Howdy! This article is part of Villainous Cookbook, but as you can notice, it doesn't follow the regular structure of these articles. The reason for that is, that this is something short, sweet, and not exactly interesting or fulfilling. I brought it up in a discussion on discord, and it actually started a heated debate, so it's fair to say that this build will be spicy. Maybe even the most controversial build of the series. Due to the backlash, I'm starting this article with a disclaimer.
I am a DM who is okay with dirty tricks. In fact, one of the GMs who I look up to but won't name is infamous for playing dirty. As long as these dirty tricks are there to make the story better, and to make the players' experience more enjoyable, I'm fine with using them. I'm not sure if either of those would be achieved with this build because this is less of a thing to defeat, and more of a puzzle to solve. When discussing it, I sparked frustration in people because this couldn't be defeated by the conventional means. I don't expect this to be enjoyed by everyone, but someone somewhere might find a use for this, so I'll post it anyway. But please, if you end up using this, use it to make your game better and to challenge your players, not to bully the player characters.
Regardless of how successful the article itself will be, I know I've enjoyed every part of putting this creation together. I've tried to break the sequester and imprisonment spells for a long time, so I am very happy to say that I managed to achieve both, and at the same time. Even if it does use homebrew.
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It would probably have more parts to its legs. And arms. And fingers. And maybe a split up torso. But this is a cool gif nonetheless that I wanted to present it with.
Crystal Golem, by Marie Angoulvant |
Imperceptible Monument
Ingredients: A pilot who can wear a spare piloting armor, a rich person, a powerful spellcaster with plenty of time (two of these could be the same person), and a couple of critters.
I'll go through the steps of building the Monument here because it doesn't need levels. We begin by gathering several crystals to simulate body. First 8 should be long enough to serve as arms and legs, without elbows and knees. We don't need joints here. It'd be nice to also have crystalline hands, which need two palms and a total of 28 digits. Try to find long gemstones for this so that they would resemble the body in those regards. Feet are unnecessary, they'd only add extra cost to the whole process. Finally, torso made up of two gems, and a gemstone head. Then again, you could definitely make the number of gems here smaller if you wanted to.
Next up, all but one of these gems should be populated by critters using the minimus containment version of the imprisonment spell. These could be animals, undead, anything as long as it's weak. A vile villain could use orphans or something, but we don't need to go that far. Leave one of the gems empty for now.
Now then, it's time for the only homebrew part of this build. We need a level 9 Maxim Master who will use a lot of jade dust to entangle the individual crystals with pieces of piloting armor. The way this works is using Maxims of Consequence that detect movements of the piloting armor, and are hooked up to the Maxims of Movement that copy those movements on the individual crystals.
I've been met with some remarks about how this fact invalidates the whole build. First, I should mention that the entire series of Villainous Cookbooks uses homebrew materials. My goal was to make interesting villains, even if they used some homebrew and some rulebending. But the more important part of the defense is, that the Maxim Master is based on conditional spells that are already in the game. These include magic mouth, programmed illusion, immovable object, and arcane lock. They are spells that, based on some condition, perform illusions or restrict/allow movement. I've been told many times that the spells available to the players are only part of what's possible, so I would say that conditional telekinesis is plausible.
Getting back on the tracks, we need our pilot to be able to see the outside world. So, centered on the inside of the empty gem, we project an illusory replica of the surroundings of that crystallic structure using Maxims of Information and Illusion, shown from the point of view of the head-gem.
Our pilot, wearing the armor, is afterwards imprisoned within the final empty gem, and each gem is targeted by the sequester spell. Thanks to the limitation of imprisonment being that only light can pass through, the user can make gestures and strike bodily poses and get the magic outside activated. Let's assume the condition for the imprisonment is that the structure has been nonfunctional for 3 days. Whether it's because it's been dismantled or because the wearer stopped wearing the armor (or just didn't do anything for 3 days is up to the DM).
Optional step, we can detect the pilot's mouth movements and produce sounds based on those to allow the monument to talk. Heck, if you wanted to, you could do a visual illusion (whether through Maxims or programmed illusion with a healthy dose of DM fiat) that could be triggered by the pilot donning or doffing a hat, which would let other creatures see it, but that's an afterthought.
