Artifacts are unnaturally resilient and can only be destroyed by extraordinary means. The secret to destroying an artifact is often as well-guarded and mysterious as the artifact itself, requiring a successful Research check (DC 25) to uncover.
Destroying the
artifact is even more arduous-and frequently the basis for an entire adventure.
To illustrate the difficulty of destroying an
artifact, several means of destruction are presented below (and the GM is encouraged to devise other means).
• Locate and retrieve an ancient Babylonian scroll with a
transform seed
incantation, which will turn the
artifact into something that can be destroyed by conventional means.
• Find the living descendant of an ancient Mongol dynasty whose blood, when spilled on the
artifact, will cause it to dissolve.
• Place the
artifact on an altar in a Paris cathedral, then splash it with holy water from the Aspergillum of Saint Javier, which was stolen from the cathedral in the 15th century and was last seen in a private art collection in Singapore.
• Persuade or trick a red
dragon emperor or empress into devouring the
artifact, which will be consumed in the fires of its stomach.
• Locate an Egyptian brazier with the power to summon an
efreeti noble, then use a wish to command the
efreeti to smash the
artifact with its great iron falchion.