Elemental Forge
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@Daermadm from the last CabinCon, the party found and Kargin quickly laid claim to a Elemental Forge (and a Manacite Refiner), and a Anvil of Fire. We have had a lot of conversations around the Manacite Refinery, and that seems self evident. But can you shed a little light on were you are headed with the Elemental Forge, and Anvil of Fire…even if the details are conceptual, i can take a stab at throwing something on paper for review.
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Ok, took a stab at it, for discussion.
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@halfgiant You have a thing for word documents and pdf files it seems.
I’m way to tired to type a full opinion, but I did read it just now and it is generally acceptable.
- The forge is not usable by homunculi.
- something, but I forgot as I dozed off while typing.
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@daermadm please feel free to edit as you see fit, i just wanted to get something down (generally speaking) to generate discussion/ideas.
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@daermadm said in Elemental Forge:
The forge is not usable by homunculi.
Makes sense, being the crafter would have to have specific energy types known to them in order to ignite and work the forge (playing off the 10e concept), and homunculi don’t have energy types known to them.
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@daermadm said in Elemental Forge:
something, but I forgot as I dozed off while typing.
I think you were going to say “Not usable, by Alchemists” very wise decision, i will add that to the writeup.
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The Elemental Forge
Classification: Minor Artifact (Note: Discussed @ June 25th, 2023 game)The skill of dwarven metal crafters is legendary, and through the ages they have continued to find ways of improving their smithing abilities. It is rumored the Elemental Forge was created by the first dwarves trained by the Forgeborn Dwarves that Moradin himself breathed into existence. These dwarves created the first Elemental Forge from the same materials Moradin once used to bind the Elemental Primordial’s themselves. This forge has since been revered and protected by the Dwarves as one of their holiest of artifacts. Throughout history the forge is only found in very large dwarven empires, usually with the Dwarf King who holds the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, and even then, its location and use are only discussed by the most experienced and revered smiths, and of course only between Dwarves. The cost of creating an Elemental Forge is largely unknown, and is considered priceless amongst Dwarven armorers, weapon makers, or smiths.
The Elemental Forge protects itself, as it is impossible to detect by any non-dwarf, it can’t be scryed, and only a highly skilled dwarven crafter will recognize it for what it is, assuming the forge chooses to show itself. Otherwise it radiates a very minor subtle aura of magic. Elemental forges are large, elaborately carved, and forged from an unknown alloy that is a combination of meteoric adamantium, and celestial mithril.
When used for Crafting by a Dwarf, the Elemental Forge, comes to life, allowing the forger to mix different elemental energies into the forging process. A crafter will have to have familiarity with these energies’ types, but may use the forge to perform all sorts of forging techniques, such as, acid etch dwarven runes into a sword, or use electric energy to arc weld metal together, fire to shape and mold the metal, and cold or water for quenching or performing a controlled cool down. Different energies can augment and even speed up the metal folding process or sharpen serrated edges.
The Elemental Forge has the following powers:
• Allows for the fusion of various elemental energies in the creation process, enhancing various attributes behind the creation of a new item. Attributes can be hardness, armor dex penality, weight, crit modifier, crit range, enchantment modifier, etc…
• The Elemental Forge adds +50% to the skill level of dwarven crafters, and doubles their efficiency, effectively cutting craft construction time in half.
• Dwarven smiths using an elemental forge have doubled efficiency when forging any item, cutting construction costs in half and weapon makers may construct axes, swords, and the like at three times the normal rate, working them in an elemental forge.
• A Dwarven Crafter when creating magic items at the Elemental Forge can add together their class levels from their other classes to determine their crafting skill level, for purposes of creation. For example, a 3rd level cleric, 5th level sorcerer, and an 8th level artificer makes a 16th level Crafter.
• Worked metal of the appropriate type, and skill level of the crafter can manipulate a items bonus to provide a different type of bonus of equal value (ie. changing a enhancement bonus to a racial bonus)
• The maximum accumulative benefit the forge can create on a single item is +10 (regardless of modifier type) but using the forge doesn’t require a equal split between to-hit and damage bonuses with weapon abilities. If the crafter wants to make an axe with no to-hit and damage bonuses but has +10 different weapon abilities the crafter can or a +10 axe with to-hit and damage but no special abilities.
o Scales into epic, to +20 assuming the crafter is using epic quality energy sources with the elemental forge and forge process.The Elemental Forge has the following restrictions: Forging performed with this Elemental Forge must be done by a Dwarf Crafter and Dwarf Crafter only (conjured crafters, homunculi, golems, etc… are not able/permitted to use the forge)
The increase in skill level, decrease in construction time, and decrease in cost are not permanent and only apply when the crafter is using the Elemental Forge. Mithral, adamantium, meteoric iron, and stronger can be worked with greater ease on an elemental forge, and anything forged in one is to be considered of the highest quality.
