Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cleon" data-source="post: 6981958" data-attributes="member: 57383">I forgot to mention I checked the SLA/PLAs while updating the Working Draft so we're good to go!Okay, here's the original description of the item: The Scorpion CrownAn artifact of enormous evil power, the scorpion crown is currently in the ruins of Shatta-dos’s Palace. Physically, it resembles a large scorpion crafted of heavy, cold, black iron in the form of a crown, with the legs encircling the head, and the stinger curling up over the head. It radiates a high degree of both magic and evil.While the crown is clearly very powerful, it has no real practical uses, instead bearing a terrible curse. Anyone unfortunate enough to place it on his or her head will experience its curse firsthand. The wearer is agonizingly transformed into a master scorpion, with no saving throw possible. Any individual who owes the wearer allegiance in any form must then successfully save vs. spells at -5 or be transformed into a manscorpion. It is Rary’s hope that he can circumvent the negative aspects of the crown and bend the manscorpions of the desert to his will.The crown’s area of effect is limited to the Bright Desert and Abbor Alz. If it is taken from there, the original curse will still be active, but the crown will not, for example, cause Iuz to turn into a master scorpion and his barbarian allies to turn into manscorpions. Rary is unaware of this aspect of the crown’s powers, which will make it useless to him even if he manages to avoid the curse.The Bright Desert can still be saved from the scourge of Sulm’s descendants. If the crown is eliminated, all manscorpions and monarch scorpions are immediately destroyed, and the Bright Desert slowly begins to revert to a reasonably fertile, if somewhat arid, region. These changes take place over a century or more, and will not affect ongoing campaigns.Of course, destroying the crown is no easy matter. As described in Chapter l0 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide, artifacts are vastly powerful items, and can only be destroyed by extraordinary means. The exact means of destroying the crown is up to the DM. Suggestions include dropping it into one of the active volcanoes in the Hellfurnaces, melting it in the breath of a lawful good great wyrm, taking it to an outer plane (such as the Negative Material Plane) where it cannot exist, or carrying it to a place beyond Oerth via spell-jamming ship, to be destroyed by a focoid, rogue moon, sentient star, or other exotic space creature.So basically it's just a cursed artifact whose main ability is transforming its wearer and their allies into scorpion monsters. In addition, monarch scorpions "seem to be another result of Shattados’s curse, magically altered normal scorpions now grown to enormous size" and it renders the land infertile, although that might be a slow process.It also renders its wearer immortal. Well, I suppose immortality could be an ability inherent to Master Scorpions, but I'd rather it be a power of the crown.Shall we keep it simple and just have the above properties or would you like to add any more?</blockquote>

Verification