The Godhammer

The Godhammer

Weapon Magical, Artifact, Heavy, 2-Handed, Melee, Thrown Legendary [Evocation]

The Godhammer is an exceedingly ancient artifact rumored to have been used in slaying Draco Invictus and in so doing, becoming imbued by the deathblow with a massive, though random, electrical damage potential, as well as a thunderclap and stun effect when thrown. It also significantly boosts the strength of the owner (+4 to a max of 30) when it is wielded.
Under normal melee use it delivers 2d6+1 magical budgeoning plus 1d8 lightning - no save to avoid but resistance and immunity apply, except to Blue Dragons who are vulnerable to the lighting (double damage).
The attuned owner can also make a ranged attack with the weapon and expend 1 charge, up to 5 times per day. On a successful hit, in addition to the magical bludgeoning (2d6+1) and lightning (1d8) damage, the hammer also unleashes a thunderclap audible out to 300' which does no additional damage, but the target and every creature within 30' must succeed on a DC 17 CON save or be stunned (no attacks, reactions, etc) until the end of the owners next turn. The hammer regains 1d4 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn. This stun effect, like the critical damage effect, applies to friend and foe alike within 30'.
When a critical (nat 20 attack roll) occurs, whether melee or thrown, in addition to doubling the normal damage, every creature in a 10' radius - friend or foe - must make a DC15 con save. If the target fails, they are instantly killed by an explosion of pure, ancient, divine energy which ignores any resistance or immunity. If those in the radius fail their save, they take 10d8 lightning and 10d8 thunder damage, to which resistances apply as usual, unless they are a blue dragon, which makes saves at DC20 and to which all lightning effects still apply in full. This occurs on the first critical hit scored by the wielder in combat, but takes 1 hour to recharge and other criticals only do standard double damage as usual during that recharge period.
Proficiency with a maul allows you to add proficiency to your attack rolls made with this weapon when you are attuned to it; individuals with proficiency who attempt to use it without attunement wield it only as a +1 maul without additional effects, and individuals without proficiency cannot attune to it, and suffer half the maul's normal damage from each attack if they choose to use it in battle.
The maul is powerful and magical but not sentient or race/class/alignment restricted, excepting that Blue Dragons in any form cannot wield it without suffering incapacitating pain and sickness. They have sought to destroy it since its creation in the Archaic age; the fact that they still seek it suggests they have not yet succeeded. Notes: Bonus: Strength Score, Bonus: Magic, Bonus: Ability Score Maximum, Damage, Buff, Combat, Heavy, Two-Handed

Type	Damage	Damage	Range	Properties
Martial Melee	2d6+1 Magical Bludgeoning / 1d8 Lightning	Bludgeoning	20/60	Magical, Artifact, Heavy, 2-Handed, Melee, Thrown

Cost: Priceless Weight: 11lb

The Orbis' analog of the 5e SRD Hammer of Thunderbolts...

Mechanics & Inner Workings

Requires attunement. (No additional gear is required for attunement, unlike the 5e SRD version of this weapon).

Manufacturing process

The Godhammer was said in the myth to have been made by the hero Inapu using meteor-iron, tempered with ancient forest carbon and Aeldic chromium into blue steel, melted and brought into existence as a singular event in the lightning forges of the Ancient Gazafi, for the express purpose of slaying the Draco Invictus, Vamasu Havanat.

Significance

Legendary hammer created from the slaying of Vamasu Havanat, the first and greatest Blue Dragon (Draco Invictus).

From "The History Texts of High Gazaf", Recopied for the Library of Cumaea, circa 48,000 years ago (-35,900 BCE from an original of unknown antiquity)

...When the Dunewalkers, long of limb and leg
Made their fair villages round and sleek with grain and horse
The Snowmaidens came to live among them
Aeldic were they, but fair of form and bright eyed
Fertile despite the ice that birthed them
Loving despite the cold that comforted them
And the Dunewalkers made wives of them, and had daughters of them, and sons
Neither hot like the dunes
Nor cold like the snows.


But Vamasu, jealous of eye
Havanat, keeper of storms
Issued forth from his high mountain
As the hot and the cold mixed along the slopes
The Dragon Undefeatable [Draco Invictus] arose and took flight
Killing with lightning and raging wind
Splashing the settlements like water
when ice and fire meet
Crushing and devouring the children of the love of Dunewalker and Snowmaiden


Until the long-limbed Inapu
Captured the lightning to fire his forge
Captured the heart of a star to make his hammer
Captured the ashes and flashing chrome of the Aeld
And wrought forth the Godhammer to slay Vamasu Havenat
To save his children to the ends of time
To save his people and to save us
Knowing he must perish
Eager to pay the price.


