Part of the upcoming campaign involves an artifact that is on the material plane and is transportable so that's really the only limitations. The best i've been able to come up with is that the artifact has something to do with a deity/powerful outsider of death and interacts with them in some drastic way rather than just duplicating high-level spells or something of that sort, so, ideally, it would be a unique ability that has RP elements built into it. I have searched for magical items/artifacts online but nothing seemed suitable so i'm turning to the power of collaboration.
Looking forward to some creative ideas.
Are you looking for something evil like:
The Onyx Skull of [Insert Name]
Animates corpses within 30'. 10% chance for each corpse of 1HD to animate every round at the beginning of the bearer's turn. Animated undead (zombies for freshly killed, skeletons for older) are under the bearer's control (no HD limit).
Creatures with more HD may be raised by adding a number of charges to the skull as a standard action:
HD - Charges - Raised As
2 - 1 - Ghoul
3 - 2 - Shadow
4 - 3 - Wight
5 - 4 - Vampire Spawn
8 - 5 - Mummy
9+ - 6 - Greater Shadow
After using the Skull in this way, the bearer must succeed a fortitude save (DC equal to the charges used) or gain a number of temporary negative levels equal to the charges remaining on the skull. A creature slain by gaining too many negative levels while bearing the skull (regardless of the source of those negative levels) cannot be brought back to life by any means until the skull is destroyed and rises as an undead creature at midnight as if charging the skull.
It is unknown how many charges the skull may contain, but the skull reduces its charge by 1 at midnight every night. This amount doubles if the skull is within a desecrated area (as the spell), and is completely reset during a lunar eclipse.
Or maybe something that focuses more on the life transference of necromancy?
I would imagine the ideal for a necromantic artifact would be a staff or chalice of some sort that can convert people from living to undead without going through the normal processes.
For devoted servants who deserve a reward, the user could transform them into a Vampire or Lich or JuJu Zombie or something similar, increasing their power, granting them the "perfection" of undeath, and letting them retain their human minds. These would be under their own control of course, though perhaps a clause that they are in some way prevented from harming their maker is in order.
Against enemies or failed servants, it could transform them into other types of undead, which intelligent or not do not retain the memories they had in their former lives. Banshees, Ghouls (some interpretations), Wraiths, Skeletons and Zombies, and so on. All under the control of the user.
Could also be interesting to fight against someone using this, as they'd essentially be able to change undead types at will to better fight a specific party composition.
Something focusing on the life/death aspects of necromancy might grant the benefits of death knell continually, so that when anyone dies nearby, the bearer grows stronger. For more fun powers, maybe it has a short-range vampiric touch power that grants the bearer 1 hp permanently for every 10 pts. they drain from a target (subject to the calculated maximum based on clases, hd, Con, etc.). It can raise the dead by taking the life of another and transferring the energy over, the unlucky target being slain as if hit by destruction (or worse, needing miracle, wish, or direct divine intervention to revive).
The Chalice of Souls. Whoever drinks from it is immediately disintegrated and their ash flows into the chalice, disappearing entirely. Some say that the victims of the Chalice are sent... somewhere.
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Undead Aura: Animate Dead spell is cast automatically on any dead creature (aura effect). Animated dead aren't under control, but will not attack the keeper of artifact. Pretty much ideal artifact for necromancer who walks around town killing people and causing chaos, and destruction.
Absorb Life: As Mass, Inflict Light Wounds but dealt damage is also added as temporary hp for several hours. Several uses per day, but I wouldn't set this as main artifact's ability.
Aging: Artifact ages victim for ~10 years and absorbs half of those years which can be used by the wielder to constantly keep himself young. If artifact is removed, wielder loses half of those gained year, potentially causing instantaneous death.
Blood Curse: Wielder can sacrifice 1 Con permanently and attempt to put a blood curse on a single creature. There is numerous things you can put under curses such as: boiling blood, animation of creature, loss of Constitution, or something else.
That's all I could think of. I suggest putting a negative effect in artifact if it's a hostile effect or very strong effect.
Adam
It is a sinister sword of black metal. When used to kill a living creature, the final blow drives the sword straight through the torso (or torso-equivalent) of the victim.
However, when the sword is removed from the victim, the killing blow is undone and they return to life with no additional penalties. The victim cannot return to life by any means but removing the sword. Even wishes and other powerful magic are insufficient.
It could be used to trap powerful enemies that have countermeasures to death. Maybe the party discovers a strange, ancient corpse with a neat-looking sword stuck in it...
