A Quest: To Look For What?

[Lith]

There are also things like bones, twigs, seeds, um, and other stuff. Relics are often not jewellry or wrought by the hand of man at all (encased in a fancy container is another story)- they're often things associated with miracles (or the supernatural), rather than symbols of power. And that's often more signifcant to the populace, who know their governments are mostly corrupt.

...potatoes with the face of a god, shoelaces from a dead ancestor of the emperor, fingerbone of a saint, tooth of a great dragon...

There's a whole story waiting to be told about the significance of the object.

[Culhwch]

Originally Posted by Lith

...potatoes with the face of a god, shoelaces from a dead ancestor of the emperor, fingerbone of a saint, tooth of a great dragon...

There's a whole story waiting to be told about the significance of the object.

The Potato of the Gods: Book One of the Vegetables of Chaos, in which the plucky hero must save the holy spud from the Dark Lord, whose sole intent is to lay his hands on it and make some chips to go with his battered cod of destiny... Sounds a winner to me.

[Lith]

Followed quickly by a sequel, The Eye of the Potato, in which said hero starts brooding, and contemplating the many mysteries of the Potato, and eventually succumbs to the urge to mash the potato himself, and gains all the inner power of the potato, and nicknames himself the Spud Reborn.

Or something like that. I smell a winner. (Or at least dinner.)

[Wiglaf]

Lord Blight, what a name for a bad guy. For the kid, Tater Tawtz. You might have something there.

[Wiglaf]

Wait! Tater Tawtz, that's just silly. Better to use Richard Tater. Then at the end of the trilogy, Dick Tater could turn as evil as Lord Blight.

[Daniel Hetberg]

It would probably have to be made of stone or metal, depending on how long ago that ancient empire crumbled. Wood and paper can endure for a while, if you don't touch them... but good luck getting them anywhere in one piece.

Metal mostly suggests some weapon, or maybe a piece of armor, or alternatively an Insignium of Power™. If everything else fails, try the seventh sanctum's page of generators and look through the generators until something strikes you as particular funny or fitting (equipment and darkness/evil sound pretty good in this case). Even if they just produce random stuff, random input has a way of tickling the imagination... stochastic resonance 4tw.

[Wiglaf]

Actually, I have made my decission, a box of fingernails. I have very good reasons involving culture and religion. Any comments on preservation of said nails would be helpful.

[lin robinson]

Most fun would be a relic. Piece of the True Cross. Knucklebone of St. Peter.
Dried Penis of King Godharon the Gawdawful. Skull of the Sacred Trihorn. Lock of perpetually burning hair from the lead of Pelhindur. '

No, wait, wait...I got it...how about a RING????

[Mad Tam McC]

Whole fingernails, or just clippings?

Like anything organic they'd decay over time. They could be preserved in a liquid, but that would evaporate.

The best way would be embedding them in a liquid that turns to a transparent solid, a bit like amber (shades of Jurassic Park here!)

Can't be actual amber because it is fossilised, unless there is a way of creating it. Don't know if your world is high tech or magic.

[Wiglaf]

The world is mainly early medieval with some pockets of Roman level technology. The age of the relic isn't set, so I can adjust the time and the care of the fingernails (whole, not clippings) to fit. I mostly want to use them because they would actually tie in with something else that I had in mind before any others.

[JDawg2.0]

Fingernails? That, to quote someone else in this thread, is "codpiece" unusual...

If I was writing a quest story, I'd try my best to set it apart from the genre standard. Fingernails is one way to go about it, but I think I might go with something else.

Perhaps the heroes think they are searching for a material object, but what they find is something else entirely. For instance, perhaps they discover an idea instead of an object. Perhaps it is the architecture of the room that makes the understand, or the smell of the room, or something else that can't be held, but rather felt.

Just a thought.

[The Ace]

I'd like to contrast two different techniques (SPOILER WARNING).

Bilbo Baggins was a last-minute addition to a quest to kill a dragon and reclaim a kingdom. He found the ring by accident on the way.

Garion was dragged along on the quest for the Orb of Aldur by his aunt, who told anyone who'd listen that she couldn't leave him behind. Reclaiming the orb was, of course, only the first step.

In both cases, the quest was vital but eventually did little more than set the backdrop for the real action.

[JDP]

Have them search for the fabled Wingéd Monkey of Shamalangabingbong. I've never read a book and thought to myself: 'They really shouldn't have included those Wingéd Monkeys of Shamalangabingbong'. Have you?

On a more serious note, the fingernails thing is a courageous choice. Might a full set of bones not have more impact? Or even teeth (like a Hydra's?)? You mention cultural connotations of the nails, so I'm sure you've got a plan. Good luck!

[fire_elf20]

personaly I like the idea of the quest being to figure out what the object really is! or the banner the cloth may not be durrable when you first think about it but if there is magic in your world ( i didnt see a mention of it but I wasnt looking really hard either) that could be an explanation of why it is still around kept safe by magic other ideas that come to mind are robes, armour of some kind a helm ect..

[Kissmequick]

Banners can survive quite a long time

Fairy Flag - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But the fingernails is nicely gruesome.