Favorite Artifacts?

[Knitifine]

What's everyone favorite artifacts?

Feel free to share why and any stories attached the them.

My personal favorites from the CRB are Sphere of Annihilation, The Orbs of Dragonkind and the Shadowstaff. I think they create a lot of interesting situations.

[lucky7]

The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords. Something about it being +6 makes it feel like a powerful item, because it BREAKS the RULES. This immediately makes it stand out as a non-upgraded Wondrous Item.

[DominusMegadeus]

Cloud Castle of the Storm King, easily. Built in food, plenty of room, defenses, some SLAs. It's just awesome. Nice place for high level adventurers to crash for the night.

The Shield of the Sun is another cool one. Annual fee of one quest for 20th level Paladin casting? Please and thank you.

[Owly]

Daoud's Wondrous Lanthorn (from Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth) was always a favorite of mine.

Powerful, dangerous, evokes "my precious!" and probably sets lots of evil enemies after you, it really got the gears of imagination turning back in the day. It was also one of the first published modules that let players actually get their hands on an artifact-level item instead of just reading about them in the DM Guide.

I think any good artifact will, by definition, be full of history, dangers, power, consequences, etc. It's the kind of thing that entire campaigns can orbit around.

[Sah]

The Scepter of Ages. I've always been fond of time travel, and the devastating effect it has of aging anyone hit by it (1 year per hp, 2 years per hp on a crit) just makes it so cool. It is a +4 heavy mace with an 18-20 crit range, meaning minimum aging is 5 years, maximum 48 years per hit not including bonuses.

Plus its a time machine, so yeah.

[Fourshadow]

The Song of Extinction! The Bard who has it will be quite deadly AND pursued incessantly by Zon-Kuthon cultists. Fun!

[GM Rednal]

I must confess that I tend to make my own Artifacts - usually scaling items from one published system or another, which have strong thematic ties to specific characters. I've always been a big fan of characters having at least one iconic item that represents who they are and how they go about things. XD Of those, I'm most fond of the Staff of Sacred Light (which scales with the user, offers level-appropriate spells, and fulfills a strong light/angelic theme).

For official items, I'm partial to the Jewel of Everlasting Gold.

[Dosgamer]

Hand of Vecna
Eye of Vecna
Head of Vecna...

[tonyz]

The Teeth of Dahlver-Nar (I really must update those for Pathfinder)...

The Sword of Kas (don't you want to have it?)

The Machine of Lum the Mad (what a wonderful name)

[MistaRyte]

Deck of Many Things... yes I love it. Esp. when used like it was in the old Dungeon adventure 'House of Cards' (you HAVE to draw to open the door).

[hiiamtom]

This isn't an artifact, but I love the Mythical if item Skirmishing Spear. I like any weapon that has utility and tried to get around boring full attacks.

[Seneh Gibbraneh]

I've never actually played the adventure, but I always wanted the rod of seven parts.

[Zavas]

The Sihedron Tome. It's pretty great to be able to scribe every spell ever into your spellbook.

Relic of Kazavon - They're really well tied to their theme and story.

St. Cuthbert's Mace. Saint Cuthbert is one of my favorite DnD deities, and the mace is really good if you're a crusading cleric.

[Alleran]

I usually prefer artifacts that break the rules and/or have downsides, rather than just being "super magic items" instead. Think the old artifacts book from 1E/2E. The artifacts there were trememdously powerful, but also tremendously dangerous.

Anyway, some artifacts I like:

- Sihedron. (I just wish the thing wasn't inherently linked with an AP. Makes it more difficult to incorporate into other campaigns.)
- Book of the Damned. (Particularly with Hell Unleashed giving more details on the demiplane.)
- Plaguebringer. (An artifact disease is an intriguing concept.)
- Silver Maiden. (Basically a spelljammer.)
- Ring of Nine Facets. (Variable, intriguing, and a creation of Old-Mage Jatembe.)

[kyrt-ryder]

Vancian Casting.

Wait, did you mean items instead of antiques? :P