List of Artifacts
The following are a list of artifacts that exist within legends within the Multiverse. The pursuit or protection of such artifacts may make for good motivation/backstory for a character.
The Eye and Hand of Vecna
Seldom is the name of Vecna spoken except in a hushed voice. Vecna was, in his time, one of the mightiest of all wizards. Through dark magic and conquest, he forged a terrible empire. For all his power, Vecna couldn't escape his own mortality. He began to fear death and take steps to prevent his end from ever coming about. Orcus, the demon prince of undeath, taught Vecna a ritual that would allow him to live on as a lich. Beyond death, he became the greatest of all liches. Even though his body gradually withered and decayed, Vecna continued to expand his evil dominion. So formidable and hideous was his temper that his subjects feared to speak his name. He was the Whispered One, the Master of the Spider Throne, the Undying King, and the Lord of the Rotted Tower. Some say that Vecna's lieutenant Kas coveted the Spider Throne for himself, or that the sword his lord made for him seduced him into rebellion. Whatever the reason, Kas brought the Undying King's rule to an end in a terrible battle that left Vecna's tower a heap of ash. Of Vecna, all that remained were one hand and one eye, grisly artifacts that still seek to work the Whispered One's will in the world.Sword of Kas
When Vecna grew in power, he appointed an evil and ruthless lieutenant, Kas the Bloody Handed, to act as his bodyguard and right hand. This despicable villain served as advisor, warlord, and assassin. His successes earned him Vecna's admiration and a reward: a sword with as dark a pedigree as the man who would wield it. For a long time, Kas faithfully served the lich but as Kas's power grew, so did his hubris. His sword urged him to supplant Vecna, so that they could rule the lich's empire in Vecna's stead. Legend says Vecna's destruction came at Kas's hand, but Vecna also wrought his rebellious lieutenant's doom, leaving only Kas's sword behind. The world was made brighter thereby. The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords Seeing the peril his people faced, a young dwarf prince came to believe that his people needed something to unite them. Thus, he set out to forge a weapon that would be such a symbol. Venturing deep under the mountains, deeper than any dwarf had ever delved, the young prince came to the blazing heart of a great volcano. With the aid of :\1oradin, the dwarven god of creation, he first crafted four great tools: the Brutal Pick, the Earthheart Forge , the Anvil of Songs, and the Shaping Hammer. With them, he forged the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords. Armed with the artifact, the prince returned to the dwarf clans and brought peace. His axe ended grudges and answered slights. The clans became allies, and they threw back their enemies and enjoyed an era of prosperity. This young dwarf is remembered as the First King. When he became old, he passed the weapon, which had become his badge of office, to his heir. The rightful inheritors passed the axe on for many generations. Later, in a dark era marked by treachery and wickedness, the axe was lost in a bloody civil war fomented by greed for its power and the status it bestowed. Centuries later, the dwarves still search for the axe, and many adventurers have made careers of chasing after rumors and plundering old vaults to find it.The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords
Seeing the peril his people faced, a young dwarf prince came to believe that his people needed something to unite them. Thus, he set out to forge a weapon that would be such a symbol. Venturing deep under the mountains, deeper than any dwarf had ever delved, the young prince came to the blazing heart of a great volcano. With the aid of Moradin, the dwarven god of creation, he first crafted four great tools: the Brutal Pick, the Earthheart Forge , the Anvil of Songs, and the Shaping Hammer. With them, he forged the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords. Armed with the artifact, the prince returned to the dwarf clans and brought peace. His axe ended grudges and answered slights. The clans became allies, and they threw back their enemies and enjoyed an era of prosperity. This young dwarf is remembered as the First King. When he became old, he passed the weapon, which had become his badge of office, to his heir. The rightful inheritors passed the axe on for many generations. Later, in a dark era marked by treachery and wickedness, the axe was lost in a bloody civil war fomented by greed for its power and the status it bestowed. Centuries later, the dwarves still search for the axe, and many adventurers have made careers of chasing after rumors and plundering old vaults to find it.The Dragon's Teeth
The Dragon's Teeth are a set of legendary swords forged by elvish smiths so old, not even the elves themselves have records of such history. The Teeth are the subject of a legend that says there are six swords, but this legend is probably incorrect. Other sources say there are eight swords, but this itself might also be untrue. “Now lost to legend, the six swords were…”Legend of Six Swords
- Deneb – The Sword of Dreams
- Rigel – The Sword of Fate
- Arcturus – The Sword of Stars
- Gemini / Canopus – The Sword of Truth(?)
