Arke's Earring [Archive] - Wizards Community

Arke's Earring [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
RoninFrosty
05-12-07, 02:11 PM A.) I'd like this statted, as item creation (of the magical type) eludes me.
B.) I'd like some sort of fail safe in the event that a PC grabs this.

Arke's Earring
In a time before the civilized races walked the land, the Material Plane was in a constant state of warfare between good and evil outsiders. One such evil outsider was a Demon Lord named Arke, who in all fairness, was much less interested in the war itself as the pursuit of knowledge that winning said war would allow.

The creation of the civilized races ended the war as the desperate mortals banded together and banished both the good and evil outsiders. Arke, wholly content with the war being over, devised a scheme to absorb as much knowledge as possible.

The idea struck him while watching his minions stockpile ancient and magical weaponry. Knowledge, it was said, was the ultimate weapon. Why not create some sort of "armory of knowledge"? Something which he could tap into at any time to research any topic of his choosing?

Arke knew well the mystical properties of the flames of Hell, and he used these unquenchable fires to forge his Earring, a small globe of seemingly floating fire in a metallic casing. While preparing to imbue the Earring with the magical properties required to store such vast amounts of knowledge as Arke required, a new idea struck him.

He'd been prepared to make the sharing of knowledge voluntary; that is, he would have had to willfully think about the knowledge he'd want entered into the Earring. But by making it involuntary, he could save time, and also expedite his search by "copying" the knowledge of others. So he altered the spell he prepared to cast, and completed the Earring.

Throughout the ages of relative peace since the great war, Arke has allowed the Earring to fall into possession of many, and retrieved it to gain the knowledge of these people. To this point, he's included a Druid, effectively learning how to speak Druidic (The OOC reason I made the Earring, to justify his speaking of said tongue), and many powerful clerics, gaining an intricate knowledge of the mystical forces that move the realm.
---

Now, anyone wanna help me tackle this? Thanks for reading that beast, and thanks in advance for any help that may come of this.
Dead_Weasel
05-12-07, 03:20 PM You might want to take a look at the Illithid Savant PrC for ideas, although I realize that it is rather different from what you want.
RoninFrosty
05-12-07, 11:10 PM I may have to take a look...

...but would anyone with any item creation expertise like to look at this, mayhaps?
Dire_Rhino
05-13-07, 03:53 AM This looks very interesting. I can smell the artifact cooking from here...

However, what, game-mechanically, does it do? I can tell from your description that it "absorbs the knowledge of people". How do you want this reflected in the mechanics of the game?

Here's a first shot. It occurs to me that, after acquiring the minds of countless thousands, the Earring of Arke would have acquired a mind of its own. This would aid it in being able to find new people to suggest (What a pretty earring!), and allow it to refuse to be used by the (presumably opposite-alignment) PCs. Plus, Arke him(her?)self can probably win an Ego battle against the thing whenever necessary.

(A side note - It seems that a demon lord, being chaotic evil and reveling in slaughter, would be much less likely to create it than devil - the thing smacks of LE to me...)

Price: Artifact (320,000)
Body Slot: Slotless
Caster Level: 20th
Aura: Strong evocation

A small globe of crystal hangs at the end of a short mithral chain. Inside the globe, a miniature fire burns furiously.

AL CE (LE?)
Int 19
Wis 10
Cha 19

Speech (all languages, read magic at will)
Telepathy
120' darkvision, blindsense & hearing
Ego 33

Lesser powers:
Amanuensis at will (needs no paper - the information is copied into the library of Arke)
Locate object 3/day
Suggestion 3/day

Greater powers:
Know Vulnerabilites at will
Detect Thoughts at will

Special Purpose: Acquire Knowledge
Can use wish 1/month.

Personality:
The Earring of Arke was forged in the fires of the Fourth Circle of Hell by the Daemon Lord Arke, who infused the crystal sphere with a shard of his soul-essentia. The item can speak and communicate telepathically, but rarely does; it prefers to remain silent and unknown. It usually uses detect thoughts to find a person with great stores of knowledge; it then casts suggestion, suggesting that the target would like to wear the beautiful jewelry.

The Earring uses detect thoughts on its possessor constantly,
learning everything the possessor knows. It also uses amanuensis to copy any texts the possessor has access to, using suggestion to gain access to the texts if necessary.

