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Magic-Detection Helmets

Eldoran surveillance gear • Worn by the capital's patrols

Overview​

Magic-Detection Helmets are the scanners worn by the soldiers who patrol the Eldoran capital. They are full-face helmets, a little like racing drivers' helmets, with buggy-eyed goggles and antennae on top. The goggles lay out a laser scan, and the helmets beep and light up when they pick up magic. As of Session 63 they are still the main threat to a party that carries almost nothing but magic gear, and the reason it hides its gear in the Portable Hole and under Tony Stickers.

What They Detect​

  • Magic items, spell components and magic users. George warned that they detect magic users, "I think by components but also by magic items", and that every magic user must be registered with the city (Session 58).
  • Their range is about one room ("usually within the same room", Session 58).
  • Patrols outside the centre can often be talked round. Inside the city they are "really vigorous" (George, Session 58).

Before the party ever saw a helmet, Lady Viper had warned that the capital has ways to detect magic weapons, magic items and people who wield magic. That warning is why the party first tried to enter the city as mercenaries under Lord Bradicus's sponsorship (Session 54). Once inside (Session 57), the party put its weapons and magic items in the portable hole.

Encounters​

  • The Sexy Peacock (Session 58). Two helmeted soldiers came into the Sexy Peacock beeping. Bru threw his singing marbles across the floor (a 23), and the soldiers scanned the marbles and bagged them. Silas, carrying everyone's weapons in the portable hole, worked a stained-glass window open (30) and waited it out on the roof. He was the only one who left. Leliana kept her guitar and Bru, loaded with magic items, stayed too. The soldiers stopped at the next table, took a bag of diamond dust from an elf named Garrett and let him buy his way out for 35 gold, then left without scanning the party.
  • Planning (Session 59). Ben Boulage urged the party to stash its magic items. Silas asked for a lead box to carry the portable hole so it would not trip "the little detection sweeps". The party had first raised the idea in Session 58, along with a Faraday cage like the one it once used for the dragon orb.
  • The Beaded Alley (Session 60). Soldiers in tarnished white, with antennae on their helmets, went shop to shop keeping a tally of who bought magic. In Fredo Boggins's shop Elspeth found the dampening stickers that became the party's answer to the scanners.

Session History​

  • Session 58 — George warns of helmets that detect magic items, components and unregistered casters. Soldiers wearing them sweep the Sexy Peacock, and only Silas slips out through a window.
  • Session 59 — Ben Boulage urges the party to stash its magic, and Silas asks for a lead box so the portable hole will not trip the sweeps.
  • Session 60 — Antenna-helmeted soldiers tally magic purchases in the Beaded Alley, and Elspeth finds dampening stickers to hide the party's gear from them.