As was brought up before in other threads, the multitude of shatter-using spellcasters may be a bit of a problem for the players. I know one of my PCs, the half-orc barbarian, will have her spiked chain targeted at least once. Now, I could just put a +1 spiked chain in with the random treasure, but that feels to hokey. So instead, I came up with a legacy weapon for the campaign. Any input anyone has on this would be much appreciated.
[Notice: I don't know how to do tables on the boards, so please forgive the more than likely bad formatting.]
SHACKLE BREAKER
At first glance, Shackle Breaker appears to be a sub-par example of a spiked chain, heavily rusted and only having seven spikes running along its length. However, despite these cosmetic flaws, Shackle Breaker’s spikes retain a razor’s edge. Those who unlock its power find themselves a mighty foe of spellcasters and those who bend others’ will to their own.
Nonlegacy Game Statistics: +1 cold iron spiked chain; Cost 4,350 gp. The seven spikes that run along the chain are actually pieces of a Sihedron rune.
Omen: Shackle Breaker refuses to be sheathed or stowed, instead wrapping itself around the wielder’s waist or chest. The chain’s spikes do not in any way damage or hinder the wielder, the chain does not take up a magic item slot in this manner, and the wielder may draw Shackle Breaker as a free action.
HISTORY
Thousands of years ago, before the fall of Thassilon, the empires of the Runelords spread far across what is now known as Varisia. Bending dragons, outsiders, and raw magic to their will, the runelords quickly abandoned their virtues of rule for greed, envy, sloth, and other vices of power (DC 21).
In the coastal province of Eurythnia sat Sorshen, Runelord of Lust. Her empire was one of trade and merchant traffic; both in pleasure slaves and exotic goods. One such slave was a half-elf, whose name has been lost to history, owned by the wizard Belzart. Given to cruel whims, Belzart was reviled by her “subjects” and often had slaves killed for displeasing her. The half-elf was a competent minstrel and, unknown to Belzart, warrior in his own right. Using his natural talents for seduction, the half-elf soon became Belzart’s favored slave, a status that afforded him free range throughout the wizard’s estate. It was in the hours when Belzart took to the other slaves when the half-elf began crafting Shackle Breaker. Secretly and over the course of months, the half-elf worked on his weapon, using only his former bonds and a broken Sihedron rune. When he finally finished his work the half-elf presented himself, seemingly bound and helpless, to his mistress. It was then he slew Belzart, slaughtered her guards, and freed his fellow slaves (DC 25; Humble Liberator).
The slave revolt was put quickly down and the half-elf and his weapon were cast into the sea. Shackle Breaker lay in the sand and silt for years until found by sahuagin pirates who bartered it to the half-giant chieftain Nen’Tuum. Nen’Tuum, an escaped slave in the greed-powered empire of Shalast, used the powers of Shackle Breaker to build a small fiefdom of ogres and dwarves. Eventually Nen’Tuum’s holdings caught the attention of runelord Karzoug, who personally came to see who would dare to grow so powerful under his shadow. Using guile and mollification, Nen’Tuum stayed Karzoug’s hand from destroying what he had built (DC 29; Placate Thy Enemy).
Nen’Tuum’s reign was cut short by an attack from the neighboring bugbear legions of runelord Alzanist’s empire; Bakrakhan. Seeing the rage and fury that Nen’Tuum fought with, the bugbear warlord Vurdnott took Shackle Breaker for himself, unaware of its true power. Vurdnott eventually lost Shackle Breaker to agents of Karzoug. Drawing upon its power, the runelord’s human agents bound the barghest Malfeshnekor with Shackle Breaker, keeping him inside one of Karzoug’s sentinel statues. Yet, when the end of Thassilon came, both Malfeshnekor and Shackle Breaker were forgotten (DC 34; Subdue the Demon).
LEGACY RITUALS
Three rituals are required to unlock all the abilities of Shackle Breaker.
Humble Liberator: You must defeat a slave owner who’s Challenge Rating must equal or exceed your character level and then free the owner’s slaves. Cost: 1,500 gp. Feat Granted: Least Legacy (Shackle Breaker).
Placate Thy Enemy: You must convince a Hostile enemy to a community to halt their actions. This may be done with words (a Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate check) or by the offering of a gift (the total of which is subtracted from the total ritual cost). Cost: 13,000 gp. Feat Granted: Lesser Legacy (Shackle Breaker).
Subdue the Demon: You must defeat an evil outsider with a Challenge Rating that equals or exceeds your character level in personal combat. If summoned using a summon monster spell, the outsider must be defeated before the spell duration ends. Cost: 40,000 gp. Feat Granted: Greater Legacy (Shackle Breaker).
WIELDER REQUIREMENTS
Most wielders of Shackle Breaker are fighters or barbarians, but any character proficient with the spiked chain might be interested in its abilities.
