This item came to me in a vision, I was watching 'Evil Dead 3 Army of Darkness' for those who havent seen the movie go watch it, anyway the film is about an army of skeletons who invade a world on another plane, the main character is called Ash and he accidently summons them via The Necromanicon. Anyhoo heres a breif history of it and the actual item.

Breif History:
The 'Necronomicon', (Masks or Names of the Dead), was written by the infamous Abdul Al Azred. He lived in 730 A.D. in Jemen. After a long journey to the ruins of Babylon and to the secret temple at Memphis he began to worship dark gods like 'Cthullu' and Yoxodo' and to practice black magic. It is alleged that for ten years he lived in Belet el Jin, the forbidden City of Devils. In the 'Necronomicon' Al Azred named it the City of the Damned. There he celebrated his rituals, made contact with evil spirits and discovered dark, horrible secrets of an ancient race, older then mankind itself.

In 738, Abdul Al Azred died a horrifying death. Eye-witnesses reported that on a hellish day in the center of Sannah he was torn apart by invisible claws.

Item:
The Necromanicon

This book you are now holding is the fabled book of the dead 'The Necromanicon' The rituals, incantations, formulae, of this work are of ancient origin, comprising some of the oldest written magickal workings in Western occult history. The deities and demons identified within probably have not been effectivly summoned in nearly six thousand years. As you turn the pages you come across a paragraph that sticks out at you.

" In time I learned of the names and properties of all the demons,
devils, fiends and monsters listed herein, in this Book of the Black Earth. I
learned of the powers in the astral Gods, and how to summon thier aid in times
of need. I learned, too, of the frightful beings who dwell beyond the astral
spirits, who guard the entrance to the Temple of the Lost, of the Ancient Days
the Ancient of the Ancient Ones, whose Name I connot write here."

Abilities:
Able to cast all Necromatic and Monster Summoning spells at will

Increases Spell casting speed by 5

Adds 100 To Lore

Usable To:
Evil Mages (single, duel, multi)
17 Intelligence and 15 Wisdom

Well thats it, I know it way too overpowering, I was hoping some people would give their views on this.

[ 09-01-2004, 10:42 AM: Message edited by: Daniel_M ]

/me snorts milk out of his nose. [img]graemlins/crazyeyes.gif[/img]

Where's the catch?

Catch? there is no catch Dundee this is just an item that I made for ToB based upon a fictional book that I saw in a film.

Well, considering the history of it. Creating a game script to track the number of days that the player has possessed the book would be nifty.

So as time goes by... bad things start to happen to the player holding the book.

By the way, I would remove the WIS requirement and replace it with a WIS penalty instead. ;)

Hm, good idea. I love the idea of the time script, but I dont know how to do it :D

By "catch", I believe that Dundee meant that you can't expect to use an evil artifact of such great power without suffering some kind of drawback... afterall, from your description, "Abdul Al Azred died a horrifying death".

Such an item as proposed above would certainly be overpowered and would require a few sacrifices. For example, permanent or cumulative loss of CON (as with the claw of Kazgarath in BG1, I think) or WIS would be appropriate. Even loss of CHR or a reputation drop could be expected.

You could also limit it by giving the book a set number of random uses (like the deck of many things) or a chance that upon using the book, the user suffers 10d10 piercing damage (as being torn apart by invisible claws) and the book disappears.

As far as the other features of the book: from the description, I kept thinking that the book would allow you to summon demons of various types. You could probably work it out so that you had a certain percentage chance of getting a glabrezu vs. a fiend vs. a greater demon lord (extremely rare, of course).

It also occurred to me that you could use the Book of Infinite Spells as a model, where turning the page gives you a random necromantic spell type (and occasionally a demon-summoning spell).

Finally, I think that adding 100 to lore is a bit over the top. Maybe 20 or 30?

It's actually a very intriguing artifact for an evil necromancer. Good luck with the development.

[ 09-01-2004, 06:22 PM: Message edited by: Neomi ]

This book would be easily one of the most (if not the most) powerful artifacts in the game. IMHO, serious side-effects would be warranted. Think of the Slayer change - aside from the standard reputation drop, the Ascension mod (I think) implements a pretty decent chance that you'll go nuts and tear your comrades apart.

I've been thinking and heres the revised version.

Abilities:
Able to cast all Necromatic spells at will
Increases Spell casting speed by 1
Adds 20 To Lore
15% Chance when you use the book that you will summon a Glabrezu
5% Chance that you will summon a Fiend
2% Chance that you will summon a Greater Demon

PENALTIES:
Permanent loss of -2 to wisdom
A 15% Chance when using the book the user takes 10D10 Slashing Damage
And a 5% chance you get cursed for 5 days (-5 to Intelligence -2 Strengh 50% Casting falliure)
10% Chance that the user will go into a frenzy for 2 rounds due to the amount of magical forces they absorb

Usable By:
Evil Mages (single, duel, multi)
17 Intelligence

[ 09-02-2004, 09:41 AM: Message edited by: Daniel_M ]

I like the direction in which you're taking this - now any user really has to decide whether the downsides are worth the benefits.

Is there a storyline justification for the drop in wisdom, of all traits? Can the curse be removed before the 5 days are up? If not, the 50% casting failure pretty much takes the spellcaster out of commission for 5 days. What do you summon the other 78% of the time?

[ 09-02-2004, 03:53 PM: Message edited by: Feral ]

Does this include Priest necromancy spells (like healing?). That sounds overpowered, there should be a restriction to the number of spells you can cast per day or the total number of spells it can cast.