Stone Crystalization Projector

[tetramorph]

Anybody used one of these in your campaign? Run into one as a player?

Any sweet descriptions? Looks like? Used by doing what? What all does it do? What are the dangers and side affects?

Fight on.

[tetramorph]

M&T p. 38-39.

It is one of the "artifacts," listed without description.

I am open to any ideas, whether you have actually used or encountered one or not!

[Torreny]

Sounds like a technobabble name for flesh-to-stone ray gun.

[talysman]

Haven't encountered or used one. Although I was aware there's a list of artifacts in Monsters & Treasure, it's so sparse, I tend to forget about it, so I had no idea what you were talking about until the follow-up post.

I'm loathe to make it just a flesh-to stone raygun, myself, because there's already Eyes of Petrification. And anyways, I wish it were more distinctive than that... perhaps it aims a projection beam either at an empty space or an object/enemy. The beam creates rock crystals at the focus point. When aimed at an object or enemy, it encases the target in the rock crystals, effectively petrifying them, but living beings suffocate in a few rounds unless someone breaks them free. If aimed at an empty space, the crystals form into a random summoned monster with standard stats and abilities, but always AC 2, Move 6. Repeated use can slowly transform the user into rock crystal: make a saving throw or permanently lose 3 Move (but shift natural armor class two steps towards AC 2.) When the character is Move 0, the victim is permanently entombed.

[derv]

I too was a little uncertain of the OP until tetramorph's follow up.

Could it be something from Arneson's Blackmoor campaign? Does it have some literary source? I couldn't say.

I kind of like the idea of a weapon to be used against castle ramparts. It projects an ever widening cone shaped ray (like dragons breath) that when it hits solid rock, it turns it into very fragile and transparent salt like crystal. All an enemy need do is approach and hit it with a blunt object for it to shatter, creating a handy breech for your men to enter and ransack the stronghold. Or possibly it causes the wall to collapse instead. It has a max range of 24" x 3".

[Torreny]

As I recall, the FFC had a list of magical items that were very much of the technological vein, including a computer game that distracts characters for hours, but gets them pumped to beat stuff up. I don't recall this particular projector however.

[geoffrey]

Jul 8, 2016 17:57:57 GMT -6 derv said:

I kind of like the idea of a weapon to be used against castle ramparts. It projects an ever widening cone shaped ray (like dragons breath) that when it hits solid rock, it turns it into very fragile and transparent salt like crystal. All an enemy need do is approach and hit it with a blunt object for it to shatter, creating a handy breech for your men to enter and ransack the stronghold.

This is how I have always pictured it. Imagine taking it into a dungeon. Walls become irrelevant. Lost? Just start crashing though. Is there a secret room behind that wall? Just shoot it with a crystallization beam. Etc.

Since it is an artifact, I'd give it unlimited charges, but perhaps a limit on how often it can be used.

[tetramorph]

talysman, I like your idea of something that could encase a target. I also like how you built into the description its potential side effects.

derv, I like your taking it to the wargame scale.

Torreny, I checked my copy of the FFC and I could not find it either.

derv and geoffrey, what would you describe as the adverse side effects of y'all's more war gamey idea?

Just yesterday I was studying up on alchemy for my campaign setting. "Projection" was the highest alchemical transformation -- when the essence of the plant was perfectly achieved in plant alchemy, or when the philosopher's stone actually transmuted base metal into gold. The philosopher's stone was a kind of salt or powder. When it was combined with the base metal it under went "projection" into gold. Wonder how that might fit in?

[geoffrey]

Jul 11, 2016 12:27:58 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

derv and geoffrey, what would you describe as the adverse side effects of y'all's more war gamey idea?

I don't imagine any direct adverse side effects, but there would be situational ones: If you crystallize a dungeon wall in order to see what's on the other side, the Big Bad Ugly on the other side can see you, too.

[derv]

I don't see any adverse side effects either. It's a powerful tool, but really has no direct lethality all on it's own. Unless, by chance, you are made of stone.

[tetramorph]

geoffrey and derv, what I am driving at is the following: "If such items are included very harmful effects should be incurred by any Neutral orOppositely aligned character who touches one." p. 39 M&T.

Seems like "artifacts" (vs. "items") are supposed to be not only very powerful, but very dangerous.

That is why I liked that aspect of talysman's suggestions.

[talysman]

I prefer even ordinary magic items to have some drawbacks, although most magic items are just going to be incidental drawbacks. Fireballs possibly catching the wrong things on fire, for example. Artifacts, though, should be dangerous, in a Things Man Was Not Meant to Know way.

If I were doing the write-up for derv's artifact, I'd say the wall becomes immediately transparent, but more unstable the longer the beam operates. Every turn it operates, you can see farther through stone, and the wall becomes brittle enough to shatter after 1d6+1 turns, but the GM secretly rolls 2d6: after that many turns, it will start an earthquake that can slowly expand to encompass the whole area (after an additional 1d6 turns.)

[derv]

Jul 12, 2016 10:21:52 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

geoffrey and derv , what I am driving at is the following: "If such items are included very harmful effects should be incurred by any Neutral orOppositely aligned character who touches one." p. 39 M&T.

Seems like "artifacts" (vs. "items") are supposed to be not only very powerful, but very dangerous.

I think this would depend on how you conceptualize the object within your campaign. The basic question might be, what's it's origin?

If you view a Stone Crystalization Projector as an object out of Star Trek meant for Klingons, maybe it would paralyze a Lawfully aligned character messing with it.

If, instead, you'd like to attach it to your ideas on alchemy, maybe it was the result of an early experiment at turning rocks to gold, with a safeguard that only allows it to be used by the Lawful.

Pretty much, I think the doors wide open on this one.

[tetramorph]

Okay, derv, Torreny, talysman, geoffrey I've got it:

The stone chrystalization projector is like one of the "wall" spells but it allows an entire architectural structure instead of simply a wall. And it can project this structure with stability wherever the projection occurs. So, if you fly to a cloud, you can build your castle in the cloud. Or on a cliff face, or atop a nearly crumbling desert spire.

My characters are about to experience this as the source of their enemy necromancer's tower!

Fight on!

[foxroe]

Or the Stone Crystallization Projector is a clairvoyance/clairaudience device. When focused on a stone surface, it will crystallize the face of the stone and create a video image of what is on the other side of the wall...

Or the Stone Crystallization Projector is a sling that magically transforms stones/bullets into crystals of random type. Each crystal type has a different effect upon impact...

[tetramorph]

They took over the tower and a high level wizard took it over. He "harmonized" with the artifact. Now each time he tries to go out on an adventure it will become increasingly more likely that he simply can't leave his tower!