After a month, the Earring casts wish, copying the owner's skills for itself. The Earring will never use its wish for any other purpose. Arke has placed an arcane mark on the Earring, and casts Drawminj's instant summons once the wish has been used, retrieving his Earring. He subsequently casts wish himself, transferring the earring's skill points to himself.

Excuse any errors that I may have made, please; I do not often dabble in intelligent items.

The failsafe here is that to use any of these powers, the PC must make a DC 33 Will save - a Wis 18 cleric won't hit that before lvl 15 or so, and that's only on a n20. Of course, you can DM-fiat a higher DC, so they can never hit it and thus can never use it. Also, the wish can never be abused, as it is a dedicated power that the item will always have control over regardless of Ego battles.
RoninFrosty
05-13-07, 07:18 AM To simplify matters, I'm just going to make my comments directly to the SBlock.

Price: Artifact (320,000)
Body Slot: Slotless
Caster Level: 20th
Aura: Strong evocation

A small globe of crystal hangs at the end of a short mithral chain. Inside the globe, a miniature fire burns furiously.

AL CE (LE?) I was personally thinking that with the vast amounts of both vile and pure knowledge within, that the
Int 19 Earring itself might be neutral...but thinking about it, he is a demon, so...
Wis 10
Cha 19

Speech (all languages, read magic at will)
Telepathy
120' darkvision, blindsense & hearing
Ego 33

Lesser powers:
Amanuensis at will (needs no paper - the information is copied into the library of Arke) Like this one. Forgot all about it.
Locate object 3/day
Suggestion 3/day

Greater powers:
Know Vulnerabilites at will
Detect Thoughts at will

Special Purpose: Acquire Knowledge
Can use wish 1/month.

Personality:
The Earring of Arke was forged in the fires of Hell (fixed, probably should've informed you I'm using a CCS :D)by the Daemon Lord Arke, who infused the crystal sphere with a shard of his soul-essentia. The item can speak and communicate telepathically, but rarely does; it prefers to remain silent and unknown. It usually uses detect thoughts to find a person with great stores of knowledge; it then casts suggestion, suggesting that the target would like to wear the beautiful jewelry.

The Earring uses detect thoughts on its possessor constantly,
learning everything the possessor knows. It also uses amanuensis to copy any texts the possessor has access to, using suggestion to gain access to the texts if necessary.

After a month, the Earring casts wish, copying the owner's skills for itself. The Earring will never use its wish for any other purpose. Arke has placed an arcane mark on the Earring, and casts Drawminj's instant summons once the wish has been used, retrieving his Earring. He subsequently casts wish himself, transferring the earring's skill points to himself. I think to avoid him eventually having hundreds of skill points, I'd houserule that he keeps the highest skill modifier for that particular skill present amongst all the victims he's chosen. Otherwise, great job on something I didn't think about.

Now, since you asked, mechanically I'd intended to have it provide a flat bonus to all knowledge checks, probably like +20 or 25...but in retrospect, since it's been around for so long, I was thinking of making it a D% check, with the DM deciding how likely it is the Earring knows it. Of course, while still in Arke's possession, if he finds the Earring doesn't know something, he damn near goes mad trying to learn it.

And that failsafe's good...but I was thinking something along the lines of a "mind rape" type effect. A lot of this knowledge is dark and depraved...a normal mind can only withstand so much insanity (Lovecraftish). Maybe a will save everytime the Earring's consulted...something along those lines.

Otherwise, very great job. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed looking at the potential this artifact. Thanks for helping!
Dire_Rhino
05-13-07, 03:15 PM Yeah, having him acquire only the knowledge he doesn't already have (mechanically, only higher skill ranks) is nice and flavorful, and doesn't abuse Wish too harshly. As for the "depraved information" bit... I'm getting a "Book of Vile Darkness" vibe from it...

Hum. "If a non-evil character attempts to use the Earring of Arke, they must make a Will save (DC 16, +1 per attempt). Success represents being able to extract the necessary information from the Earring, granting the character a +10 bonus on their next skill check, with an additional +10 bonus if the character attempts a Knowledge or Bardic Lore check. Failure means that they have succumbed to the twisted, depraved information within the Earring. They suffer from a continuous confusion effect, as per the spell Insanity. Regardless of the outcome, the next time the character attempts to use the Earring, the DC of the Will save increases by 1."

That's flavor-riffic.

