Design Concept
The concept for Megiddo was initially part of a set of magic items designed around the elemental planes, in this weapon’s case, the Elemental Plane of Ash. With these I really try to distill the identity of the plane into a few words and build the items from there. The Elemental Plane of Ash lies on the borders of the planes of Fire and Negative Energy, and is a place where any sort of heat, life, or energy is constantly sucked away. So the operating themes behind this weapon were decay, hunger, and the last smoldering remains of a dying fire.
I don’t often use artifact or legendary weapons, as most games I have run don’t quite reach the power tier that these items would sit at, but there is some nice freedom in homebrewing higher level content. Something you will notice for magic equipment I post in particular, is I focus mainly on features and abilities that go with the flavor of the item. You won’t ever see “…is a +2 weapon” here, as you should be adjusting things like that to fit the power level you are aiming for in your own game. That said, some items are obviously stronger than others, and a Megiddo spear would definitely feel more at home in a level 11+ campaign.
Background & Details
Weapon (spear), artifact (requires attunement)
The three Megiddo spears were commissioned by the archdevil Zariel for her three strongest champions. Carved from the tails of three red dracolichs by the mad efreeti Yakhun in the Elemental Plane of Ash, these spears possess a strong attunement to the plane. They were wielded for thousands of years in the Blood War, and slew uncountable hordes of demons.
After so much use, these bone spears have been stained a black-red with the blood of demons and persistent, burning heat of Asfodel. Only on rare occasions are flickers of orange cinder visible. The bends and curves of the bone structure differ for each, making them identifiable to the discerning eye, but those who speak the Infernal tongue may read the naming runes carved at the base of the blade.
Each spear was named after the body of the once-dragon from which it was carved, and possess slightly different powers reflecting the dispositions of their origins. Naymraynth the Furious, Fruelra the Unrighteous, and Runeod the Thoughtless. It was only later that they would collectively be renamed the Megiddo, after a prophet proclaimed the returning of the three tails to their masters as the final sign heralding the end of days.
Attunement of Ash: This weapon’s strong connection to the Plane of Ash increases its power as the life force of its wielder dims. While you have less than half of your maximum Hit Points remaining, your critical range increases by one, (e.g. from 20 to 19-20, or from 19-20 to 18-20). While you have less than 20 Hit Points remaining, all attacks you make with this weapon have advantage.
Brand of Penance: Any Demon hit with this weapon takes an additional 1d8 points of fire damage, and loses any resistance or immunity to fire damage for the next minute, including the damage from the triggering attack.
Hunger of Ash: Any fires within 30 feet of Megiddo consume fuel at ten times the normal rate, but do not give off any additional light or heat when doing so. Additionally, the remains of any Medium or smaller creature dealt a killing blow by this weapon burst into flame, and burn away completely within one minute. Larger creatures take 1 additional minute to burn away per size category above Medium.
Smoldering Rage (Naymraynth only): A barbarian attuned to this item may choose to activate this ability whenever they enter a rage. For the duration of the rage, you burn with a smoldering heat, dealing 2d6 fire damage to any creature within 10 feet of you, and half as much to yourself, at the end of each of their turns.
Additionally, whenever you have the option to make a Reckless Attack on your turn, you may choose to make a Reckless Cleave instead. If you Reckless Cleave, any time you roll damage for a weapon attack for the rest of the turn, you may reroll any number of damage die once. When you Reckless Cleave, any attacks made against you are made with advantage until the beginning of your next turn.
Unrighteous Enervation (Fruelra only): Whenever a Paladin attuned to this item uses the Channel Divinity feature, they emit a pulse of draining negative energy. You may choose any number of creatures within 30 feet of you when you do so. Each creature must make a Wisdom saving throw equal to your spell save DC, taking 4d10 necrotic damage on a failure, or half as much on a success. For each creature of CR 1 or higher effected by this ability (whether they succeed on the save or not), you regain 5 expended points of Lay on Hands.
Additionally, when you use your Divine Smite feature, you may choose to make the damage be fire or necrotic, rather than radiant.
Spellhunger (Runeod only): Of the three Megiddo, Runeod exemplifies the hunger of the Plane of Ash the greatest, consuming even magical energy near it. A Fighter attuned to this weapon activates this ability whenever they use their Action Surge or Second Wind abilities. For the rest of your turn, when you attack a creature that is under the effects of a spell with this weapon, you deal an additional 2d8 force damage to the creature, and any concentration checks they make as a result of being damaged by you are made at disadvantage.
Additionally, if a creature loses concentration on a spell as a result of being damaged by you, you may choose to have Runeod consume that spell, and transfer the effects to you. If you do so, the spell no longer requires concentration, and lasts until the end of your next turn.
Crafting the Features
Base Abilities
The general abilities for all versions of the weapon are all built off the background that was created for it.
Attunement of Ash hits our theme of this fire that gets smaller, but more concentrated and intense as it dwindles. As we designed this weapon with the heavier martial classes in mind (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin), we also wanted bonuses that would synchronize well with those classes. The Barbarian arguably gets the least mileage out of an increased critical range and advantage on attacks, but with their extra damage resistance while raging have an easier time maintaining the low health necessary to activate these abilities.
Brand of Penance is a a pretty standard anti-monster-type ability that fits into the narrative of a weapon crafted specifically for fighting demons.
Lastly we have Hunger of Ash, which is more of a ribbon ability, something I think should come on more magic items and classes.
Variant Abilities
The three class based abilities specific to each of the weapon were actually something I added onto the weapon later on.
The first half of Smoldering Rage really pushes the risky playstyle of Barbarians further, and the self damage can help them reach that Hit Point threshold to trigger Attunement of Ash benefits. The second half gives them just a little more variety in their choices each turn, while also helping make sure the advantage component of Attunement of Ash isn’t just a cheap replacement to their Reckless Attack.
For Paladins it seemed natural to play a bit more on the life consuming side of our themes, considering their access to healing abilities in general. So we have an area-of-effect damage ability, that recharges one of their abilities as well. This ability is also fairly easy to rein in if you want to bring down the power level a bit, simply reduce the numbers to something like 2d10 damage, and 2 points of Lay on Hands per creature. The CR 1 monster requirement is primarily to avoid the bag-of-sacrificial-rats trope, but feel free to remove that requirement if you aren’t concerned about your players attempting to exploit it.
The final variant easily took the longest to wrap my head around. I knew I wanted something Fighter specific to keep it in line with the other two variants. Unfortunately Fighters as a base class have very few strong distinguishing traits to enhance. The upside is, as a class Fighters are very customizable, so we’ll go with something that helps them diversify and fill an anti-mage niche. This went through several variations that all felt a bit too unwieldy mechanically before landing on this. Very strong concentration breaking abilities, and the ability to temporarily steal a spell. This is an ability that has the potential to be quite strong, but will likely come up on rare occasions.
This item turned into a much longer post than I thought it would, so I pushed it back to a Folklore Fridays feature. But I’m hoping seeing a little bit of my thought process behind building a piece of homebrew like this might be interesting to some people, or even a little helpful in your own creations. Please let me know what you think of the item, and if you’d like to see more in depth content like this in the future!