My homebrew setting was almost got destroyed by a bbeg trying to use an artifact that acts as a Mass Animate Dead (no material component required) with a range of 100 miles, which would have been used in a ruined city with millions of dead.
Pretty good stuff! I like the unique ideas like gaining permanent hp and the sword Umbral Reaver suggested. I may build off both of those, a cool idea that came to me has something to do with a monstrous transformation, not the most life/death necromancy thing but perhaps the transformation has something to do with the users spirit. On a side note, the PC's won't have a chance (or reason) to use this artifact so its power can be fairly unchecked within reason of course. It would be cool if someone who wanted power could have a use for the item rather than the evil standard of: "I just want to destroy!"
Classic of course is the Black Cauldron from the book and movie of the same name. Basically animates any corpse put into it. Undead produced are quite a bit tougher than standard Pathfinder Zombies, so you might want to up them a fair amount.
Rhad, just Google Vecna. Hand of or Eye of for all your necromantic quasi-deity needs.
Agreed. Body Parts of Vecna.
Stone of (insert campaign appropriate name here)
Onyx sphere. Takes 48 hours to attune to a user (only needs to be in their possession). After this time, it radiates a 30 ft. desecrate effect.
Each round, any living creature in the area, except the user, needs to make FORT save or lose HP as per vampiric touch. Any HP gained are transferred to the attuned user.
Each day that goes by without a transfer of energy, the user must make a fort save, or the stone takes his hp instead, and the user gains no benefit. If the stone takes all of the user's hp, his type is changed to undead, and is under the control of the stone, per dominate monster.
The user is otherwise aware he is dead, and does not lose any of his personality, but is forbidden to convey his or her condition to anyone.
It is an intelligent item, and it's purpose is to promote the use of necromancy, in any way it can, and to stay active as long as it can. It can communicate telepathically with its user, or anyone within 30 ft.
The stone can be stopped by casting remove curse on the user (beat caster level 25), or if the user has become the undead servant of the stone, he must be destroyed, and the stone not allowed to attune to another person for as many days as his undead servant had HD. If the undead is raised or re-animated during that time frame, the stone immediately is re-attuned or immediately gains domination over it again.
It knows all necromancy spells, and can any of them a total number of times per day as its user has hit dice, at caster level of 25. It can also grant its user use of these spells (user's HD becomes caster level), as long as it continues to feed it HP daily.
(borrowing from one of the things I did in Skyrim)
This circlet is of dwarvish make and features a large, cyan crystal of unknown material centrally. Once per day the wearer can activate the circlet, releasing a burst of necromantic energy, which reanimates all corpses within 100 feet of the wearer. Corpses reanimated this way are as capable as they were when still alive. Much like summoned monsters, they follow the wearer of the crown obediently and attack anything hostile to the wearer. The corpses remain animated for 2 minutes, then fall lifeless again. Such corpses can still be animated by other means in the future.
Whispered storied in darkened pubs tell of an individual who has found a way to activate the power of the circlet at will.
If you are going with the sword or something similar, you could use an idea that i have wanted to use for a long time:
The sword (or other weapon) has been forged from the iron in the blood of a thousand righteous heroes/innocent children/virgins/whatever you want.
Somehow I just find the idea of a badguy burning away everything but the iron in the blood and collecting it to forge a blade very fitting for an evil artifact.
Edit: a friend just told me that apparently lord vetinari from the discworld series wields a blade that is said to be made in this fashion. Don't know if I read the book at some point or if I came up with it on my own, but beware, if one of your players is a Discworld nerd, he might accuse you of stealing the idea.
It would take a lot more than a thousand people to gather enough iron to make a breadknife, much less a sword.
Which makes things better, not worse. Thematically, at least. =)
According to these people on reddit, who actually did the math, it's less than 400 people...
But then again, they based their calculation on the complete amount of iron in the body, not only in the blood. Wouldn't know, how much of those 4 grams are to be found where...
After a slight bit of research, it looks like there is roughly 2 grams of iton in the blood alone, so double that number for a longsword. Probably would need to double it again for a Zweihander or some such.
So nevermind, your 1000 people figure was probably pretty close.
Though also from what I found children only have 3 grams of iron in their body rather than 4, so assuming the same ratio holds you'd need quite a few more children than adult males.
How about an artifact that does something huge in a McGuffin type of way, that just has the side effect of aging someone a year for every (day/hour) they hold on to it? Maybe even giving them bonuses to mental stats / negatives to physical stats after a while.