SHACKLE BREAKER WIELDER REQUIREMENTS
Base Attack Bonus +5
Craft (weaponsmithing) 4 ranks
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain)
"TABLE" 1-1: SHACKLE BREAKER
5th Level: Personal Cost: None; Arcane Sight
6th Level: Personal Cost: -1 Attack Penlaty; +1 cold iron magebane spiked chain
7th Level: Person Cost: -1 Reflex Save Penalty, -2 Hp; Detect Runelord Servant
8th Level: Person Cost: -2 Hp; None
9th Level: Person Cost: -2 Reflex Save Penalty; Unshackle Mind 3/day
10th Level: Person Cost: -2 Hp; None
11th Level: Person Cost: None; No More Locks
12th Level: Person Cost: -2 Attack Penalty; +1 cold iron magebane giant-bane spiked chain
13th Level: Person Cost: None; Slip the Bonds 1/day
14th Level: Person Cost: -2 Hp; None
15th Level: Person Cost: -3 Reflex Save Penalty; None
16th Level: Person Cost: -2 Hp; Mettle
17th Level: Person Cost: None; Slip the Prison 3/day
18th Level: Person Cost: -3 Attack Penalty; None
19th Level: Person Cost: None; Mental Freedom
20th Level: Person Cost: -4 Reflex Save Penalty; +3 cold iron shattermantle magebane giant-bane spiked chain
LEGACY ITEM ABILITIES
All of the following are legacy item abilities of Shackle Breaker.
Arcane Sight (Su): You can use detect magic or read magic at will as the spells, using a different command word for each effect.
Detect Runelord Servant (Su): While wielding Shackle Breaker you can detect the presence of any creature with the Giant type within 60 feet, but you must concentrate (a standard action) to do so. If any giants or giant-kin are detected, Shackle Breaker sheds an orange glow equivalent to a torch. If the giant or giant-kin possesses any type of damage reduction, you ignore it when attacking with Shackle Breaker.
Unshackle Mind (Sp): Three times per day, when you issue the command word and gesture with Shackle Breaker (a standard action), you can use break enchantment as the spell (CL 10th).
No More Locks (Su): At will on command, you can open locked or magically sealed items, as with the knock spell.
Slip the Bonds (Sp): Once per day, when you issue the command word and gesture (a standard action), you can use freedom of movement as the spell (CL 10th).
Mettle (Su): At 16th level, the wielder of Shackle Breaker can resist magical attacks with great willpower and fortitude. If the wielder makes a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect. If the wielder is unconscious or sleeping he does not gain the benefit of mettle.
Slip the Prison (Sp): Three times per day, when you issue the command word and gesture with Shackle Breaker (a standard action), you can teleport a short distance, as if affected by the dimension door spell (CL 15th).
Mental Freedom (Su): Shackle Breaker grants the wielder a +3 insight bonus on Will saving throws to resist mind-affecting and compulsion effects.
As I said, input is most appreciated.
That's a very detailed and interesting history! I may have to steal this little hook.
Couple things.
First, "Placate Thy Enemy" might be difficult to work into a pre-published adventure path as written. I'd open it up a little, and allow force of arms as a way of creating peace. Diplomacy at sword point, if you will.
Second, Mage Bane is an undercosted ability. At higher levels, it's "Everything Bane," since it affects creatures with spell-like abilities, such as about every outsider, many aberrations, many giants, as well as most PC classes. I'd personally calculate it as a +3 enhancement bonus, and I still think it's a deal. That said, if you want to keep it, you'd have to recalculate the weapons other benefits and drawbacks, probably moving the ability up to one of the greater powers. (None of that is RAW, but it is more balanced). Personally, I'd avoid the headache and just make it Humanbane, since all of the Runelords were human.
That's a very detailed and interesting history! I may have to steal this little hook.
Couple things.
First, "Placate Thy Enemy" might be difficult to work into a pre-published adventure path as written. I'd open it up a little, and allow force of arms as a way of creating peace. Diplomacy at sword point, if you will.
Second, Mage Bane is an undercosted ability. At higher levels, it's "Everything Bane," since it affects creatures with spell-like abilities, such as about every outsider, many aberrations, many giants, as well as most PC classes. I'd personally calculate it as a +3 enhancement bonus, and I still think it's a deal. That said, if you want to keep it, you'd have to recalculate the weapons other benefits and drawbacks, probably moving the ability up to one of the greater powers. (None of that is RAW, but it is more balanced). Personally, I'd avoid the headache and just make it Humanbane, since all of the Runelords were human.
Thanx for the kind words. Good idea with "Placate Thine Enemy". I was gonna do something with that in part four "Fortress of the Stone Giants", but adding the "...or by force" will proably make it much easier.
And don't worry about magebane, it got nerfed to arcane spell- or invocation-users only in the Magic Item Compendium. And were the Runelords human? I got the impression they were giants.
Considering that the base DC to know anything at all about Thassilon is 30, I see a fairly large inconsistency here...
Considering that the base DC to know anything at all about Thassilon is 30, I see a fairly large inconsistency here...
Crud Nuggets... Could you site that info please?
Congratulations, great history and concept. While my first reaction was "Yow, no way would I give a PC a weapon that fierce" I might suggest making a temporarily more powerful by increasing the bonus to +2 at 15th or 18th level. I'm a slave to smooth progressions, and the jump to +3 at 20th level just kind of jars me.
