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Old 03-22-2011, 12:19 PM   #1
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default 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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