Destroying occult items

[JDS]

How do you handle it in your campaigns?

I'm referring to the amulets, dagger, and other ominous life-changing trappings that crop up frequently in scenarios.

Edited April 14, 2022 by JDS

[EricW]

21 hours ago, JDS said:

How do you handle it in your campaigns?

I'm referring to the amulets, dagger, and other ominous life-changing trappings that crop up frequently in scenarios.

Whatever best serves the plot. I love HPL's story The Hound, which centres around a dangerous amulet - the stealing of which triggers a series of horrible events, which would likely not have ceased even if one of them attempted to destroy the amulet - or maybe it would. Or you have artefacts like the glowing trapezohedron from The Haunter of the Dark, which likely can't be destroyed by any human agency, though maybe it could be buried in concrete or something. 

I certainly wouldn't want to breath in the dust if you tried to destroy an amulet by hitting it with a hammer. Ditto the smoke if you threw it into a fire. Maybe the amulet in one piece traps the malign influence in one place, prevents it from spreading. Imagine the amulet is made of radioactive material - attempting to destroy it might spread the contamination, make it impossible to escape the effect. Imagine carrying a piece of the amulet in the form of dust in your lungs or splinters inside your body forever. 

Lots of options.

Edited April 15, 2022 by EricW

[Darius West]

Honestly, my players were such degenerates that they never tried to destroy any magic items, instead favoring figuring out how to exploit them for $$$.

My personal favorite schtick is wearable items that you can't take off.  I had one player who put on a familiar summoning ring that couldn't be taken off, but he figured out how, using a micro-gate, and then on his next character he put on the Pallid Mask AND read the King in Yellow.  The mask doesn't come off either, and sort of welds to one's skin.

I think any item destruction needs to be a scenario in itself, with attendant dangers.  On the other hand I think it is wiser to take the eagles to Mt Doom with the ring.

 

[EricW]

19 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Honestly, my players were such degenerates that they never tried to destroy any magic items, instead favoring figuring out how to exploit them for $$$.

My personal favorite schtick is wearable items that you can't take off.  I had one player who put on a familiar summoning ring that couldn't be taken off, but he figured out how, using a micro-gate, and then on his next character he put on the Pallid Mask AND read the King in Yellow.  The mask doesn't come off either, and sort of welds to one's skin.

I think any item destruction needs to be a scenario in itself, with attendant dangers.  On the other hand I think it is wiser to take the eagles to Mt Doom with the ring.

 

"What do you mean I've got to throw this ring into the volcano?!" 😉

[JDS]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Honestly, my players were such degenerates that they never tried to destroy any magic items, instead favoring figuring out how to exploit them for $$$.

My personal favorite schtick is wearable items that you can't take off.  I had one player who put on a familiar summoning ring that couldn't be taken off, but he figured out how, using a micro-gate, and then on his next character he put on the Pallid Mask AND read the King in Yellow.  The mask doesn't come off either, and sort of welds to one's skin.

I think any item destruction needs to be a scenario in itself, with attendant dangers.  On the other hand I think it is wiser to take the eagles to Mt Doom with the ring.

 

My players are exactly the same way which is why I want it easy for them to destroy the. Other, it is: look at the distance to Mount Doom on map, look at pawn shop across the street....'

 

So far, what I have:
Item's primary aspect is stone or clay: lightning.
Metal: Encase in a block of bronze, bury.
Paper or wood: Burn.
Bones or leather: dissolve in a mix that is 3 parts strong rum, 1 part pure vinegar, and 1 part black gunpowder.

[Darius West]

On 4/17/2022 at 10:25 PM, JDS said:

My players are exactly the same way which is why I want it easy for them to destroy the. Other, it is: look at the distance to Mount Doom on map, look at pawn shop across the street....'

So far, what I have:
Item's primary aspect is stone or clay: lightning.
Metal: Encase in a block of bronze, bury.
Paper or wood: Burn.
Bones or leather: dissolve in a mix that is 3 parts strong rum, 1 part pure vinegar, and 1 part black gunpowder.

I see what you are going for I think.  Here are some other fun suggestions that up the difficulty a bit...

Boil in a poisonous mercury solution.   Subject it to a high magnetic field.  Disassemble under the light of the dying moon.  Cast it down from the summit of a holy mountain.  Bathe it in running water for X amount of time.  Smash it with another enchanted item.  Crush it in an industrial diamond press (a fringe technology in the 1920s). Feed it to a monster. Execrate it under the dung of a most unclean beast. Use astrology to determine it's most inauspicious moment, and hit it with a hammer.  Bathe it in the Holy Ganges.  Gift it to a well-intentioned klutz.  Leave it in a room with a 3 year old and a screwdriver, after showing the 3 year old how to use a screwdriver.

3 year olds with screwdrivers are the 5th horsemen of the apocalypse.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Darius West

[JDS]

28 minutes ago, Darius West said:

I see what you are going for I think.  Here are some other fun suggestions that up the difficulty a bit...