Considering that the base DC to know anything at all about Thassilon is 30, I see a fairly large inconsistency here...Crud Nuggets... Could you site that info please?
James Jacobs has stated this several times in the forums. In "The Skinsaw Murders," the DC to recognize the Sihedron Rune as something with a vague connection to old Thassilonian magic is 30. The intent here is that the players should have no chance to know anything about Thassilonian history until around Pathfinder #4, when they can start putting the pieces together.
I'd suggest rewriting the chain's tale as a series of vague and ancient myths, extremely inaccurate and containing just enough information for the PCs to successfully pull off the rituals. They can uncover the "real" story later on, and marvel at what ten thousand years has done to alter the tale... :)
Good point Midnight. How's this look instead?
There is a tale told around hearth fires in taverns and in hushed corners of slave pens. They tell the tale of a great liberator of slaves and his powerful weapon, Shackle Breaker (DC 21).
In ages long past, long past, when the ruins that dot the Varisian countryside were but rocks in the quarry, there was a demon-queen who dwelled upon the Material Plane; She-Who-Shan’t-Be-Named. This monstrous woman wove powerful magics and made slaves of all those she encountered. But one fateful day, the demon-queen found herself fancying a being known now only as the Maker. History cannot recall whether the Maker was dwarf or elf, halfling or half-orc, or even man or woman (although most tellings depict the Maker as male, at least a few have a more feminine bent). What is remembered is that the Maker learned of the demon-queen’s wicked ways, and allowed himself to be captured in order to find a way to end her tyranny.
And the Maker did just that. A skilled minstrel, he soon wiled and wooed the demon-queen, finding himself as the favored among all her slaves. However, the Maker took this status as a chance to craft a weapon to put an end to the demon-queen. Using only the chains that once bound him, the Maker quietly worked his art in the free hours of the night. When he was finished, he had completed his tool of vengeance; Shackle Breaker. He approached his mistress, seemingly bound and helpless, as a show of his loyalty to her. Suspecting nothing, She-Who-Shan’t-Be-Named was helpless when the Maker unfurled Shackle Breaker and slew her in one stroke. The Maker went on to slaughter the cruel hill and stone giant jailors and freed every last one of the demon-queen’s slaves (DC 25; Humble Liberator).
Though some tales tell of how the Maker fell while defending a legion of freed slaves, many continue the story years later, when the Maker made his way into the Hook Mountains. There he found the stoic dwarves, who became so enamored and impressed with the crafting skills used to create Shackle Breaker, they were to crown him thane-king. However, a king must first prove his worth, and the dwarves set him to the task of eliminating the fire giant threat that lay to the north. Instead of slaying the fire giants, the Maker made them his subjects, stretching his rule over the entirety of what would be the Hook Mountain range.
Gazing down from upon high, a greedy god-king saw the Maker’s nation and decreed that it be his or not exist at all. Warping the very mountains into his minions, the god-king marshaled an army to take what he saw as his. The Maker was not worried though. As the god-king descended upon the capital, the Maker had his dwarven subjects craft all manner of golden fineries smelt in the hottest furnaces the fire giants could stand. When the god-king arrived, fully intent on decimating any resistance, found instead a sumptuous feast and offering of silver and gold, mithril and adamantine. With words of pure honey, the Maker promised the god-king that he and his subjects would fill his coffers full every full moon. The god-king smiled, lay his blessing upon the Maker, and departed for the ethereal vowing never to harm that which the Maker had created (DC 29; Placate Thy Enemy).
The final chapter in the legend of the Maker and Shackle Breaker tells of his titanic struggle with a fiend of epic proportions. The benevolent god-king, who had stayed his hand so many centuries before, came to the Maker with a request; slay the beast known only as That-Which-Ends-All. So the Maker took up Shackle Breaker and began scouring the world for That-Which-Ends-All. Searching non-stop for one hundred years, the Maker could not find his quarry. That is until he realized the only place That-Which-Ends-All could hide from both he and the god-king. The Maker journeyed to the far-off Palace of Gold and sought the god-king. Using the power of Shackle Breaker, the Maker traveled into the skull of the god-king and found That-Which-Ends-All hiding. A snarling, wolf-faced creature that towered over the Maker with dozens of arms and the body of a great dragon, That-Which-Ends-All roared a challenge and charged; his fangs and claws bared. The battle ranged for years, neither gaining an advantage over the other. The Maker reluctantly realized that he could not slay this fiend. And so, the Maker wrapped Shackle Breaker around That-Which-Ends-All’s form, binding it so that it would never trouble the world. Sadly the Maker, now weaponless, was struck down by the fell-beast’s claws, sacrificing himself to defeat his foe (DC 34; Subdue the Demon).
Sweet! That should work nicely.
And yeah, the Runelords were humans. They enslaved giants.
Hence the "Detect Runelord Servant" instead of Detect Runelord like I had originally planned.
Wow Warforged Goblin. That is a wonderful history! I am into specialized weapons and histories (although I straddle the fence on legac weapons). Your weapon and history is great. I may have to use this someday.