Perhaps give the bearer a bonus side effect on Protection from Negative Energy for actually having the item on them. Perhaps minor shadow control? Maybe also give the holder some strange cantrip effect of shadows elongating around you to make you look like Emperor Palpatine once you pass middle age... give a great excuse to include Shadow Evocation as a per-day ability...
Give the item an Ego to make it so that some characters believe this item is the best thing since fresh air, so they will not willingly give it up. If someone dies of old age while holding onto it, <insert role playing element>. If someone puts it down after considerable aging, they go back to their normal age at the same rate they were aged. Once enough people are aged into the artifact, <insert awesome Role Playing element here>.
If you are going with the sword or something similar, you could use an idea that i have wanted to use for a long time:
The sword (or other weapon) has been forged from the iron in the blood of a thousand righteous heroes/innocent children/virgins/whatever you want.
Somehow I just find the idea of a badguy burning away everything but the iron in the blood and collecting it to forge a blade very fitting for an evil artifact.
Edit: a friend just told me that apparently lord vetinari from the discworld series wields a blade that is said to be made in this fashion. Don't know if I read the book at some point or if I came up with it on my own, but beware, if one of your players is a Discworld nerd, he might accuse you of stealing the idea.
Phylactery of the Overlord:
Major Necromantic Artifact
Description: An obsidian sphere about the size of a fist, encased in a spider-webbing of a silvery yet smoky, unknown metal. The sphere is perfect save for arcane sigils covering it's surface and a small crack on one side that seems to constantly leak a gaseous vapor.
Abilities:
1. An attuned user of the Phylactery (In possession of for 3 days) can perform a simple, 3 hour ritual that turns the holder into a Lich, with the artifact as its phylactery (user will keep class and level).
2. Every creature slain by the attuned, Lich-made holder of the artifact is raised as an intelligent undead creature under the holder's control (no HD limit).
- thence forth, all undead creatures made this way can also slay creatures and raise unintelligent undead under their control. (Normal necromancer HD limit)
-- and lastly, all unintelligent undead made this way can slay creatures and raise them as unintelligent undead under no ones control.
3. The user also gains the ability to use channel negative energy (with control undead) and can cast all inflict spells (according to their level) a certain number of times per day.
-May also grant other necromantic spells/abilities (such as create undead...)
4. Owner knows exact location of artifact at all times, can scry it, and will be alerted to any disturbances of said artifact.
Ego: LE Artifact (Communications through telepathy and can read thoughts)
Wants to control the world under one rule (though willing to share proxy rulership with owner) through any means possible and glory in a world filled with undeath.
Has a fickle personality and will use its influence for the express purpose of obtaining a more powerful owner:
Destruction: A pure of heart, LG character may obtain the artifact and sacrifice themselves body and soul (both are irrevocably destroyed) to the artifact for the purpose of destroying it, using a simplified 5 minute form of the ritual normally used to transform an owner into a Lich (does not have to attune).
Another thing: Whatever powers you give to the artifact, make them addicting. Players tend to metagame dangerous temptations and turn their characters into the most strongwilled, levelheaded types, who would never fall prey to them. After they use the powers, just use the addiction rules for drugs, so the character has actually fight the impulse to use it again and again in increasingly trivial situations.
I created a Necromantic artifact a couple years ago. There's a lot to it, and it's really powerful, but I'll post it below - maybe it's what you're looking for. It's the artifact for creating Romano Zombies, which, you know, can be a world-ender.
Description –
The cover of this book is made of human faces. The noses have been removed, and the skin stretched taught, heated and sewn together with other faces, it is difficult to identify the victims as surely human, yet it is unmistakable that the two inch-thick cover used to belong to several living creatures. The cover reads “Book of the Dead” in Infernal.
Reading from the Book of the Dead is an evil act, and anyone who does so willingly will force their alignment to change to Evil for 24 hours. Once someone starts to read from it, they are met with such strong levels of compulsion that a DC 24 Will save is required to stop reading. A new save is only allowed after four hours following a failed save. Reading the book from cover-to-cover requires thirty days of study. Doing so requires such pure levels of sin that the reader is forever marked as evil.
