How would you interrogate an artifact battleaxe?

[Driddle]

Try the "good cop/bad cop" approach.

"... Sorry about that, Mr. Axe, but my partner has a problem with weapons of authority such as yourself. Can I get you a whet stone? Maybe a nice polish to make your stay more comfortable?"

"Dang it, just get out of my way! I say we use his pretty little edge to carve up some rocks. That'll get 'm talking. ... How would you like that, Sparkles? You up for some blunt hatchet work, like the way you carved up the missus and all those innocent gnomes in downtown?"

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I think you'd need to either convince it to help, or threaten it. If it knows you're planning on destroying it anyway, it will probably not want to tell you anything out of spite, unless its feeling chatty and wants to have a villain speech. If it knows how it can be destroyed, then any other threats will be of little use, but it might try to bargain for its existence.

 

[billd91]

I think that's a reasonable tabletop suggestion, but this is a message board game. Extended exchanges can drag on forever. We kind of need to do a, "player posts PC speech", "DM posts NPC speech", "player posts PC speech," "DM posts NPC speech", "scene over" kind of thing.

Also, we're also in something of a time crunch. Like, let's talk to the axe today, free Vatun tomorrow, and roll on to fire giants the day after that, before the rampaging giant horde gets to Greyhawk.

Since Vatun is something of a god of plunderers himself, are you sure freeing him is a good idea?

 

[Maldin]

In my campaign, there would be pretty much nothing a PC could do to intimidate/interrogate an intelligent artifact into revealing something that was against its reason for existence. Now having the artifact in their possession may grant a bonus to something like Legend Lore (which would only work in conjunction with the use of a MAJOR arcane library), but then even Legend Lore should be very hazy when it comes to artifacts.

BTW, those interested in reading my article on Artifacts can find it here... http://melkot.com/arcane/artifact.html
It was written from a 2E point-of-view, but I think the principles are pretty much universal for any edition.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com

 

[Wolfwood2]

Since Vatun is something of a god of plunderers himself, are you sure freeing him is a good idea?

Not sure in the slightest!

However, we did have good luck in negotiating with his herald Loji. (Anarchic paragon polar bear.) In return for some info on Vatun's fate and for the chance to take down Atakido, Loji allied with us during the frost giant fight. He even gave his life and we raised him afterwards.

We're feeling pretty warmly towards old Loji at the moment, so the idea of helping him out and earning the gratitude of a winter god (we hope) has a certain appeal. Besides, apparently the fire giant king has a great wyrm red dragon as his buddy, plus five epic magic items personally crafted by the princes of elemental evil.

We're thinking some divine assistance is our only hope....