i just finished the rough draft of my fan fic novel a few weeks ago. i estimate it around 520 pages. blech. editing it down, down, down.
anyway, i'm avoiding anything to do with crystal skulls. though i love that stuff, it's just too overdone, especially in the indy stories.
i think the golden fleece was done in an indy comic book, if i'm not mistaken, though perhaps it was a book, but i don't think it was.
a good relic? the spear of longingus (if i'm recalling the name rightly) is a great one. it was the spear that pierced christ's side as he hung on the crucifix. supposedly, any warrior carrying it into battle was invincible. legend is charlemange carried it until he accidentally dropping it in a river he was crossing, getting killed minutes afterward.
the hapsburgs of austria finally got ahold of it. until hitler confiscated it. wonder why austria was one of the first to fall? there's your answer, lol. hitler lost the spear, i believe the tale goes, and the bombs soon started falling on his head. personally, i tend to think hitler failed as a result of a deteriorating mental state as a result of syphillus, but that's a lot less romantic. let's just be glad he did and leave it at that.
anyway, i think that fulfills just about everything you could want in a relic, not to mention 'documented historic' accounts of the nazis' interest in the artefact, eh? if that doesn't do it for ya, i'm not sure what will, lol.
a sequel to the dead sea scrolls? meeting the wandering jew? becoming a shiek? all good things, but i'll give ya another idea i was saving for a rainy day for another story: the templar's hoarde. that's a good one, i think. i'm really not into the 'king arthur's sword'-type stories.