[Eberron] Make My McGuffin

[Zoombaba]

I've running an Eberron game tomorrow, and it's almost all set except for one crucial piece: what exactly does my mcguffin do?

Heres's the skinny: a gnome wizard (working for the Esoteric Order of Aureon) recovered an artifact that is a missing piece for an eldritch machine ~ now the bad guys (a cult of irvhir kobold sorcerers) have captured him and the artifact. The PCs are assigned to find the missing wizard.

My eldritch machine, I mean McGuffin, was a doomsday device suppose to end the Last War. It never got used, because the essential artifact was lost in a airship crash in the Seawall Mountains.

The artifact is from Xen'drik. The kobolds have been in possession of it since it was lost, and have been using its massive dragonshard as a magical focus for their blasphemous rituals.

The eldritch machine is still in the Mournland. It was a joint Brelish/Cyran venture to thwart Karrnath. The Esoteric Order of Aueron and House Cannith had worked together to create it.

Ok, so doomsday device is really vague. What does this thing do?

BTW, This has been cross-posted on both the Wizards boards and RPGnet.

 

[Mark Chance]

Ok, so doomsday device is really vague. What does this thing do?

The McGuffin was designed to completely destroy an enemy species. It sterilizes all females of the humanoid or monstrous humanoid race to which it is keyed, thus leading to demographic disintegration and eventual genocide.

Grim enough for a doomsday weapon?

 

[Kunimatyu]

My Eberron doomsday device was a Coterminality Machine -- it could make a region coterminous with a plane, or sever a preexisting connection. Powered correctly, it could massively amplify the coterminality, though it would never make a direct portal to the plane in question.

Incorrect usage of the device resulted in the creation of the Mournland, and in my campaign, was used to sever Syrania's connection with Sharn, thereby toppling the towers.

 

[Abe.ebA]

Using a massive bound advanced paragon elder earth elemental of legendary blah-blah-lots-of-hitdice, the machine wrenches vast swaths of earth through its maw (think instant open-pit mine centered on the device when it's switched on). Out the other end comes a block of extremely heavy, dull-silver metal that's warm to the touch. When dumped in enchanted water (also provided by the device), the resulting explosion vaporizes everything for several miles and kills, sickens, and sterilizes all those for miles beyond, as well as inflicting the whole lot with a permanent curse that gives all those who enter a rapid wasting illness.

(read: it finds and purifies natural uranium deposits and yields a pure block along with an accompanying supply of heavy water, allowing the owner of the device to build a very, very dirty bomb)

 

[Zappo]

It was designed to blow up a sizeable chunk of the world, and everyone who knows anything about the device knows this. It is said that it must never be used, or it will cause untold destruction. Prophecies say that the world may never recover.

Noone knows that the device, as is common with devices that are built and never tested, doesn't actually work. If activated, it produces an ominous hum, followed by a loud *clang* as some internal bit goes bonkers, then a spring pops out, and then it stops.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

The artefact unleashes phantom threads of emotion, which insinuate themselves within the minds of everyone within several leagues. The threads overwhelm them with feelings of remorse and pity - in essence, the artefact is an enormous psychic net that gathers all the pain and anguish of the mortal experience, and then refracts it back a hundredfold.

The artefact would have very effectively ended the Last War, because it drives all those who encounter its power absolutely mad with grief.

 

[VirgilCaine]

...

 

[VirgilCaine]

It releases hundreds of horrible diseases and poisons, that deal horrible damage to anything living, and also some that destroy undead creatures, allowing nothing to escape the wrath of the makers of the weapon.

This device is from another plane. It was created by a kender wizard.

 

[Jack of Shadows]

It causes the rules set to change to Synnabar.

What? He SAID it was a doomsday device.

Jack

 

[Deadguy]

It was designed to negate Karrnath's great advantage - legions of utterly loyal and intelligent Undead. The device is supposed to seize control of all undead within a region and transfer control to the operator. Of course, after all the damage, and the perversion of the device by the kobolds' actions it probably no longer does any such thing.

Perhaps, instead, it empowers them. Or maybe it frees them from all control. Or nastier still, it allows a variety of demons to possess the Undead whilst the device remains active. Have some fun with it!