abyssalbrews

Timeflux Contraption

Added 2022-06-16 16:00:05 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

Every once in a while something lands in our abyssal trove that we don’t really understand ourselves. Sometimes we just don’t get the use of it, but sometimes there’s just no explaining how useful the item could be or where it came from. This week, we’re bringing you something very different. A device that can peer back across time and reveal secrets long forgotten. We present the Timeflux Contraption.

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Design notes from Matthew:

I’ll be open with you. This one was a bit of a bear to wrap my head around when it came to writing it. The original concept was to have a device that could peer back into the past and possibly let you jump back and forth between timelines. I realized very quickly that there was no real way to make that work in a satisfying way. Everything I tried just ended up as “this will be a giant hassle for the players or for the DM”, so I decided to scrap it and start with something different.

Instead I focused on two distinct use cases. One would be to peer back into the past and possibly garner secrets and information that had been lost to the ages. This was relatively straightforward, but the wordsmithing around what kind of time you can call forth took some effort. I wanted to make sure it would be usable and not just have players guessing a time and day only to get nothing interesting.

The other use case was the desire to pull forth an item from antiquity to bring it to the modern day. That is a VERY powerful ability and potentially game breaking depending on the scenario. As this is so powerful, I knew it had to be used sparingly. I hate telling DMs how to play, so instead of a reset, I opted for something of a quest hook within the item. You can find the skills and the materials, but how and where could be something for the DM to determine.

Oh… and on the reset, I had to throw in a little Back to the Future reference with the rolling of an 88 or above.

Hopefully you enjoy this oddly arcane item that we pulled forward from the abyssal depths. Perhaps you’ll find something useful in its visions. Perhaps you’ll present a broken version of it and send your players on a quest to repair it. Whatever you do, I hope it’s enjoyable.

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