WMD
Exalted Weapons of Mass Destruction
Various sorcerous items of horrific doom and ridiculously vast destructive power. Mostly culled from a thread in the Open forum of rpg.net. Feel free to add more.
The Cask of Fundamental Dissolution
(by Arbane the Terrible)
This terrifying artifact of the First Age is not very impressive looking. It's an elaborately decorated metal box, which on close inspection is revealed to be made of Starmetal. The name of the artifact is clearly spelled out on the lid in Old Realm pictograms, right above a small keyhole.
The Cask is, thankfully, completely unbreakable, and the lock will resist even Larceny Charms and Sorcery. Each Cask has a unique Starmetal key that fits it.
To open the Cask, simply place the key in the lock, and wind it like any other clockwork. It will begin to chime a tune that was a common children's song in the First Age. When the tune ends, after about two minutes, the Cask will spring open.
Then, the ocean of chaos contained within surges forth, plunging everything within a three mile radius into the Deep Wyld.
No more than five of these were ever made. Two were used, one in a war long ago, one during the Solar Purge.
Lookshy has one locked away within its armory. Fortunately for their enemies, the key has been lost since the fall of the Shogunate.
The Box of Storms
(by ubermonkey)
The true name of this terrible artefact was lost with the fall of the old realm.
A simple blue jade box, engraved with orihalchum and moonsilver filigree, the box can be used by anyone skilled enough to identify the ways the filigree chaneels the ambient essence flows around it.
Simply holding it in the palm of ones hand and concentrating on altering the essence flows will cause the box to activate.
The top will spring open, and a column of iridescent essence, which radiates in the colours of the characters anima, will shoot into the sky, and spread from horizon to horizon. Everything within the users line of sight is effected.
For the next three days, a terrible storm of godlike proportions will batter the affected area, thgunder so loud it deafens those who hear it rumbles, rain and hail lash hard enough to flay skin from bone, lightning bolts so vast it is as if the elemental dragons themselves were unleashing their fury strike the ground,hurling burning debris in all directions.
There are only a few known cases where the box was used: Once during the usurpation, by the mad twilight who created the box, against the city that rose against his mad rule. Accounts say no building larger than a small hovel were left intact,and the ruined corpses of his people were strewn in the streets. Once during the contagion, against a Fair Folk army. The elemental magic destroyed a large portion of the host,allowing the people of creation to drive it back. Once against a rebellious satrapy by The Realm. It is said only a handfull of the population survived.
The current whereabouts of the box are unknown, it dissapeared from the Cathak armouries mysteriously two years ago. Rumours suggest it found its way to the council in Nexus.
The Ring of Inevitable Conflagration
(by passengerpigeon)
Found in extremely hazardous conditions in the southern mountains, this orichalcum ring is set with a dazzling fire opal. It appears to have no special qualities -- it grants no magical abilities or protections.
Yet if the ring is taken somewhere and left there for several years, the location in which it is deposited will be utterly destroyed beyond recognition. For the ring is constantly sending out an irresistable signal, calling those that can hear it to its side with great speed and urgency...
but the only thing that can hear the call is an active volcano.
The Smog Bottle
(by Bailywolf)
A simple green glass bottle, corked and seemingly filled with dense smoke. If uncorked, the smoke will shoot out at an alarming rate without end, rising up to blot out the sun and fill the sky with an inky impenetrable smog. If allowed to continue for a week, this will blot out the sun over a city. For a month, a whole region. If left uncapped for a year or more, all of Creation might be plunged into darkness.
Under the Smog, crops won't get enough light to grow, and everything will remain damp with a greasy film of smog covering everything. Diseases will spread more easily, and animals will flee the area or die.
After the bottle is capped, the cloud will remain in place weeks or months, depending on how readily the natural weather recovers.
Demon Seeds
(by Bailywolf)
These fine black seeds- resembling flax seed, but shinier and blacker- can be spread across any soil- fertile or not- and in seven days a black thorned vine will grow from the seed. These briars poison the soil and choke out any native plants, each one killing off all vegetation in a 10 foot radius. The thorns are mildly poisonous as well, and a scratch will cause a man to feel feverish and weak. Dozens of scratches can be fatal.
After seven more days, the demon briars will flower- stinking black roses which smell like rotting meat. The miasma this produces induces nausea and hallucinations in all who breath too deeply of it.
