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03-22-2011, 12:19 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
I run a game in a GURPS-ification of the Forgotten Realms setting. I use GURPS Magic for the spellcasters, more or less, with some tweaks from Thaumatology or rectally derived.
One thing I feature is magical components. Rare and hard-to-obtain herbs, treasures and monstrous body parts are essential components for the creation of magical items. In game terms, such components either contain innate Energy or reduce the Energy cost for enchantments that are associated with their nature. Troll blood for healing potions or regeneration rings, beholder eyes for paralysis wands, etc. In this way, magical items can be created at a faster pace than the rules in GURPS Magic indicate, though the final price in my campaign is somewhat higher.* Now, for one reason or another, the PCs in the game have slain a Great Red Dragon (and a flight of lesser Green dragons). They towed the enormous corpse** to the nearest port and sold it and the smaller dragons to a consortium of wizards that manufacture alchemical and magical items on an industrial scale. Their price, of course, was a wide range of magical items made from the corpse. Given that 1400 tons is plenty of dragon, they expect that there will be enough for the wizards and themselves. Now, the dragon was more than a millenia old. He was the apex predator of the Sea of Fallen Stars before men learned to sail outside the sight of land. His magical lore outstripped most human archmages and his physical might dwarved, well, anything. He had been slumbering for more than a century when awoken by events outside the PCs control and coming across them for reasons somewhat related to them.*** Red Dragons are creatures of flame, physical prowess, pride and fury. They are almost fearless, incredibly ruthless and known for the joy they take in destruction. Their breath can melt steel and set stone on fire.**** They can swim in magma if they please and some stories say that when they grow old, their slumbers last longer and longer until they become dormant volcanos. All dragons are incredibly strong for their size. They are graceful, fast and the square-cube law whimpers and hides from them until they are gone. This means that their bones are stronger than TL10-11 materials used to build starships. Their muscles are coiled springs of Unobtainium. They have mana organs and eyes that see through illusions and deceptions. Based on all this, can the hivemind suggest some magical items that might be made from the corpse of the Great Red Dragon? The players, so far, have wished for armour and shields made from the scales, winged boots that allow dragonflight, arrows tipped with fragments of teeth or claws and tattoos drawn in dragon's blood ink. Suggestions on what such items would do would be welcome. Also, I thought of TL3+1 pistols made from dragon's bone. Enchanting them to create their own flame would mean that the action is entirely magical. The durability of dragon's bone and its immunity to damage through heat or flame would mean that only the ability of the shooter to cope with recoil would limit the pressures that could propel the shot from the barrel. What would this mean in game terms? How fast can the alchemical equivalent of TL5 improved black powder (REF 0.5) propel a pistol-sized sphere of lead? How much penetration and wounding does that give? If we assume that the shooter will be ST 12 or so, how much recoil can he handle? Also, let the hivemind suggest other magical items that could be made from the dragon's body. *Mages demand very high salaries and the risk of obtaining beholder eyes, troll blood or dragon's teeth more than makes up for the faster enchantment time. The average cost of the more powerful enchanted items is about $50/energy point. This is reduced down to $10/energy point for items under 100 points and gradually increased up to the norm at 500 points. **About 150 meters from the tip of the tail to the snout. Weighs about 1400 tons. ***One of them has Weirdness Magnet and it was not their day for dice rolling. ****This one had a breath weapon which does 48d+96 burn.
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03-22-2011, 12:48 PM | #2 |
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Join Date: Apr 2008
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
Think innards:
-dragon pituitary, pineal and adrenal glands and excretions could be extremely potent; -a bezoar from the guts of a creature hundreds of years old would be very impressive; -dragon bile itself might be the most potent acid in the setting. |
03-22-2011, 01:18 PM | #3 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
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Red Dragons consume food by burning in the massive furnaces of their stomachs. OTOH, this means that a significant part of their digestive systems consists of gasses and explosive oil. Makes powerful Alchemical Fire.
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03-22-2011, 01:53 PM | #4 |
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Join Date: Apr 2008
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
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03-22-2011, 02:17 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
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Racial memories sounds interesting. Growth as well.
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03-22-2011, 02:33 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
You've got psuedogunpowder in your setting. Red Dragon fewments/guano instead of bat guano has got to make alchemists particularly happy.
A dragons eye ...as a crystal ball, if it's the right size. ...As a particularly large, and potent, Wizards Eye and/or Invisible Wizards Eye. ...I forget if there's a spell that gives you an aerial vantage point in GURPS. If not, it's from D&D, but regardless, that's an interpretation of "seeing as the dragon sees" - "getting a dragons-eye-view" as they say.
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03-22-2011, 01:37 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
1- manastones good for fire magic; 1 energy point per year the dragon has lived (possibly derived from the beasts magical organ, or brain)!
2- personal heat/flame immunity via protection from fire spell at highest level 3- pots of create food (enterprising on whatever magic allowed a dragon of that size to not be on a constant land stripping hunt for protein) 4- Spell stones/spell arrows of explosive fireball doing the beasts normal fireball damage, like the manastone above it's one time use, but quite potent for that one shot; alternatively using just a drop of the beasts blood makes making a spell stone/spell arrow for fireball/explosive fireball very easy so making a few quivers of such is not difficult. 5- shapeshift-> red dragon amulet/skin 6- Rings of strength/dexterity 7- A backpack with apportation 60 constantly lifting itself (So everything placed in it still takes up bulk, but is essentially weightless) |
03-22-2011, 02:29 PM | #8 | ||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
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On the other hand, how much mana organ ought there be? How many mana stones? If the mana organ is the relative size of the human spleen, it would weight five tons or so. That ought to make a fair number of mana stones. Quote:
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Arrows of 10d burn Explosive Fireballs. A lot of them. Also, molten gold mixed with dragon's blood and digestive juices and then cast into explosive bullets. That would be rather powerful. Possible, of course, but it would require the services of several archmages and a lot of time. The dragon had ST 3500 or so and a range of abilities besides. Probably worth 10,000 points or more. Yes, a necklace of bones or an amulet made from a tooth might grant dragonic strength and ferocity. Interesting.
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03-22-2011, 03:10 PM | #9 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2006
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
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Just don't make it free, being able to turn into a red dragon is awesome, but since it's a 10,000 point creature it is going to require a HUGE energy supply to cover the difference in CP to turn into the dragon (perhaps one of those manastones) (as per the shapeshift spell). Alternatively have it turn them into a red dragon of equivalent age to the user (which will likely still be powerful, but in 'just post hatchling' stage), or if you are feeling partciularly generous, both. |
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03-22-2011, 03:24 PM | #10 | |||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse
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Also, a larger number of nifty little items seems to be the sort of thing they like.
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dragon, forgotten realms, magical items, smokepowder |
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