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Old 03-22-2011, 12:19 PM   #1
Icelander
 
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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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Old 03-22-2011, 12:48 PM   #2
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Default 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.
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Old 03-22-2011, 01:18 PM   #3
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Default Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse

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Originally Posted by Figleaf23 View Post
Think innards:

-dragon pituitary, pineal and adrenal glands and excretions could be extremely potent;
Indeed. Useful for Potions of Heroism or Superheroism. What else?

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-a bezoar from the guts of a creature hundreds of years old would be very impressive;
Could be, could be. If it could tolerate hundreds of years in a furnace, it should.

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-dragon bile itself might be the most potent acid in the setting.
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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Old 03-22-2011, 01:37 PM   #4
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Default 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)
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Old 03-22-2011, 01:53 PM   #5
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Default Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse

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Indeed. Useful for Potions of Heroism or Superheroism. What else?
Maybe astral travel, Seeing as Dragons See, racial memories of dragonkind, Growth and draconic physical changes...
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Old 03-22-2011, 02:17 PM   #6
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Default Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse

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Maybe astral travel, Seeing as Dragons See, racial memories of dragonkind, Growth and draconic physical changes...
Yes, they'll use the dragon's eye to divine the location of the dragon's lair. Then they'll probably use it for something else as well.

Racial memories sounds interesting. Growth as well.
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Old 03-22-2011, 02:29 PM   #7
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Default Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse

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1- manastones good for fire magic; 1 energy point per year the dragon has lived (possibly derived from the beasts magical organ, or brain)!
The brain is mostly destroyed. The beast was killed by a barrel of alchemical explosive placed inside the brain, after one of its eyes was squished.

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.

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2- personal heat/flame immunity via protection from fire spell at highest level
Naturally, yes.

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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)
I've proposed that dragons can eat minerals, such as stones. Also, that they lie dormant for years at a time and require no food for those periods.

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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.
Yes, that is one of the things they immediately wanted.

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.

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5- shapeshift-> red dragon amulet/skin
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.

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6- Rings of strength/dexterity
Yes, a necklace of bones or an amulet made from a tooth might grant dragonic strength and ferocity.

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7- A backpack with apportation 60 constantly lifting itself (So everything placed in it still takes up bulk, but is essentially weightless)
Interesting.
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Old 03-22-2011, 02:31 PM   #8
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Default Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse

  • Dragon bone might be used to make staves and scale armor.
  • Dragon sinew might make superior bowstrings
  • Dragon eyes would probably powerful components for scrying spells
  • Dragon blood gives the user the ability to speak and understand ever language
  • Dragon teeth would serve as spearheads and arrowheads.
  • Dragon fangs might serve as swords, from shortswords to longswords. if they are hollow, they might also serve to inject poison, and/or as sacrificial implements.
  • Dragon meat is probably disgusting, but might confer unnatural vigor
  • Dragon stomach acid is probably nearly as powerful as Alkahest, or maybe it's Alkahest and the stomach of a dragon is the only thing that isn't corroded by it (or maybe it just regenerates so fast Alkahest can not burn through.
  • If dragonflame is produced by spraying a fluid that burns as it reacts with air, then the "poison-sacks" would probably be the equivalent of flamethrower tanks.
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Old 03-22-2011, 02:33 PM   #9
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Default 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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Old 03-22-2011, 02:37 PM   #10
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Default Re: Magic items made from Great Red Dragon's corpse

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You've got psuedogunpowder in your setting. Red Dragon fewments/guano instead of bat guano has got to make alchemists particularly happy.
It might, yes. Certainly, the dragon's blood and juices will make Alchemist's Fire and even more advanced varieties of UltraSuperDuper-NapalmNaphtaFireHell.

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A dragons eye ...as a crystal ball, if it's the right size.
It's about 5' in diameter.

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...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.
All interesting.
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