In seven more days, the vines fruit, the rose hips growing to the size of human infants, until they burst open releasing a disturbingly fetal winged demon-child. These creatures are not terrible strong, but they are ravenously hungry for meat, and will swarm over a victim like piranha.
The demon-children grow quickly given enough to eat, and in seven days will become man-sized winged horrors who slaughter while cackling insanely. All they know is how to kill and inflict pain.
In seven more days, the demons begin to slow down, and will eventually die. Their bodies will harden and dry up, and a skilled alchemist or sorcerer can then split them open and extract a handful of fresh Demon Seeds from their innards. These seeds must dry for seven years before they will sprout, and only then in the right conditions.
The Fascinating Pearl
(by Bailywolf)
This weapon is a flawless black pearl which must be kept in a sealed velvet bag, for it possesses the quality of absolute fascination. If anyone looks upon the Pearl, they will become obsessed with owning it, and must immediately claim it. Such obsession is absolute, and a mother will slaughter her children to possess the Pearl. Only the blind are immune to the effects of the Pearl, and it was devised by a blind sorcerer to exact vengeance on those who tormented him in his youth. He casually tossed it into the town square where he had been beaten so often as a child, and listened while the villagers tore each other to shreds to claim the pearl. Since that day, the Pearl has been used to break sieges, destroy armies, and punish revolting peasants.
The Book of Dragonflies
(by Nameless)
This is a large and weighty tome, fully four inches thick, with nearly two thousand pages. The cover is of green jade, with a dragonfly etched into it. The page edges are gilt, and a simple lock holds the book closed.
The first page of the book is simply text, an incantation in praise of ruin. The next hundred pages of the book all bear gorgeous illustrations of dragonflies. They are depicted from every conceivable angle, against dozens of backgrounds, and seem almost lifelike. At the bottom of each of these pages is a single word, a number.
The remaining eighteen hundred pages are all inscribed with tiny, densely packed writing, in an unrecognizable language. Upon closer examination, each letter is a miniscule depiction of a dragonfly, positioned in the shape of a symbol.
The book is activated by reading aloud the incantation at the begining, along with any number of the hundred illustrated pages. Once the reader then utters a final word, and leaves the book open, its power is activated. The painting of the dragonfly will leap off the page and begin flying around. It will appear as a clever sculpture of the actual insect, six inches in length, carved of jade and with razor-sharp mandibles of orichalcum. For the time being, it will do nothing more than fly around, seemingly aimless.
Every two hours from the activation of the book, a page will turn under its own power. Every time this happens, the dragonfly on the page will spring to life and join those in the air. This continues until all the illustrated pages have been turned.
When the book has opened itself to the last and largest section, the pages begin to turn rapidly as every single letter launches itself into the air, becoming a jade dragonfly identical to the others. With a fluttering roar, a green fountain will erupt from the book, as millions of dragonflies take to the air. Once all have taken flight, and the book consists of blank pages, a great hunger will come upon the swarm. They will turn on the surrounding lands and consume everything that can be eaten, which is essentially everything not made of metal or stone. At no point, however, will they stray more than thirty-three miles from the book.
A month after they have sprung forth, the dragonflies will return to the book, leaving it ready for use again, and a barren wasteland in their wake.
The Abhorrent Earth Poison
(by LiOfOrchid)
Created in the First Age by a mad Infernal Solar, the Abhorrent Earth Poison was originally intended as a tool to destroy or alter Cecelyne, the Primordial which surrounds Malfeas, in order to allow the Yozis escape from their prison. It failed to harm the Endless Desert and the nameless Infernal was consumed by the Desert for his insult. The Abhorrent Earth Poison survived and fell into the possesion of the Deliberative, where it was kept under lock and key with many other such dangerous artifacts. After the Usurpation, it disappeared.
The Abhorrent Earth Poison is produced by, and stored in, a cunningly wrought automaton of white jade and soulsteel (one of the earliest known uses of this material). Built to resemble a spider, it is as large as a man's head. Its abdomen is hollow and transparent; in this container is stored the actual Abhorrent Earth Poison, an oily greyish liquid. The spider automaton requires a great deal of Essence to fill itself with the Poison and must spend years absorbing ambient Essence from a Demense for this purpose. The focused energies of a Manse are of no use to it.
