The Forge of Yakul

Yakul was obliterated, and his temples were sunk. Memories of the dead god were struck from the souls of men. A heavy punishment was levied on Yakul, for he strove mightily against the Authority in the early days of the First Temple.

Yakul is merely a curiosity nowadays, and a testament to the strength of the Authority. Even today, the obliterations still hold their force. Learn a prayer of Yakul and it will vanish from your mind by morning. You can walk among the ruins, and learn the history of the place, but knowledge of Yakul is evanescent. It flees before the dawn. The only way to remember anything about Yakul is to write it down.

And so the ruins have become a shrine to memory, of sorts. People now go there and pray to Yakul in order to remember. Others make offerings to forget. Some of those who are struck by diseases of memory go there to be healed, and others go there to study them. The unspoken rule is that everything must be written down, because among the ruins of Yakul, new memories are forever vanishing, while written words persist.

The forge of Yakul was discovered intact, 180 years ago. The Authority destroyed the temple and obliterated its priests, but the forges were hidden in a mountain, and so survived. But the same compunctions of that obliteration weaken the mind but also reinforce the written language. And so it is that the forge of Yakul can now forge weapons into books.

You’ll need a weapon, a book, and a skilled blacksmith who does not possess perfect mental health. Each blacksmith can only use the Forge of Yakul only once.

When you successfully forge the weapon into the book, roll a d4. If it doesn’t make sense, go up to the next number that does make sense. If *that* makes no sense, pick.

1. The book describes what the sword is best suited to doing outside of combat.

2. The book describes how the sword deals damage.

3. The book describes who would be best able to use this magic sword.

4. The book describes the conditions that empower the sword.

5. The book describes what the magic sword’s goals are in the world. Give it a random magic power.

How to Use This in Your Game

Your players have probably been finding libraries full of cool books since level 1. This forge gives them a place that they can finally use those books.

If you want, you can limit this to spellbooks only.

Goblin Slop Forge

Why do you want a good thing? Good things are hard to make! It’s much better to have a LOT of things QUICKLY!

Come to the goblin slop forge! We’ve used our sniffentific methods to "ingest" lots of "data", so that we can quickly make whatever you want! It’s great! We’ve completely replaced all blacksmiths everywhere! (Sorry, blacksmiths!)

You no longer need to be good at making something to make it! Which is great because we’re all shitty blacksmiths and we can make swords ten times faster than regular blacksmiths! That’s because. . .

. . .we know how the slop forge works!

The Slop Forge is super magical! No one knows how it works! We made the thing and not even we know how it works! Sometimes we think that it’s becoming self-aware, and might want to kill us, but that’s okay! We can make SO MANY MAGIC SWORDS SO QUICKLY! We can make a sword FASTER THAN YOU CAN SHIT YOUR PANTS*!!!1!11

Here’s how it works:

1. You give us a magic sword. It doesn’t have to be a sword.

2. The Goblin Slop Forge will "ingest" it. I *know* what it looks like, but seriously don’t judge us.

3. Using modern sniffientific techmogolies, the Slop Forge will "hallucinate" 1d4+1 copies of the magic sword you gave us through a process called "diffusion" because of how wet and loud it is.

4. You give us the "tokens" (i.e. money) and we’ll give you the magic swords! Guaranteed* to be artifact-free!

If we smash more magic swords in there we can probably get more than the usual 1d4+1 that we normally get, but you’ll need to sign a waiver**.

*A sword guaranteed**** faster than you can shit your pants, or the sword is free.

**Sometimes

***A waiver is kinda like a pig that only goblins can make. Sometimes the forge blows up when we put a lot of swords in there, so we just kinda want to get your signature before you die. I dunno, the boss is making a collection or something.

****Lol, no.

DISCLAIMER: MAGIC SWORDS GENERATED THROUGH "DIFFUSION" HAVE A 2-in-6 CHANCE OF BREAKING WHENEVER THEY ARE USED. IF MORE THAN 1D4+1 MAGIC SWORDS ARE MADE AT A TIME, THE BREAKAGE CHANCE WILL BE HIGHER. MAGIC SWORDS MADE THROUGH "DIFFUSION" ALSO PROBABLY CAUSE CANCER OR SOMETHING. WE’RE NOT SURE AND WE’RE NOT KEEPING THE SWORDS HERE LONG ENOUGH TO FIND OUT.

TAKE THE SWORDS WITH YOU WHEN YOU LEAVE. DO NOT LEAVE THE NEW "DIFFUSION" SWORDS BEHIND. THEY SCARE US.

This post is a gift for Ethaniel in a field of snow, who asked for a couple of special forges for creating thematic magic items.