Also, you may wish to add a Nystul's Magic Aura effect, or else the first guy to detect magic on it is going to have his retinas burnt out.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
RoninFrosty 05-12-07, 02:11 PM	A.) I'd like this statted, as item creation (of the magical type) eludes me. B.) I'd like some sort of fail safe in the event that a PC grabs this. Arke's Earring In a time before the civilized races walked the land, the Material Plane was in a constant state of warfare between good and evil outsiders. One such evil outsider was a Demon Lord named Arke, who in all fairness, was much less interested in the war itself as the pursuit of knowledge that winning said war would allow. The creation of the civilized races ended the war as the desperate mortals banded together and banished both the good and evil outsiders. Arke, wholly content with the war being over, devised a scheme to absorb as much knowledge as possible. The idea struck him while watching his minions stockpile ancient and magical weaponry. Knowledge, it was said, was the ultimate weapon. Why not create some sort of "armory of knowledge"? Something which he could tap into at any time to research any topic of his choosing? Arke knew well the mystical properties of the flames of Hell, and he used these unquenchable fires to forge his Earring, a small globe of seemingly floating fire in a metallic casing. While preparing to imbue the Earring with the magical properties required to store such vast amounts of knowledge as Arke required, a new idea struck him. He'd been prepared to make the sharing of knowledge voluntary; that is, he would have had to willfully think about the knowledge he'd want entered into the Earring. But by making it involuntary, he could save time, and also expedite his search by "copying" the knowledge of others. So he altered the spell he prepared to cast, and completed the Earring. Throughout the ages of relative peace since the great war, Arke has allowed the Earring to fall into possession of many, and retrieved it to gain the knowledge of these people. To this point, he's included a Druid, effectively learning how to speak Druidic (The OOC reason I made the Earring, to justify his speaking of said tongue), and many powerful clerics, gaining an intricate knowledge of the mystical forces that move the realm. --- Now, anyone wanna help me tackle this? Thanks for reading that beast, and thanks in advance for any help that may come of this.
Dead_Weasel 05-12-07, 03:20 PM	You might want to take a look at the Illithid Savant PrC for ideas, although I realize that it is rather different from what you want.
RoninFrosty 05-12-07, 11:10 PM	I may have to take a look... ...but would anyone with any item creation expertise like to look at this, mayhaps?
Dire_Rhino 05-13-07, 03:53 AM	This looks very interesting. I can smell the artifact cooking from here... However, what, game-mechanically, does it do? I can tell from your description that it "absorbs the knowledge of people". How do you want this reflected in the mechanics of the game? Here's a first shot. It occurs to me that, after acquiring the minds of countless thousands, the Earring of Arke would have acquired a mind of its own. This would aid it in being able to find new people to suggest (What a pretty earring!), and allow it to refuse to be used by the (presumably opposite-alignment) PCs. Plus, Arke him(her?)self can probably win an Ego battle against the thing whenever necessary. (A side note - It seems that a demon lord, being chaotic evil and reveling in slaughter, would be much less likely to create it than devil - the thing smacks of LE to me...) Price: Artifact (320,000) Body Slot: Slotless Caster Level: 20th Aura: Strong evocation A small globe of crystal hangs at the end of a short mithral chain. Inside the globe, a miniature fire burns furiously. AL CE (LE?) Int 19 Wis 10 Cha 19 Speech (all languages, read magic at will) Telepathy 120' darkvision, blindsense & hearing Ego 33 Lesser powers: Amanuensis at will (needs no paper - the information is copied into the library of Arke) Locate object 3/day Suggestion 3/day Greater powers: Know Vulnerabilites at will Detect Thoughts at will Special Purpose: Acquire Knowledge Can use wish 1/month. Personality: The Earring of Arke was forged in the fires of the Fourth Circle of Hell by the Daemon Lord Arke, who infused the crystal sphere with a shard of his soul-essentia. The item can speak and communicate telepathically, but rarely does; it prefers to remain silent and unknown. It usually uses detect thoughts to find a person with great stores of knowledge; it then casts suggestion, suggesting that the target would like to wear the beautiful jewelry. The Earring uses detect thoughts on its possessor constantly, learning everything the possessor knows. It also uses amanuensis to copy any texts the possessor has access to, using suggestion to gain access to the texts if necessary. After a month, the Earring casts wish, copying the owner's