it's just a bit of a riddle and never what it seems.

The item about the Drawf. Well that came from a home brew. The ax of Gledoma'ggaden was a weapon of great power, forged by the lord of said nations before the raise of man. It's a bit fuzzy but think god of war for power and ya got it, mad ya into a one man army of death. The down side was ya killed anything and everything that stood in the way of the perfaact kingdom, even the citizens as they can never live up to the ideal. Any anyone trying to stop you and so on.


It lead to much wa r and death laying for many a year in old dead dwarf hold. In the end a Drawf Pc who had founded a nation  sundered it in battle with it's wielder. He was A farther with a thousand children, his people


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## jinnetics (Oct 25, 2008)

Take it to the top of the Ghost Tower of Inverness


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## MichaelSomething (Oct 25, 2008)

How to destroy an artifact? 

Use another artifact that's bigger and cooler then the artifact your trying to destory!


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## Cryptos (Oct 25, 2008)

Hunter In Darkness said:
			
		

> _Stuff._




Well, that's better than a campaign where you try to get the dwarf laid several thousand times so that you can be sure he's fathered a thousand children just so he can destroy an artifact.


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## Hunter In Darkness (Oct 25, 2008)

Cryptos said:


> Well, that's better than a campaign where you try to get the dwarf laid several thousand times so that you can be sure he's fathered a thousand children just so he can destroy an artifact.






Though the use of a wise old sage I talked the group out of that.


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## Rel (Oct 25, 2008)

My fave from the 1e DMG was "Crushed under the heel of a humble ant."


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## El Mahdi (Oct 25, 2008)

Cryptos said:


> Well, that's better than a campaign where you try to get the dwarf laid several thousand times so that you can be sure he's fathered a thousand children just so he can destroy an artifact.




How is _*not*_ getting laid several thousand times better?  (except for the whole fatigue issue)


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## ejja_1 (Oct 25, 2008)

El Mahdi said:


> How is _*not*_ getting laid several thousand times better?  (except for the whole fatigue issue)




One word: Chaffing.


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## Angrydad (Oct 25, 2008)

ejja_1 said:


> One word: Chaffing.





One word answer to chafing: Lard.


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## Cryptos (Oct 25, 2008)

El Mahdi said:


> How is _*not*_ getting laid several thousand times better?  (except for the whole fatigue issue)




I was thinking of the non-dwarf party members that have to assist and pimp out the dwarf, whether through skill or magic.  

It would make for a good comedy session, but as a campaign I imagine it would get out of hand.  _Dungeons and Ho's_ would be an entirely different genre, I think.

Back to the subject at hand, I have to admit that this is where my mind went when I read "destroyed by a dwarf with a thousand children."  I was already trying to run down my mental list of spells that might help the dwarf in that respect....


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## NewJeffCT (Oct 25, 2008)

ejja_1 said:


> One word: Chaffing.




eh, the dwarf lives for a few hundred years, so they have a bit of time to relax between baby making sessions... or maybe this dwarf is just the Wilt Chamberlin of dwarves.

I would hope that it's just an NPC that the players meet just as child 1000 is born.

Or, it could be the dwarf is like Genghis Khan, whose genes are now in millions of people descended over 800 or so years.


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## NewJeffCT (Oct 25, 2008)

fba827 said:


> So, for the campaign I'm DMing, an artifact has come to the center of the current story arc.  The players discuss the possibility of destroying the artifact.
> 
> While I do have something in mind (I won't say what because some of my players read these boards).  I thought I'd fish out there to hear stories from other players and DMs.
> 
> ...




I'm currently running a campaign where the followers of a lawful evil god of slavery & tyranny have recovered an ancient artifact that they hope will allow them to enslave the world if activated (they have a few hoops to jump through - something about the blood of a newborn priestess of the god of freedom)

But, I'm going to have the players recover an artifact to counteract the effect.  But, I may try something from the 1E DMG.


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## Dragonwriter (Oct 25, 2008)

Not long back, a group I'm in had to destroy an ancient blade called "The Betrayer's Blade." The thing was insanely powerful, so I suppose it was an artifact, and it drove whoever used it completely insane over a short time.

We found out that it was a demon that had been forced into the form of a weapon by the gods. So we took it to the Abyss, managed to dispel the form-changing magics (cast greater dispel magic twice, once as Arcane, once as Divine) and then fought the demon. Killed it... Which destroyed the blade, naturally.


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## Relique du Madde (Oct 26, 2008)

El Mahdi said:


> How is _*not*_ getting laid several thousand times better?  (except for the whole fatigue issue)



Venereal disease (with the cost of magical cures) and child support.  Am I missing any other reasons?


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## El Mahdi (Oct 26, 2008)

Relique du Madde said:


> Venereal disease (with the cost of magical cures) and child support. Am I missing any other reasons?




Nah. All you need is a Wand of Penicilan and a competent Devil Lawyer (they are still lawful evil aren't they?).



Back to the subject.

I was thinking that just because there is a way to destroy an artifact, that doesn't mean that it needs to be within the means of mortals to accomplish. (Just an idea to throw around.)


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