When the Abhorrent Earth Poison has filled the spider automaton, and the proper command words are spoken to it, it will come to life and quickly bury itself in the ground. Once it has dug itself deep into the ground, it begins to release the Abhorrent Earth Poison. The magical Poison sears through the very land in a matter of hours. In an area of ten miles, every living thing which lives in the earth dies, including most plants, burrowing creatures, and insects. Animals and humans in the area of effect aborb the Poison more slowly, by breathing the invisible miasma that begins to rise from the ground. Eating affected plants or other animals only speeds the process. Within three hours, all plant life will perish; animals will follow in an additional three to six hours. Within half a day, the affected area is a putrifying mass of dead plants and animals, inundated with toxins. Creatures which leave the area before their death can spread the Abhorrent Earth Poison even farther afield; though the land itself is safe, people or animals which taste the flesh of poisoned creatures are poisoned themselves. The Abhorrent Earth Poison affects even Exalts, demons and spirits. It will almost certainly kill the little gods and elementals of the affected lands.
After a full day, the spider automaton resurfaces and becomes immobile, its poison gland emptied until it can be recharged at a Demense
Pan-Ochlian
(by Patrick Y)
Once upon a time, in the first age, there was a sorcerer who longed, more than anything, to have a boy of his own. But he had already traded the soul sparks of the next 800 generations of his family to come to a 1st circle demon in exchange for magical insight, and so no son of his flesh would ever be.
So instead, he stretched his will back in time and scooped up handfuls of primordial soup from the first instant of creation, moulding and shaping them into a boy, a boy named Pan-Ochlian.
Pan-Ochlian is like other children, only wilder and more terrible, for while children are untapped potential, growing and changing, Pan-Ochlian is potential - he is boundless life and transformation, forever chained by magic. Each of the cells which makes up Pan-Ochlian yearns to be freed, to rampage across the face of creation and bring the joy of transformation and unleashed potential to all. If that were to ever happen, the consequences would be disastrous. Not even gods can survive in the face of unchecked, boundless life; it would strip away their immortal being, twist and remold them endlessly, and drown their souls in the flood of pure potential.
Anyway, to make a long story short, the gods, seeing what the sorcerer had done, bound Pan-Ochlian away into the Thrice Locked Gaol, just moments after his birth. Even this was not always enough to keep Creation safe; a kind hearted guard once allowed him a single breath of fresh air and a single cell of Pan-Ochlian's body escaped with his exhalation. Uncounted centuries later, that cell became the spark of the Great Contagion.
To keep this most dangerous of beings docile and happy, and to persuade him not to slip free of the magic chains that bind him, the gods bound the 1st circle demon who enabled his creation into a small, semi-animate rag doll. This demon, though it chafes at its prison, lives in dread fear of Pan-Ochlian's power and does all it can to keep him in his child shape. The demon is Pan-Ochlian's conscience.
Pan-Ochlian is absolutely amoral, of course, and considers everything he meets to be a playmate. With a touch, he can mold living beings like clay, and diseases and incredibly toxic viruses flow from his every breath. He can't be killed, because if his body is destroyed, the magic that partially contains him will end and the millions of cell spirits he is made of will disperse to the four corners of creation.
The Crystallised Flames of Utter Annihilation
(By PureMadness)
Once, a great and mighty sorcerer created a pact with a powerful demon, who brought him the Essence of three of the flames that burn within Malfeas. The sorcerer trapped the Essences in crystal, lest they burn him, and exposed them to more and more powerful sources of Essence. The flames grew and grew, their power steadily growing as they devoured Essence long after the sorcerer's untimely death at the hands of a host of Dragon-Blooded. Then, a great shadow fell upon the ruined mansion where he had once dwelt, and a gang of thieves entered it.
They found one of the crystal orbs, and dropped it. The city that had grown amongst the ruins did not survive. For 20 miles, the land, and everything upon it, was reduced to ash and rubble. The flames had been given power by this all-devouring cataclysm, and when the forces of the Realm discovered what had happened, they locked them in a vault.
The Crystallised Flames of Utter Annihilation can be unleashed relatively easily, by breaking the crystals that confine them. Once unleashed, they shall set everything within 20 miles on the ground alight with blinding white flame, which burns until there is nothing left to burn. There are only two left however, and so great measures are taken to prevent even one of them from breaking. If these two are broken at the same time and place, the radius of destruction is increased to 40 miles.