- Orion - The Master Sword
- Narada – The Sword of Darkness
The Legend of Eight Swords
“Time corrupts the legend. There are not six swords. There are eight. The fourth sword’s name is not Gemini but Canopus. And there are two further swords, now lost to the mists of time.”- Uriel – The Sword of Dawn
- Scorpius – The Sword of Lies
Wand of Orcus
The ghastly Wand of Orcus rarely leaves Orcus's side. The device, as evil as its creator, shares the demon lord's aims to snuff out the lives of all living things and bind the Material Plane in the stasis of undeath. Orcus allows the wand to slip from his grasp from time to time. When it does, it magically appears wherever its master senses an opportunity to achieve some fell goal. Made from bones as hard as iron, the wand is topped with a magically enlarged skull that once belonged to a human hero slain by Orcus. The wand can magically change in size to better conform to the grip of its user. Plants wither, drinks spoil, flesh rots, and vermin thrive in the wand's presence.The Morningstar of the Many
The Morningstar of the Many is said to have been dipped in the blood of creatures from every plane. It resembles a mace carved with laughing mouths that takes on different characteristics every few seconds. The weapon is said to have been the possession of Erynthul.Codices
There was a time in the earliest Ages of Man when magic was new, and wild, and understanding it shaped it, constrained it. And thereby constrained the world. The greatest sages wrote their understanding of magic, of fire and shadow, of machines and time and the universe itself into their great works, the codices. Each codex is a powerful magical tome, an artifact unto itself, and unlocking its knowledge instantly makes you one of the most powerful people in the world. No sage is known to have written more than one, and each author was in their lifetime famous as one of the greatest practitioners of magic in all Orden. Each codex requires attunement and thus no wizard could benefit from more than three at once, but even that would be a historical first. These books contain so much power that they have a personality of their own and do not like being in close proximity (say, 500 miles) of another codex. They aren’t items you can run around and collect, and no one knows how many there might be. References in the Library of the Royal College suggest there could be as many as a hundred such tomes, but that list was compiled from unverified and in some cases outright unreliable sources. Attempting to copy a codex produces a book with all the words in the right order, but no magic and no effects.Book of Exalted Deeds
The definitive treatise on all that is good in the multiverse, the fabled Book of Exalted Deeds figures prominently in many religions. Rather than being a scripture devoted to a particular faith, the book's various authors filled the pages with their own vision of true virtue, providing guidance for defeating evil. The Book of Exalted Deeds rarely lingers in one place. As soon as the book is read, it vanishes to some other corner of the multiverse where its moral guidance can bring light to a darkened world. Although attempts have been made to copy the work, efforts to do so fail to capture its magical nature or translate the benefits it offers to those pure of heart and firm of purpose.Book of Vile Darkness
The contents of this foul manuscript of ineffable wickedness are the meat and drink of those in evil's thrall. No mortal was meant to know the secrets it contains, knowledge so horrid that to even glimpse the scrawled pages invites madness. Most believe the lich-god Vecna authored the Book Vile Darkness. He recorded in its pages every diseased idea, every unhinged thought, and every example of blackest magic he came across or devised. Vecna covered every vile topic he could, making the book a gruesome catalog of all mortal wrongs. Other practitioners of evil have held the book and added their own input to its catalog of vile knowledge. Their additions are clear, for the writers of later works stitched whatever they were writing into the tome or in some cases, made notations and additions to existing text. There are places where pages are missing, torn. or covered so completely with ink, blood, and scratches that the original text can't be divined. Nature can't abide the book's presence. Ordinary plants wither in its presence, animals are unwilling to approach it, and the book gradually destroys whatever it touches. Even stone cracks and turns to powder if the book rests on it long enough.Codex Terragnosis
From knowledge of the Prime Material Written by Hierophant Prithviraña in the 738th year of the Age of Wonders, this book is a comprehensive treatise on the nature of the Mundane World and the material and philosophical principles that set it apart from Arcadia, Quintessence, and the World Below. This codex illuminates the Law of Nature, the Law of Time, and the Law of Death and contains a description of the world’s creation, the origins of divine and arcane magic, as well as the War Between the Gods. The Hierophant built his wisdom and knowledge into the codex terragnosis. The book binds and shapes the world, defines it and defends it. While it resides within this manifold of the timescape, the Mundane World is safe.Codex Umbra
The Book of Shadows Kalidasa Dhar, writing in the codex umbra in the second century of Wonder, gives us our only glimpse into scholarly thought regarding the essence of shadow magic before the Ganarajyan Empire. It is surprisingly similar to our own modern notions. “Primitive cultures view shadow magic as an extension of literal shadow. The shade cast by a bright light. But I find no connection between the two phenomenon and offer an alternate explanation, supported by the success of the incantations found herein.” Dhar hypothesized that the dark power we call shadow is the dead life essence of a previous world. What the nature of this world or the beings that may have inhabited it was, she offers no insight. Few modern sages take Dhar’s theory seriously, but all note that no wizard since has penetrated the heart of shadow so successfully.Codex Incabulum
A book of demonic origins The only codex known to be written during the Caelian Empire, the codex incabulum is often incorrectly cited as the cause of the Fall of Azshan. This is a popular guess repeated so often that it has attained the status of fact. Rather, the codex stopped the demonic infestation that razed the ruling city of Kham, confining the sea of fiends that erupted from hell and preventing it from spreading across the world. As a result, no contemporaneous accounts of the sack of the city survive, with the popular histories of the event being authored no earlier than 150 years after the event. Authored by Marcus Gaius Orestes18 in the 101st year of the Age of Conquest, during the height of the Caelian Empire, this book—like all the codices—has been lost and found many times over the centuries since. Often those who attune to it delve deep into dark powers and are lost.Codex Automata
Axioms knowledge manifests Written by the Hànz wizard Huang Fei late in the third dynasty of the Xin Empire, the codex automata—The Book of Machines—synthesized three thousand years of scholarly thought on the subject of magical constructs and was instantly realized as the definitive work on the subject. Other tomes detail the process of creating a golem, but Fei called this “mere smithery.” Fei’s goal was to understand the fundamental magic of animated constructs, and in this he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. His golem army defended the emperor and secured his dynasty’s rule for a thousand years.Now we shall see, Huang Fei! We shall end all
debate. Here! Now! Let the scales weigh my
power against yours, and the world will know
which is greater! Your machine mind...or my
supreme sorcery!