skills for itself. The Earring will never use its wish for any other purpose. Arke has placed an arcane mark on the Earring, and casts Drawminj's instant summons once the wish has been used, retrieving his Earring. He subsequently casts wish himself, transferring the earring's skill points to himself. Excuse any errors that I may have made, please; I do not often dabble in intelligent items. The failsafe here is that to use any of these powers, the PC must make a DC 33 Will save - a Wis 18 cleric won't hit that before lvl 15 or so, and that's only on a n20. Of course, you can DM-fiat a higher DC, so they can never hit it and thus can never use it. Also, the wish can never be abused, as it is a dedicated power that the item will always have control over regardless of Ego battles.
RoninFrosty 05-13-07, 07:18 AM	To simplify matters, I'm just going to make my comments directly to the SBlock. Price: Artifact (320,000) Body Slot: Slotless Caster Level: 20th Aura: Strong evocation A small globe of crystal hangs at the end of a short mithral chain. Inside the globe, a miniature fire burns furiously. AL CE (LE?) I was personally thinking that with the vast amounts of both vile and pure knowledge within, that the Int 19 Earring itself might be neutral...but thinking about it, he is a demon, so... Wis 10 Cha 19 Speech (all languages, read magic at will) Telepathy 120' darkvision, blindsense & hearing Ego 33 Lesser powers: Amanuensis at will (needs no paper - the information is copied into the library of Arke) Like this one. Forgot all about it. Locate object 3/day Suggestion 3/day Greater powers: Know Vulnerabilites at will Detect Thoughts at will Special Purpose: Acquire Knowledge Can use wish 1/month. Personality: The Earring of Arke was forged in the fires of Hell (fixed, probably should've informed you I'm using a CCS :D)by the Daemon Lord Arke, who infused the crystal sphere with a shard of his soul-essentia. The item can speak and communicate telepathically, but rarely does; it prefers to remain silent and unknown. It usually uses detect thoughts to find a person with great stores of knowledge; it then casts suggestion, suggesting that the target would like to wear the beautiful jewelry. The Earring uses detect thoughts on its possessor constantly, learning everything the possessor knows. It also uses amanuensis to copy any texts the possessor has access to, using suggestion to gain access to the texts if necessary. After a month, the Earring casts wish, copying the owner's skills for itself. The Earring will never use its wish for any other purpose. Arke has placed an arcane mark on the Earring, and casts Drawminj's instant summons once the wish has been used, retrieving his Earring. He subsequently casts wish himself, transferring the earring's skill points to himself. I think to avoid him eventually having hundreds of skill points, I'd houserule that he keeps the highest skill modifier for that particular skill present amongst all the victims he's chosen. Otherwise, great job on something I didn't think about. Now, since you asked, mechanically I'd intended to have it provide a flat bonus to all knowledge checks, probably like +20 or 25...but in retrospect, since it's been around for so long, I was thinking of making it a D% check, with the DM deciding how likely it is the Earring knows it. Of course, while still in Arke's possession, if he finds the Earring doesn't know something, he damn near goes mad trying to learn it. And that failsafe's good...but I was thinking something along the lines of a "mind rape" type effect. A lot of this knowledge is dark and depraved...a normal mind can only withstand so much insanity (Lovecraftish). Maybe a will save everytime the Earring's consulted...something along those lines. Otherwise, very great job. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed looking at the potential this artifact. Thanks for helping!
Dire_Rhino 05-13-07, 03:15 PM	Yeah, having him acquire only the knowledge he doesn't already have (mechanically, only higher skill ranks) is nice and flavorful, and doesn't abuse Wish too harshly. As for the "depraved information" bit... I'm getting a "Book of Vile Darkness" vibe from it... Hum. "If a non-evil character attempts to use the Earring of Arke, they must make a Will save (DC 16, +1 per attempt). Success represents being able to extract the necessary information from the Earring, granting the character a +10 bonus on their next skill check, with an additional +10 bonus if the character attempts a Knowledge or Bardic Lore check. Failure means that they have succumbed to the twisted, depraved information within the Earring. They suffer from a continuous confusion effect, as per the spell Insanity. Regardless of the outcome, the next time the character attempts to use the Earring, the DC of the Will save increases by 1." That's flavor-riffic. Also, you may wish to add a Nystul's Magic Aura effect, or else the first guy to detect magic on it is going to have his retinas burnt out.