Boil in a poisonous mercury solution.   Subject it to a high magnetic field.  Disassemble under the light of the dying moon.  Cast it down from the summit of a holy mountain.  Bathe it in running water for X amount of time.  Smash it with another enchanted item.  Crush it in an industrial diamond press (a fringe technology in the 1920s). Feed it to a monster. Execrate it under the dung of a most unclean beast. Use astrology to determine it's most inauspicious moment, and hit it with a hammer.  Bathe it in the Holy Ganges.  Gift it to a well-intentioned klutz.  Leave it in a room with a 3 year old and a screwdriver, after showing the 3 year old how to use a screwdriver.

3 year olds with screwdrivers are the 5th horsemen of the apocalypse.

Not bad. When did the Ganges become holy? Polluted, yeah, but Holy? 

Anyway, this is for a campaign set in 1776 using Flames of Freedom (realistic).

Edited April 20, 2022 by JDS

[Ali the Helering]

15 minutes ago, JDS said:

Not bad. When did the Ganges become holy? Polluted, yeah, but Holy? 

 

Arguably 5000 BCE.  Traditional enough?

Wonderfully crafted grimoires have a nasty tendency of going unopened, unread, and torched at the first opportunity....

[Darius West]

30 minutes ago, JDS said:

Not bad. When did the Ganges become holy? Polluted, yeah, but Holy? 

Anyway, this is for a campaign set in 1776 using Flames of Freedom (realistic).

In fact the Ganges has been holy for thousands of years as Ali the Helering suggests.  Herodotus refers to the rites on the Ganges and says they were being carried out for thousands of years before he saw them.  In terms of the holiness of the waters, they are extremely rich and teeming in bacteriophages, which are microbes that eat many of the things that pollute the river.  In any case, the British East India Company were well esconced in India in 1776, and in fact signed the Treaty of Purandar with the Maratha Empire that year.  Potentially Americans who were prepared to at least pretend they were British Subjects might be able to travel to the Ganges unmolested, but it might take months.

17 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Wonderfully crafted grimoires have a nasty tendency of going unopened, unread, and torched at the first opportunity....

Heh.  My parties almost always read them, and sought to abuse the spells, going more than a little mad, and ultimately having their abuse of power blow up in their faces.

On the other hand, they also almost caused multiple TPKs because they could never organize who was paying the phone bill in their share house.

Player: "OMFG Call the police!"

(me) Keeper: You lift the receiver and the line is dead.  Then you remember that even after 3 arguments, nobody actually paid the phone bill.

Players: (collapse into mutual recriminations while facing a fresh threat).

[JDS]

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

Arguably 5000 BCE.  Traditional enough?

Wonderfully crafted grimoires have a nasty tendency of going unopened, unread, and torched at the first opportunity....

Not holy to me, so nah.

Yeah, burn before reading is a sound practice.

[Ali the Helering]

4 hours ago, JDS said:

Not holy to me, so nah.

Only to about 1/6 of the world's population, so I can see why it wouldn't bother you.  (By the way, I am a Christian minister!)

[JDS]

3 hours ago, Ali the Helering said:

Only to about 1/6 of the world's population, so I can see why it wouldn't bother you.  (By the way, I am a Christian minister!)

I don't see terrain features as being holy. And I can't see how tossing an occult item into a body of water that the thrower doesn't view as being holy works. There's at least sixteen rivers in North America which were viewed as holy to Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as numerous mountains and hills, so I just don't see the validity.

Plus I have always avoided RL religions in my games unless historically relevant.

I am looking for clear, workable solutions to destroying occult items within a long-term campaign.  From a variety of sources, I came up with what I have, which should suffice. From the literature, occult items, especially books, are supposed to be rare, so their viable destruction would see to be implied.

[Ali the Helering]

There have been various stories involving vampires only being vulnerable to the holy symbols of their own religion, so perhaps terrain features would only work for true believers.  One reason for occult items being rare is that they should be really difficult to make in the first place, unless the powers behind them are deliberately using them as booby traps for the unwary.  (Dear God, not another Lost Ark!  How many is that this year?)

[JDS]

14 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

There have been various stories involving vampires only being vulnerable to the holy symbols of their own religion, so perhaps terrain features would only work for true believers.  One reason for occult items being rare is that they should be really difficult to make in the first place, unless the powers behind them are deliberately using them as booby traps for the unwary.  (Dear God, not another Lost Ark!  How many is that this year?)

See, I don't see occult items (books are another matter)as that hard to make; if you apply the transformative principle, than use should equal creation. For example, Aztec sacrificial knives becoming attuned to Yis after X number of heart extracts. The greater the use, the stronger the connection, which should keep the number fairly small, but still enough to ensure a few escaped the Spanish policy restricting invasive medical procedures. It also explains why items keep cropping up.

[Ali the Helering]

9 hours ago, JDS said:

See, I don't see occult items (books are another matter)as that hard to make; if you apply the transformative principle, than use should equal creation. For example, Aztec sacrificial knives becoming attuned to Yis after X number of heart extracts. The greater the use, the stronger the connection, which should keep the number fairly small, but still enough to ensure a few escaped the Spanish policy restricting invasive medical procedures. It also explains why items keep cropping up.

Gotcha.  I follow the concepts of ritual magic in my games, so we will inevitably differ.  Your Cthulhu Will Vary😁

[JDS]

1 hour ago, Ali the Helering said:

Gotcha.  I follow the concepts of ritual magic in my games, so we will inevitably differ.  Your Cthulhu Will Vary😁

That's the beauty of a Mythos based more on tone than specifics.