— Cheng Shi,
contemporaneous owner of the codex miror
Codex Miror
Magic run amok Written by Durthara, the Empress’s Archmage, the Book of Wonder is the first recorded codex and gave the Age of Wonder its name. In those days, the Ganarajyan Empire’s word for “magic” translated as “wonder” or “marvel.” Magic, then, was newly discovered by Men and seemed a limitless resource. Spells were invented, made fashionable, and forgotten before anyone knew they could be written down. History records the codex miror as the greatest, the most powerful of the codices, but no sage has ever owned more than two, so no one in history could claim to be an expert, and most of the records of what the Book of Wonder could do were written hundreds of years after it disappeared.Codex Dyrdalis
The Timeless Fey A human adopted as an infant by elves, Irllyn Ffwllyg en Orrell ce Yth went on to become the Ganarajyan Empire’s greatest authority on the fae, their magic, and their casual association with cause and effect. Because she was a mortal wizard, she understood the rules that constrained the use of magic. Because she was raised as an elf, she had the mind of a fae. Because she was the greatest wizard of her time, she was able to synthesize these two antithetical philosophies into one coherent masterwork and thereby change the world forever. The elves never allowed this again.Codex Ignis
A Burning Book Hu Tai was the last Magister of Fire, and like her contemporaries, the other four elemental magisters, she swore to bind her knowledge into a tome and thereby seal it away, ending the Century of Five Emperors and the wars that ensued as each emperor’s elemental magister used their lore to warp and twist reality for their regent. History records that her efforts were successful. The Five Magisters sealed their power away, and the wars ended. Only rarely in the thousands of years since has one of the five elemental codices emerged and been mastered, and never more than one has been active in the world since.The Chronos Codex
Timescapes written upon Like the codex multiversalis, the origins of the chronos codex are not well recorded. Its earliest reference is in the possession of the Ganarajyan wizard Subhadrangi, who may also be the book’s author. The book is also referenced in the Tales of Rupananda, but it’s possible Subhadrangi and Rupananda were the same woman. A handful of references talk of a sage who went by both names during that age, but there’s no direct confirmation from any contemporary source, and no source definitively claims either woman wrote it or indeed gives an independent account of the life of either. The Book of Time is the least well known of the codices. It tends to disappear for millennia at a time, and as a result, unlike the other Books of Magic, scholars are happy to leave it drifting in the eddies of the time stream. It was only 300 years ago when the Khoursir scholar Chartam suggested that the book’s author had not yet been born, and that the book’s presence in the past of this time manifold is a result of its future author using its power. This once-fringe hypothesis has grown in popularity in recent years.Codex Mortis
Book of the Dead Exiled Empress Wu Jiao wasted no time planning her return to the throne and the restoration of the Wu dynasty. Her first goal was the return of her greatest general, the barbarian Lady Czorgan. As Czorgan was dead, this meant much research was in order. But Empress Jiao was already an accomplished wizard, and her first success took less than a year. Emboldened by her necromantic research and the return of her right hand, Jiao pressed her study further and became the greatest necromancer in history. She succeeded in restoring her family to the throne, but history calls her the Dead Empress and her second period of rule the Dead Empire, granting her no narrative of restoration, only revenge.Codex Multiversalis
The Traveler's Almanac Certainly the first wizard to enter history as an owner of the Book of All Worlds was Padmavati, the Alienist. But there’s no actual record of her writing it, though scholarly consensus is that only she could have done so. Instead, the accepted wisdom is that she did write it, just not in this manifold. She is from a different world, sages presume. The truth may never be known. The deeds she performed are well-documented, including enacting The Forbidding, which permanently exiled the Demon Lord of Death to the Seven Cities of Hell. If the nature of this ritual is detailed in the codex multiversalis, no wizard since has deciphered it.Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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