Outcome
So, what have we achieved? Our Imperceptible Monument is permanently invisible and can't be targeted by divination magic (sequester), and is made up of objects that can't be destroyed by conventional means (imprisonment: minimus containment). Since this is a group of objects that are not connected and copy movements of an unreachable villain, each would have to be disposed of individually. Also, this thing is made up of objects, meaning it's inherently immune to a huge amount of spells. Fun fact: out of all cantrips, only fire bolt and magic stone can target and damage objects.
The biggest limitation of this build is its sight. Due to the way Maxim of Information is written, the pilot within will be at best capable of perceiving the world up to 30 feet away. If the players get out of that range, they're gonna be likely fine. Other limitations include the fact that the pilot can't cast any spells, and that this thing can't repair itself on its own. It's actually... kind of dull? Which is why I've distinguished it from the rest of Villainous Cookbook in both title and article structure.
How to Defeat It
The biggest point of criticism I've received for this was that "there is no interesting way to defeat it". And that much is true. Over the course of discussion, we came up with some ways of fighting it off:
- Dispel magic cast on each crystal (fortunately it can target even unseen objects). Which needs a lot of spell slots (4 limbs with 2 segments, 2 segments of a torso, head, plus however much is hands and digits of fingers). Whenever they dispel a gemstone, it falls off from the structure (leaving the rest of the structure in tact), and the caster might have to make separate checks to dispel 7th level sequester, as well as 9th level imprisonment on the gem.
- Anti-magic field trip. I regularly put into my worlds a null-magic zone that works as a permanent one, so it could provide a nice "aha!" moment to the players if they came up with this.
- Portal to the Astral Plane using bag of holding and portable hole, or different extradimensional magic items.
- Burying it alive inside of a hole through some clever planning. And let's be real here - being buried with a perception range of 30 feet only in a sequestered gemstone that keeps you alive whether you like it or not doesn't sound like a pleasant fate.
- Immobilizing parts of its body using the immovable object spell. Which, admittedly, is part of Dunamancy, which is something not even all wizards get access to. Alternatively, I've received a suggestion that uses one or more immovable rods.
- The wish. Because you know, wishes can solve anything
Sure these are unsatisfying, since not everyone could do them. What can a fighter do in a situation like this?
Perhaps it's me being naive, but I think that it's good to try thinking creatively in situations like this. How could one dispose of an imperceptible immortal structure pursuing the players? It needs some outside of the box thinking because no amount of attacks and damage rolls will resolve this problem. Some people out there think that's too much to expect from players. I have met groups that just didn't want to try thinking about a problem creatively.
If you wish to use the imperceptible monument in your own games, consider foreshadowing it first. Have the locals talk about the invisible being, about how no weapons, not even magical ones, seem to do anything to stop it. Have the players encounter it more than once, with plenty of time between meetings. This way, the players could have a chance to brainstorm solutions for this problem between the games, and cook up something neither I nor anyone I talked about was able to put together within the 24 hours during which the build has existed so far. Above all else, be open towards creative solutions. The ones I listed above are definitely not the only solutions out there. If the players try to net each of the objects, or find some spells that do indeed affect objects, the least you can do is be open towards them. Maybe they won't kill the pilot (who, let's face it, the pilot could be literally anyone—from the most competent warrior in the kingdom to a commoner, including even... other villains from my cookbook?), but they'll find a way to trap it. And that's fine!
Then again, you could also come up with your own weaknesses for it. RAW it doesn't have any extra weaknesses, but maybe you can figure something out. Maybe the imprisonment used is flawed somehow because the gemstones used were a little too cheap. Maybe the sequester can be overcome. Maybe the players could outsmart the villain inside because of his limited range, and limited number of senses. Your and your players' imagination is the limit here.
If they figure out dispel magic works, though, and if they manage to dispel its body piece by piece, the reward awaiting them is massive. Assuming each critter has one hit die, we're talking about 41 gemstones, 40 of which have a cost of at least 500 gp, and the one that holds the pilot has a smallest cost of 500 gp per every hit die the pilot has. This amounts to 20.000 gp worth of gemstones, plus the pilot's gemstone.
… did I just accidentally make a puzzle with an actual monetary reward instead of a combat encounter?
Edit: After I finished the article, I started to look up art. It seems that Adventure Zone had something aesthetically similar enough, so I'll just use their art for this. Despite the fact that the Monument should be invisible.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
