Destroy an artifact ideas

[Vuvu]

suppossed to be easy to destroy, relatively. It is a gem that deals w summoning and about the size of a basketball. Ideas?

[Petty Alchemy]

Usually there are hints in the lore of artifacts, so try to do some research there.

Otherwise, it depends on the party resources.

[Umbral Reaver]

Make a creature it summoned eat the item then kill the creature. When the creature dies, it vanishes, taking the item with it.

[Petty Alchemy]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

Make a creature it summoned eat the item then kill the creature. When the creature dies, it vanishes, taking the item with it.

Then somewhere out there, a level one adventurer summons the same monster and it vomits out this artifact gem. Sounds like a plot hook to me.

[CapeCodRPGer]

Not sure this will work, never been done as far as know.Throw it into the lava of a volcano. I came up with that original idea myself ;)

[Vuvu]

it could be the pathfinder version of joe vs the volcano

[dave.gillam]

Take it to Mt Cheddar and throw it in a puddle of molten cheese

Seriously, the "eaten by one of its summoned creatures" is a fun way to recycle it.

You could have the players have to quest to a particular spot on the negative energy plane and bind it to something, so that the plane will strip it of its creation energy

If thats too high for their level, then have them soak it in a pool of fluid from the mix of A vampire's blood, ghosts blood (and let them have fun figuring out that one) etc, (undead up to CR) under the light of a new moon for the full period of the time undisturbed (3 nights) in total darkness, and of course some BBEG wants the stone so they have to defend it.

While Im familiar with PF rules, Im not familiar with Golarion world; if there is a god of tyranny or slavery or binding or such; smashing the jem on the alter of his main church with an unholy hammer dedicated to him would be another fun way. And it will be interesting to see how heroes convince the evil church to cooperate with that instead of just stealing the artifact.

[Trinite]

Bury it on the surface of Groetus.

Oh, you said easy to destroy? Feed it to a Protean.

Okay, fine, *easy* to destroy. Cast dispel magic on it.

Yeah, that's maybe a little too easy. How about strike it with a unicorn horn in an area of pure blue light?

[Vicon]

If commanded to summon "nothingness" it winks out of existence.

[hgsolo]

Vicon wrote:

If commanded to summon "nothingness" it winks out of existence.

Or it builds up a tremendous amount of arcane might and summons... NOTHING!

[Drejk]

CapeCodRPGer wrote:

Not sure this will work, never been done as far as know.Throw it into the lava of a volcano. I came up with that original idea myself ;)

Brilliant! Why did I not thought of it myself?! :P

Seriously, Umbral Reaver had a great idea matching the theme of the artifact. I would refine it a bit, so it would require specific monster or additional conditions instead of any of its summons (assuming the summoning artifact ability is easy in use) and a research or some sort of lore quest to know exactly what, where, when and how has to be summoned to get rid of it.

[meowstef]

maybe track down something it has summoned on it's home plane and make it eat the artifact there?

[Ascalaphus]

How was the artifact made? If we take the One Ring for example, it was taken back to the volcano it was forged in. The things capable of making an artifact are a candidate to be capable of unmaking it.

OTOH, in LOTR there's also talk of alternative ways of destroying it; for example dragon's breath, but it's believed no sufficiently hot dragons will be available. The important lesson is that Only One Way is a bit meh. Once the PCs figure out that destroying the artifact is a good idea, you could (Knowledge, NPC, Divination) suggest several possible ways, and let them decide which way they're gonna pursue.

As for destroying a crystal, I'd go with a big hammer. Do you have a god or titan with a big hammer somewhere? A Thor or Hephaestus type perhaps? I mean, you'd need something supernatural to break this super-strong crystal, but breaking seems just right.

Another idea is to overload it somehow; I have this mental image of a crystal starting to glow brighter and brighter, and everyone running for cover. Perhaps by putting it in the crossfire of several cosmic power surges (peak of a mountain during the Grand Conjunction of planes or something like that)?

And this is a summmoning thing, so maybe get it to try to summon itself, creating a recursive loop that pulls it inside out and destroys it that way? The hard part might not be to trigger it, but to keep it from turning the planet into a black hole as a side effect. So you'd have to drag the thing to a safe corner of the multiverse where it won't do so much collateral damage.

[trhvmn]

Put it inside a bag of holding, then put the bag inside a portable hole.

[Bertious]

Have a shatter spell applied to in the bell tower of whatever god is best linked to it at noon while the bell tolls the hour.

[boring7]

Deals with summoning, really big, relatively easy to kill. Everything's relative in PF, so I've got a pretty wide range.

A few things spring to mind, let's start with "burned out by exceeding parameters."

-Used to summon an extremely powerful beast that does not wish to be called, such as a demon-lord or a demigod.

-Used to summon a powerful creature to it's opposition, such as an elemental fire-prince to the plane of water.

-Used to UNsummon the first thing it ever called into the prime, if you can find the beast.

-Used on a plane (let's say earth) to summon a creature home (say a HD-advanced Xorn currently cruising the prime).

Next up we have "unmaking".

-Finding its (presumably dead and in the afterlife) creator and demanding she deconstruct it. Possibly having to summon a petitioner using it?

-Finding some other abjuration-based artifact made by its creator and combining them.

-shattered by the chisel that first cut it.

-somehow used to summon/send itself back to the point in time where it first appeared, making its entire existence a stable time-loop.

And finally, weird odds and ends.

-Tossed into the gears of Mechanus

-tossed from the top (or near it) of the spire in the center of the Outlands, assuming you can actually burrow out of Sigil.

-Find/make an artifurnace and go spelljamming.

-Use it as the material component for a Trap the Soul spell affecting something really big, maybe the Tarrasque. Remember there's no save or spell resistance if you use a trigger object, and no self-respecting eating machine will turn down a big tasty ox, even if it's been mind controlled and branded with spell runes.