Indentifying and selling the Anathema Archive (Black Monk's scroll)

[Sakoyo]

I have a party that's on their way to Jorgenfist. Going over the book for the area, I got stuck on the Anathema Archive. I'm still somewhat new and this is the first artifact that I've come across. What would the party need to do to identify what the item is and what it does? I know that Spellcraft is used to figure out what it does, but would that also tell them what it is or give them the full information on it? Should I have them do a Knowledge (History/Arcana) to know what it is specifically?
Then there's also IDing it as an artifact. Would the spellcraft check be enough to them them that?

The last thing I'm wondering is how to go about selling it. There's only one caster in the party and she's a basic cleric with the fire and healing domains. She doesn't really have points in UMD, so it'll be hard for her to cast from the scroll. I'm pretty sure once they find out about the negatives, they won't want to use it and will want to try to sell it. Does anyone have any advice on how to handle this?

[Digital Mystic]

It kind of strikes me as one of those things that is so powerful... simply trying to sell it will attract the attention of forces beyond your pay grade. Forces that would rather wipe you out than pay for it. This is the pathfinder equivalent of finding a 20 Kilo Square Grouper.

[Ivan Rûski]

If you do decide to let them sell it, the only likely buyer that your PCs are likely to know (assuming you've run the AP as written) is Brodert Quink in Sandpoint. Going by his level and the npc gear table, his total wealth should be around 4,650 gp. Even if he gave your party all his worldly possessions, it wouldn't really amount to much.

That said, you really don't have to stick to the table. Quink is seen as a bit of an odd duck, and it is perfectly plausible that he could be secretly wealthy. My advice would be to come up with a price he is willing to pay that would not put your party too far over their assumed wealth by level.

[Sakoyo]

Thanks for the advice.

What about the questions I had about them going about trying to figure out what it is?

[Ivan Rûski]

For how it functions, I would allow the spellcraft check. But for what it is, I would suggest doing the history and religion checks. If they don't get it when they first find it, have them try again if they do any research in the ancient library. I just info dumped my players on it, as they got the archive after having been to the library, and they have a scholarly bladebound magus in the party with a focus on history whose black blade happpens to be a remnant of Thassilon itself.

[Skeld]

Sakoyo wrote:

Thanks for the advice.

What about the questions I had about them going about trying to figure out what it is?

This is a good place to start with Artifacts.

Spellcraft can certainly let your players know it's magical. Usually when encountering an artifact, I'll tell my players that the aura is "overwhelming" or "artifact-level." Spells like identify specifically don't work on artifacts. "Legend lore" does work on artifacts, but with the caveat that the players learn what the GM wants them to learn. Good, ole fashioned research works too (Knowledge [history], [arcana], [religion], etc.).

This is how I handled the Anathema Archive in my RotRL game (last session, in fact!):

Spoiler:

When the took the Emerald Codex scroll case from the Black Monk, I told them that the case wasn't magical, but that the contents radiated artifact-level magic. Once they opened it, I described the physical properties of the archive and told them it would take legend lore or research to learn more. Since they had taken the library at Jorganfist, I allowed them to research there, gaining the +20 bonus. Once they rolled a knowledge [history] check to learn about the archive, I gave them the description of its magical properties, uses, and (because they rolled pretty high on their check) the means of destruction. However, I left out that part about the archive potentially causing Wisdom drain on a failed check because I'm sneaky and I don't like to give away everything. ;)

As far as selling it, I generally don't allow players to sell artifacts. Artifacts are things so powerful and valuable that selling them becomes an adventure unto itself, like stealing the Mona Lisa and visiting various art stores trying to sell it. Instead, artifacts usually serve a specific purpose in a campaign. The Anathema Archive is a potentially powerful way for the PCs to gain knowledge that would normally be inaccessible to them or otherwise hard to obtain.

As another example, my group desperately wanted to know who Xaliasa was (remember, he's The Scribbler) after seeing the name on Mokmurian's map of the Varisian Coast. Researching in the library proved fruitless (in the grand scheme of Thassilonian history, Xaliasa was unimportant). The party's Magus decided to ask the scroll. He got something of a cryptic answer. The I had the player roll a Will save which he promptly failed and I told him that his character took 1 point of Wisdom drain from the disembodied, haunting voices in his head. I think from a story POV, artifacts work best when the GM doesn't spill all their secrets at once.

-Skeld

[Sakoyo]

>< I feel dumb. It really did not occur to me to not tell them everything about it ^^;