[Found at Cabin Con II – Axe of the Dwarvish Lords Adventure]
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/bump
Updated based on last game Sunday July 25th, 2023 discussion the elemental forge is in fact a artifact.
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@halfgiant said in Elemental Forge:
/bump
Updated based on last game Sunday July 25th, 2023 discussion the elemental forge is in fact a artifact.
I will pull the recording, but the discussion clearly mentioned, it was my understanding, not it was a fact. It also clearly stated based on comparisons that if it was an artifact, it was a minor artifact.
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@daermadm said in Elemental Forge:
discussion clearly mentioned, it was my understanding, not it was a fact.
Ok, I really don’t understand the point of the conversation at the last game then.
Here is what I know the first post to this thread is April 18th, 2020, stating we found it at the last CabinCon which would have been CabinCon II on 16-Nov, 2019.
The dungeon before getting teleported straight up 10 miles and then space swimming to the moon, Kargin was able to sense a Orcus artifact (don’t remember if it was the wand or something else) rather quickly upon entering a room, arcane check was performed. Kargin has been level 21 for quite sometime working with the forge, during downtime events.
If it was something of a minor artifact, he would have sensed it by now. If you would like me to roll my ridiculous arcane check next time at game to make it official fine, but i don’t understand the game of semantics with “it was my understanding, not it was a fact”. Until June 25th, 2023 i had never heard it was even thought of a minor artifact, and the write up for the elemental forge is over 3 years old.
If you want to play it as waking up by being in the presence of the DM level fragments, then great…say that. Otherwise - DM shit or get off the pot!
“clearly stated based on comparisons that if it was an artifact, it was a minor artifact.”
**** yeah can’t blame a bastard for trying, it was clearly stated on the voice log as minor artifact (if you remember that was the whole discussion around the staff of magi) -
@halfgiant said in Elemental Forge:
The dungeon before getting teleported straight up 10 miles and then space swimming to the moon
It was found in the mountain where the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords was located.
While this location did cause contingencies to go off, this was not when you went to the moon.
You went to the moon after an explosion trigger contingency went off while down in a dungeon on the other continent.
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@halfgiant said in Elemental Forge:
Ok, I really don’t understand the point of the conversation at the last game then.
The point was to clarify the ruleset for the forge.
You like to play fast and loose with anything that is to your benefit while being quite grumpy when I try to nail down rules for things we are making up.
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So the biggest issue here is simply one of perception.
To @dwarf and @halfgiant the term artifact has a specific connotation. While I mostly align with that opinion, I am also struggling to define things around other power levels.
Who cares that a staff of magi is an artifact when you have “mortal” magic items that completely eclipse it?
Using item classifications from 1e, 2e, 3e, etc have little to do with a 10e game.
For the record, in your write up (in the attached word doc) you called it an artifact.
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@daermadm said in Elemental Forge:
To @dwarf and @halfgiant the term artifact has a specific connotation. While I mostly align with that opinion, I struggle to define things around other power levels.
The second edition 2E AD&D Book of Artifacts is most likely the origin of my understanding and perception on the topic of artifacts. From what i remember, the Forgotten Realms 3.5 (Magic of Faerun) had some information on artifacts, but it didn’t deviate much from the 2E common description.
This is my understanding; using Dwarf’s game as a frame of reference, it took me a good long while to understand the different echelons of power, at a macro level you have.
- Mortal
- Divine Categories (also reference Divine Ranks and Powers, prepare to be underwhelmed)
a. Choosen/Hero (technically they are different, but we have always simplified this and treated them the same)
b. Lesser
c. Intermediate
d. Greater - Clockmaker
- DM
Within each of these 4 macro levels of power, there are ranks or levels between each of these categories; a recent example of this is the fragment of the earthstone (had we acquired it) is more of a Clockmaker item than the same power as the full earthstone being a DM level item.