Inapu forged the hammer, kissed his sons
And received the blessing and forgiveness of his wife
Climbed the mighty mountain of storms
Where the sun rises from where sea touches desert
And sought the cavern of Dragon Undefeatable
Of Vamasu Havenat, God of Storms
And defeated first the rains and winds
Binding them to serve the sons and daughters of his people.


At last the undefeated Dragon is reached
The fight shaking the very roots of the Orbis
Splitting mountains and burning seas away
Until Inapu has reached the last of his strength
Seven times he stretches out his hand
Seven times he is bitten but lives
Unwilling to make peace until the Dragon is vanquished
Unwilling to fall for his tempting words
Unwilling to stay his hand until
He brings the mighty Godhammer down
Crashing into the Dragon's head
Unstoppable force meeting undefeated dragon
Annihilating the mountain itself
Down to its roots
Annihilating Vamasu Havenat
Annihilating himself.


But the Godhammer
In that moment balanced forever
In the moment of victory over the undefeatable
Became Dragonslayer
Freeing the storms from the Dragon
Setting them free forever
So that when the hot winds meet the cold winds
Like the Dunewalkers meeting Snowmaidens
The storms come to remind us of the time
When they were set free
And all were saved
By Inapu's refusal to die before the job was done.

Current Whereabouts

Certain aspects fo the story strongly suggest that the myth recounts an actual battle that was re-worked in later years into an origins myth connecting the dots between the Gazafi and Aeldvolk genotypes/species, though it is clearly Gazafi-centric and overtly downplays the beastly qualities of the 'Snowmaidens', likely because it's less charming a story if they're called Yeti Women or Ice Apes. Regardless, it also serves as a clever explanation myth, connecting storms to the intersection of hot and cold airmasses.

Beneath these layers, however, are a fascinating series of clues regarding the age and origin of the underlying story of a great Gazaf hero slaying a fearsome dragon. First, the broad strokes of steelmaking - as opposed to the older bronze or iron forging process - are correctly identfied here, even going so far as to point out that the metal is stainless steel from the addition of Chromium. This could date the story to the very end of the Archaic age, likely written by humans or elves as a folkloric genealogy as inheritors of the blending of the three races; but the curious inclusion of the reference to the "heart of a star" strongly links it to the comet strike at the end of the Lost Era, meaning it would be a Neonoan, rather than Pronoan, story in its current form. Scholars differ on the exact dates, but generally place it either firmly in the Lost Era, disregarding the meteor reference, or in the earliest years of the Neonoan age of rebuilding following the comet strike on Lin.

Of more obvious interest to more than just scholars is the description of where this mythic battle took place. Though at first reading like a pure 'magic candy island' locale, there are provocative details in the stanza that pinpoints the location:

Inapu...Climbed the mighty mountain of storms / Where the sun rises from where sea touches desert / And sought the cavern of Dragon Undefeatable

It may simply be a suitably obscure-sounding tongue-twister and nothing more, but looking at a good world map, it is seen that the sun rising (in the east) only touches desert mountains bordering the sea in one place - Not in Toz, where the naming conventions strongly suggest the story is set, but where the mountains of the southern border of arid Venen plunge into the Gulf of D'Har on the northern border of the true deserts of Arac - much closer to civilization than one might expect, though to be fair, the climate of the Orbis 40,000+ years ago is difficult to determine today, and mountains in Dregath, Pannychis and Sririco might all qualify if they were more desert than temperate climates in earlier times.

Several fraudulent artifacts have come and gone over the years purporting to be the real Godhammer, and a number of legitimate but much weaker enchanted hammers have been made by enterprising Warlocks over the centuries, but the true Godhammer - if it exists, if it has in fact, ever existed - seems to have remained undiscovered for more than 40 millennia.

Item type

Magical

Rarity

Unique

Weight

11lbs

Dimensions

1M (3'3")

Base Price

Priceless

Raw materials & Components

Ghostwood haft and a hammerhead made of an unknown, heavy, non-rusting metal, the color of azure sky reflected in a desert mirage.

Tools

Both the circumstances of its construction and the nature of its power are entirely unique in the world; it cannot be copied or made again.