Magical Weapons of Mass Destruction

RPG World Building

The Earthquaker’s Gauntlets

Divine WeaponsMade for fists the size of oxen, this pair of gauntlets were left on Nyione as the god Goesis fled from the Thunder War. As the rock god escaped this plane, they dropped anything that would slow them down. The right gauntlet fell on the Pyx mountains and triggered a week of avalanches. The left gauntlet covered the town of Novus in dirt as it skidded to rest on the other side of the continent.

The gauntlets are made of an impervious bronze and have no magical properties by themselves. Regarded as merely a relic of a departed god, the left gauntlet was moved into a vault beneath Novus for safe keeping. The right gauntlet remained in the mountains as none of those who lived there had any reason to attempt to move it.

Ten generations later and the mayor of Novus decided to see if there was a partner gauntlet out there to match the one in the vaults. An old worship book of Goesis had surfaced and revealed the gauntlet to be one of a pair and that together they would have powerful earth moving abilities. The original plan was to use the gauntlets to mine resources for Novus’ trade war with the League of Khethe.

It took two years to find and recover the right gauntlet. The gauntlets were mounted onto a siege engine but no-one could discover how to activate them. It was only when a gust of wind dislodged a mounting frame and the gauntlets slammed together that their power was revealed. A great crack in the ground ripped forward from the clap that reached as far as the noise could be heard. The trade war quickly turned into a war of conquest as with the gauntlets Novus’ forces could easily swipe aside the league’s fortifications and city walls.

The use of divine panoply for mortal ends has angered all of the temples. That these are the tools of a usurped god is a further affront to the divine. Faced with this clerical opposition, Novus has ejected all priests who refused to convert to worshiping Goesis as Novus’ new state religion.

Silvaria’s Grand Rune Circle of Annihilation

Rune Circle WeaponsThe witch Silvaria theorized that there was a power law relationship between the complexity of a rune circle, its size and the potency of its effect. Her conclusion was that it would indeed be possible to create a rune circle capable of severing the bonds that holds matter together.

Silvaria’s Grand Rune Circle of Annihilation is a sequence of fourteen energy runes that must be cut into the ground around the target in a perfect circle that is no less than three kilometers across. The runes themselves are highly complex and are a metre in size. The difficulties in drawing a circle of such size with the accuracy required meant that Silvaria’s work was left as theory until the invasion of the Star-people. The invaders portal towers proved impervious to all magical and physical attacks and through them poured invading troops. A team of artificers and mages built a siege engine that would stamp the runes into the ground as it moved around the target, its path set by the careful alignment of its wheels. On the circle’s completion, everything within the circle is instantly reduced to atomic dust. Even the air is ripped apart to a height the size of the circle. Afterwards, the ground is perfectly flat in the plane of the circle. Those who have witnessed it say the sound this makes is quiet but that you’ll never be able to unhear its unworldliness.

The alliance oversaw the destruction of the rune engines as part of treaties of dissolution. Fearing that the Star-people might return, the rune stamps were divided up so that no individual alliance member would have a complete set of the fourteen. Most locked the metal blocks in deep vaults. A few put them on public display as a memorial to the thousands that died to protect the rune engines and the circles during the sieges.

An Unstoppable Bolt

Infinite Inertia WeaponsEven though the crossbow is small enough to be held by a child, it is mounted onto a metal structure with foundations pushed deep into the ground. If a person were to fire it, the recoil would send them flying for miles. The bolts are specifically enchanted to interact with the force magics of the bow to give them incredible inertia. So much inertia that the bolt will not stop once it has been loosed.

The weapon and its ammunition were built for the sole purpose of ending the tyrannical reign of Lord Hrydr. A paranoid lunatic, Hrydr used an army of golems to enforce their will on the country from with the safety of their castle, Fort Naung. The fort was designed so that no living thing could cross its boundaries. High metal walls and magical wards fueled by suffering ensured Hrydr need not fear attack.

When Hrydr made war upon the neighbouring country of Atedr to enslave the people there, killing the mad Lord become the only route to victory. The crossbow was not completed in time to prevent the fall of Atedr as the materials required were exceptionally rare and difficult to enchant. The second problem was getting the weapon close enough. Though the bolts do not dip or change course, a target must still be visible if it is to be aimed at. There was also the problem of where the bolt would go afterwards. If fired at the wrong angle, it could burrow deep into the ground, leaving a gaping wound in the rock as it went. With only a limited number of bolts, a miss would be costly.

It took weeks of careful reconnaissance before the crossbow team were ready to fire. The target was a window in the upper battlements of Fort Naung that Lord Hrydr liked to look out of after lunch. The shot crashed through magical barriers and shattered the enchanted glass. It took most of Hrydr’s heart with it as it broke through the rest of castle and carried on through a mountain many leagues distant.

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