Where it gets a bit harry is over time you can usually figure out where it falls into those 4 categories and even the 4 subcategories under #2 divinity. Where it gets confusing at least for me still, is where it lies in the in-between space between Greater Divinity and Clockmaker (example) which is why I typically pepper @dwarf with scenario-based questions so that I can get a feel for the range of power and more importantly understand that it’s a bad idea to stick my newly acquired greater artifact in a Clockmaker nose hole.
Other odd exceptions would be Rasingra, and Elisha both children of God(s), to play them would be kind of ridiculous as they would have been born deities. So to play them we treat them as a sort of chosen, with a few oddities.
Lastly, you have classes like Ancients (are soon to), and they can make items of equal power assuming they have the right reagents to do so. Of course that essentially goes the same for the ultra-powerful wizards, clerics, and liches that make artifacts…they still require the components to do it. Slapping gold on the counter, and buying the materials isn’t going to cut it. Unless you know a daughter of Roland that deals in very high end alchemical materials … and that just opens up a whole world of questions that i will leave alone.
Now I will admit the cannon can be a bit frustrating as they seem to play with words that sort of contradicts themselves in places. And it doesn’t help when you read some of the Greater Artifacts, and you’re scratching your head why would anyone bother making this?
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technically, Chosen are still mortal - invested with some amount of extra juju from a deity.
Heroes are more of a pre-demigod status, as they’re the offspring of one god and one mortal (ie Hercules). those that survive long enough usually wind up promoted to demigod status when they’ve taken out enough of their fellows and/or divinely spawned monsters to accumulate the necessary amount of divine essence
the 4 tiers of divinity are Demi, Lesser, Intermediate and Greater. oftimes they either reproduce with other gods (spawning demigods and godlings) or pump enough of their essence into a Chosen to elevate it to Avatar status - where again, it eventually can ascend to Demigod status by acquiring enough divine essence)
Rasingra was born to the mortal Roland, then invested with enough divinity to make her effectively a Hero. Elisha’s mom initially refused the deific upgrade that Roland bestowed on Marac, Zarach and Damien - so she also was born in Hero status (which yes, we treat as Chosen+, because they’re effectively immortal - tho not as annoyingly so, that they’ll throw themselves into a meat grinder again and again like a certain insane Avatar turned Demigoddess (or her son) we all know
and, for the record, the only Daughters who truck in 99% of the high-end alchemical materials/reagents are those of the black-robed variety. ahem.
(( and you’d never believe the kind of vault door they’ve got on THAT fucking room of the network… it makes Gringotts in the potterverse look like a lego toy ))as to why someone would make a “Greater Artifact” that was almost as useless as tits on a boy, its because there are a lot of weenie DMs out there who think +3 swords are simply too powerful. we went to a conference full of them, once upon a Gencon…
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ok, so looking at this power scheme, the Elemental forge is most certainly not mortal level power to me.
FYI, I would also break out mortal magic as normal & epic (comparing to 3.5).
- Mortal
a. Normal
b. Epic - Divine
a. Demi
b. Lesser
c. Intermediate
d. Greater - Clockmaker
- DM
Based on your write up, which is an over all good description of IMO, the elemental forge would likely be Class 2A, Divine - Demi.
While it was built by mortals, it was blessed and infused with Divine essence.
- Mortal
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@daermadm said in Elemental Forge:
Based on your write up, which is an over all good description of IMO, the elemental forge would likely be Class 2A, Divine - Demi.
While it was built by mortals, it was blessed and infused with Divine essence.That tracks, or at least makes sense. Assuming 2A is powerful enough to withstand the tender ‘touch of a fragment’, let alone all 4 of them (eventually).
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Were does the obelisk land on the power scale? Lesser (2B)?
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@dwarf said in Elemental Forge:
and, for the record, the only Daughters who truck in 99% of the high-end alchemical materials/reagents are those of the black-robed variety. ahem.
(( and you’d never believe the kind of vault door they’ve got on THAT fucking room of the network… it makes Gringotts in the potterverse look like a lego toy ))I will reiterate - “opens up a whole world of questions that i will leave alone.”
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@halfgiant said in Elemental Forge:
@daermadm said in Elemental Forge:
Based on your write up, which is an over all good description of IMO, the elemental forge would likely be Class 2A, Divine - Demi.
While it was built by mortals, it was blessed and infused with Divine essence.That tracks, or at least makes sense. Assuming 2A is powerful enough to withstand the tender ‘touch of a fragment’, let alone all 4 of them (eventually).
It won’t be 2A when it is done being upgraded.
