Watchmakers, Engineers, Practitioners of the Dark Arts! The party is trying to save a town powered by an unexploded magical a bomb (a rift bomb) from centuries past that is breaking down and threatening to explode. Besides being the source of power for the town, it is also too big to move, but might be repaired with the right hard to find, impossible to build parts left deep in the ruins of the civilization which destroyed itself with weapons like these. Help me identify 5 such parts that I can send the party in search of?
Usage and Protocol Manual, written in the language of the Ancients (hope you’ve got someone who can read that), illuminated-after-the-fact by monks of the Cyn Havi order, held in great honor (and under massive magical security) in their famous temple/monastery/tourist trap.
(Assuming that one’s not a fake, and the real one isn’t in a vault somewhere.)
The Flow Actuator which controls the output of the machine and prevent it from overloading whatever it is connected to.
This piece is the one which, when the thing finally fails fully, will determine if the town becomes a small crater, or a hole in the earth that upsets the fault line the town is situated over.
If it were up to Harnen, the town’s Riftgineer, this is the first thing he would fix, as he sees the deterioration inevitable, and this would allow them to get the townsfolk safely out of the blast radius.
These are great- thank you! Keep them coming!
Incidentally, if you haven’t read The Palace Job, I recommend it. Seems it would provide a lot of cool and useful inspiration.
You said that it is “threatening to explode.” Logically, this raises the important question: why is it threatening, and what does this apparently sentient bomb want? Whatever it desires in exchange for its non-self-destruction had better be on that list of 5 items. 🙂Â
Since it’s a rift-bomb, able to annihilate future possibilities, I imagine that it might be satisfied – at least for this generation – by the gift of a Fourth Dynasty possibility chest (you reach in your hand, you pull out something that could possibly help you in your current predicament…). Clearing the dirt around the bomb’s mouth in order to feed it such a chest, I’m sure, has no chance of destabilizing anything…
It’s also worth noting that the bomb is actively leaking rift runoff into the soil. It is not inherently dangerous, but it will spread through the immediate area, being drawn into plants, eaten by human and animal alike.
The effects of consuming this is unknown. None of the texts mention it. But the Riftgineers do not think it is safe. There is a rumor of an ancient process to transmute the runoff to simple ash, but the core formulae have been lost. Even Amajen, the travelling alchemist, is stumped by what he has read. He has offered to descend with you into the ruins in search of such a thing.
Megaton much?
PRAISE THE ATOM!
What if the activator is something the bomb “meets” in the future? I.E. the detonator hasn’t appeared in this world yet (maybe it got sent off course), and the characters need to find out when and where the detonator is going to cross the rift, and try to go there to stop it from coming through.
How gonzo are you going?
For some reason, placing cats inside the bomb slows down the probability displacement, as long as they’ll never leave. Somehow the bomb “knows” if one will escape.
The Cougar Queen, a five ton tiger who strikes from the deepest jungle and is worshiped by an army of witches, makes those who abuse cats disappear. It’ll have to be dealt with if this stalling tactic is to work.
If you want to incorporate some world war two UXB flavor consider having to build some kind of steam machine to disarm the ticking part. A local wizard will shrink the party so they can go inside the fuze (look out for Probability Imps!) and map it. Then have the players draw a schematic for how the steam machine will jam/break/mitigate the mechanism’s workings without accidentally setting it off.
I most likely just relegated myself to a federal watch list by searching for ‘parts of an atom bomb’.
Somebody’s probably drawn up a fantasy map set inside a clock/clock tower. Just turn that thing on its side, shrink the PCS, and you’ve got the inner workings of a bomb timing mechanism. 🙂
Yeah Caslevania
Doyce Testerman Google image search for fuze schematic. If you spend an hour or so figuring out how it works you have a fantastic trap based dungeon. Rolling boulders, moving platforms, fire traps, crushing spikes. I think reappropriating other floor plans might sacrifice a real unique experience.
Actually, I think I’ll build this into a one shot myself.