I have an item that an evil orc army is using to make a hole in the sky during the day to make it night time in a large area. The item is about the size of a medium-sized tree trunk, and works like a pyrotechnic device. What it does is fire a beam into the sky that opens a hole in the day time area and effectively makes it night. Like if the people in the area of effect look up, they'll see stars in the sky. They're using them in groups to make an even larger area of the sky night time. Gets rid of that pesky daylight sensitivity, and some other things they're relying on. This is a plot-dependent item that's being used to affect a battlefield. But being plot-dependent doesn't mean it's player-resistant, so I want to have it detailed when the players run across it.
So, if the players manage to find one, how do I stat it out? What school of magic does that sound like? The effect is out of the range of a dispel, it's very high in the sky that the hole opens up. You can see the hole in the sky from miles away. It's not just scrying the night sky from the other side of the world, it really is night in that area of effect. So would that be transmutation or conjuration?
Plenty of ways to do it. It could be an illusion (much as Darkness is), or it could be conjuration (conjuring a portal that reaches forward 12 hours to turn the sky to tonight).
If it is a portal, then let the players use that to plan ambushes. If it's not, illusion probably works best.
As to statting it up, don't get too bogged down. Assign it a weight (Heavy!), HP, and a hardness, and then be done with it. They are artifacts, the Orcs can't make more of them (or they shouldn't be able to if you want your game world to work realistically). Give the orcs X of them, and allow them to be stolen or destroyed until the orcs don't have enough to carry their army forward.
I personally like the idea of Abjuration. Its protecting an area against the suns rays.
I disagree mdt that the orcs shouldn't be able to make more of them. They should take an incredible ammount of time and some kind of ritual though. Probably sacrifices.
Plenty of ways to do it. It could be an illusion (much as Darkness is),
Blame it on my exacting nature. Darkness is evocation.
Evocation, to create a large area of darkness in the sky to blot out the sun, much like an eclipse would. I think it would be awesome as a minor artifact.
Evocation, to create a large area of darkness in the sky to blot out the sun, much like an eclipse would. I think it would be awesome as a minor artifact.
I would not choose evocation because of one of the things the OP said: "Like if the people in the area of effect look up, they'll see stars in the sky." To me, evocation would create a black nothingness when you look up. This is not that.
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I would not choose evocation because of one of the things the OP said: "Like if the people in the area of effect look up, they'll see stars in the sky." To me, evocation would create a black nothingness when you look up. This is not that.Evocation, to create a large area of darkness in the sky to blot out the sun, much like an eclipse would. I think it would be awesome as a minor artifact.
I beg to differ. I think if you had a chain of darkness spells above you you'd still see the stars. I think evocation would work perfectly for this minor artifact, and is pretty cool.
I think its also a point that there are so many ways you can do this that it does not really matter what you tell the players, you can come up with something cool. In fact, it could be emanating multiple types of magic, and thus confusedetect magic.
All very good ideas. Thanks for the input, guys. Still need to think about how to do it but I appreciate the comments.
For more info, it takes two orcs to carry these things from the wagon to their specific locations in the fight. They are consumed by use, so it wouldn't be a single artifact, but multiple expendable items that they have several of stored up. Enough to maintain their current campaign at least, but I agree, if they make too much progress too quickly, they should be stymied by a shortage.
So, it could be evocation (darkening the daytime sky to make it night), or it could be conjuration (opening a portal to some place/time where it IS night), or transmutation (changing day to night?), or it could be abjuration (diverting/blocking the light over the area). Tough call.
I don't really want it to be used as a device to transport the characters through a portal, so I guess I should avoid the conjuration interpretation. Still thinking about it.
Thanks!
Hopefully you have no scientists in the group? Because what you're describing isn't a "hole in the sky" -- it's simply the cancellation of ambient daylight in a given area (as your most recent post implies, but the wording of the OP made no sense to me at first). We don't see the stars during the day simply because the sun's light is so much brighter that it drowns them out. That said, all you're looking at is a very large-scale darkness spell. Unless in your campaign world things are intended to work radically differently than they do on earth?