After reading the book cover-to-cover, the reader gains a +5 bonus on all charisma-based skills and checks when interacting with the dead or undead. While holding the book, the reader casts all spells with the Death descriptor as if his caster level were two levels higher, and he can make use of the following Spell-like Abilities (all of which also gain the +2 caster level bonus):
Constant – Death Ward, Deathwatch, Detect Undead, Unhallow (Self)
At will – Command Undead, Halt Undead, Sculpt Corpse, Speak with Dead
3/Day – Animate Dead, Circle of Death, Undeath to Death
1/Day – Control Undead, Create Undead
1/Week – Create Greater Undead, Soul Bind
Reading the Book of the Dead also allows the reader to use the following ability:
Addleman Ichor –
Reagents: One pint of user’s blood, Create Greater Undead, Book of the Dead
To create Addleman Ichor, the user must meditate from and read from the Book of the Dead for a full week – without stopping. At the end of the week, the user casts Create Greater Undead on his pint of blood, completing the ritual. The pint of blood has become one ounce of Addleman Ichor.
The ounce can be split into up to four portions. Ingesting any Addleman Ichor causes a living creature to contract Addleman Fever (Disease: Fortitude DC 30 negates – no additional saves (subtract 2 from the DC for each additional portion (DC 30 as 1 portion, 28 as 2 portions, 26 as 3 portions, 24 as 4 portions))). Addleman Fever is permanent, but can be cured with a Remove Disease spell. The only affects of Addleman Fever is the fatigued condition. Any creature immune to, or with the ability to ignore fatigue still has Addleman Fever, but is not fatigued.
When the creator draws his blood (usually a standard action), any creatures within 150’ effected by Addleman Fever instantly die (no save). This is a death affect. Thirty seconds later, all creatures killed in this way become Ichor Zombies. Casting Remove Disease on a dead creature with Addleman Fever can still remove the effect, though after a creature becomes an Ichor Zombie, it cannot be saved. A creature killed in this way can only be resurrected if their zombified body is first killed, a Wish/Miracle spell is used to remove their undead affliction, and then with a resurrection spell.
Ichor Zombie –
An Ichor Zombie has equal HD as it did in life, though it now uses d8’s regardless of its original hit die. An Ichor Zombie is undead and gains Undead Traits, and loses its Intelligence Score. An Ichor Zombie gains a +4 racial bonus to Charisma. Charisma now adds to HP as Constitution did. In addition, an Ichor Zombie gains the benefits of a permanent Undead Anatomy III spell, except it retains its natural form. All Ichor Zombies' movement speeds are reduced by 10’ (to a minimum of 5’), and they lose all weapon proficiencies. Ichor Zombies’ actions cannot be controlled. Ichor Zombies are immune to critical hits, precision damage, and called shot affects.
An Ichor Zombie’s bite attack now carries Ichor Fever, which behaves exactly as Addleman Fever, except it’s contracted by injury instead of ingesting, and the target dies after five rounds, and becomes an Ichor Zombie after an additional five rounds. The Fort DC is now 28. Creatures within the area of a Hallow spell cannot contract Ichor Fever.
Head Shot – Ichor Zombies have DR 15/-. This DR is present everywhere on an Ichor Zombie except the head. Any called shots to an Ichor Zombie’s head are automatic critical threats, and precision damage applies. However, an Ichor Zombie is still immune to any additional called shot effects. This is the only exception to the Ichor Zombie’s otherwise immunity to critical hits and precision damage.
Destruction –
The information within the Book of the Dead is not erased easily. The only way to destroy the book is to first scrub the pages clean with the tears of a Good aligned outsider, while consciously reading its contents. As reading the book cover-to-cover requires thirty days, Will saves to take breaks, procs the Living Fuel effect (see below), and leaves the reader permanently evil, so too does this process for the book’s cleanser. Once every page has been scrubbed clean, the book’s contents will begin to re-write themselves after 24 hours. To prevent this, the blank book must be burned in a pyre with a Lawful Outsider; the book’s ashes mixing with the outsider’s.
Ramifications –
Living Fuel: The Book of the Dead craves life. Like how a living creature inhales oxygen and exhales carbon dioxide, the book sucks life forces into itself and excretes undeath. Holding the Book of the Dead for one day causes a living, mortal creature to become one year younger. If that creature is immune to magical aging affects, the creature instead becomes one week younger every day.
This effect has an additional chance to proc every time the user uses one of the book’s spell-like abilities. Every time an at-will SPL is used, there is a 5% chance to proc, 10% chance for a 3/Day SPL, 25% chance for a 1/Day SPL, and 50% chance for a 1/Week SPL. Also, an additional proc occurs during each day the user is preparing Addleman Ichor, with a final 50% chance to proc if the Create Greater Undead spell is used from the book.
Senile Youth: Every time Living Fuel magically reduces the user below the minimum age for their race via the Starting Ages Chart, DC 24 Will save or roll a random insanity. Lasts until over minimum age.