Basic Trope: The Precursors built a great weapon that is still around somewhere.
- Straight:
- Emperor Evulz wants to find a Fantastic Nuke built by the Ancients to conquer his Standard Fantasy Setting world.
- Exaggerated:
- Emperor Evulz wants to destroy the universe with a Universe Destroyer.
- Downplayed:
- The lost superweapon is a cache of automatic gunpowder weapons in a world of swords and bows - powerful, but not "conquer the world automatically" powerful.
- Justified:
- The Lost Superweapon was so powerful that it destroyed the Precursors and the knowledge was lost.
- The Precursors were so afraid of the weapon they created they either destroyed it, or hid it so it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.
- Implied:
- The world is covered in the ruins of an ancient civilization and there is not current-day phenomenon or weapon that could have destroyed it all at once.
- Deconstructed:
- Ancient documents speak of "invincible weapons", everyone theorizes it's a super weapon. It's actually just bronze age weapons and armor that are invincible compared to stone weapons and are hopelessly weak against modern steel. And the bronze weapons and armor are very poorly preserved.
