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Loginius, The True Spear

Starmetal Dire Lance, Artifact 5, Commit 10

Speed 5, Accuracy +2, Damage +12L, Defense +2, Rate 2, N P

The True Spear, also known as Destiny's Spear or the Spear of the Fallen Loom, is an amazingly potent and ancient relic, one of the most prized possessions of the Bureau of Destiny. Seven feet long, its haft is forged from black crystal and starmetal, shimmering in a hundred shades of colours that have never existed and will never exist. Its point is silver-grey in the light, throwing up hints of reflections of things unseen, and it makes a glorious hum as it is pushed through the air, parting the very strands of fate in its path.

The tale of the spear is a simple one, but one that never fails to impress. In the early days of Creation, as three Primordials laboured to complete the great work that would be Creation itself, three more worked tirelessly to integrate the newly-constructed Loom of Fate with the laws of Creation that were being determined. These three Primordials - Sadagares, the Great Worm, Logos, the Weaver Of Fates Undreampt, and Isidoros, the Black Snake Of Endless Tomorrows - determined the pathways that destiny would take within the world. When the Primordial War struck, the three used the Loom against the Chosen of the Gods, fighting a shadow war against the Chosen of the Maidens for control of the future. Logos was the greatest of the three, and the deadliest threat that the Sidereals faced, but he was eventually struck down, his fetich soul shattered, and reformed into Sacheverell, Who Knows The Shape Of Things To Come. The time it took him to do so granted the Sidereals the space they needed to seize control of the Loom, one of the great turning points in the war.

When Logos fell, shards of his constellation were cast upon Creation. The Exalted found these shards, and forged them into a spear that still resonated with the purpose of their former state. The result was Loginius.

The spear has three powers that make it formidable; two of them function only for the Exalted, while the third is the bane of the Sidereals. The first power of the spear, and the one that makes it so prized by the Bureau of Destiny, is that it is considered a natural weapon when attuned; it cannot be disarmed by any force not capable of severing a character's actual limbs, it can be used for Touch-keyword Charms, and it counts as an unarmed attack for any martial art that can use unarmed attacks (Righteous Devil Style would be among the exceptionally few exceptions). The second is that the spear is tied to its owner's destiny; for the cost of a single mote, its owner can reflexively call it to their hand from anywhere that borders the Loom of Fate - Creation, Yu-Shan, Malfeas, the Underworld, Autochthonia once the Seal of Eight Divinities is broken, even the Wyld out to the Deep Wyld. Only in regions where no casuality holds sway - Pure Chaos and the depths of the Labyrinth - does this power not function.

The final power is the most aggravating. Occasionally, no more than once every two to five centuries, the Spear will take it upon itself to incite destiny. It will instantly de-attune from its owner and vanish, passing into Creation and finding its way into the hands of a talented mortal. This mortal will become invisible to the Loom of Fate, but his actions will not; thus, he becomes incredibly difficult to track with the Loom. The mortal will gain all of the powers of Loginius as though he were attuned to it, and he will develop Destiny 5 as a military leader. Most worryingly, the mortal will begin to develop Charms; first an entire Terrestrial style, generally one Charm per three days, then a Celestial style, one Charm per week. Along the way, his Essence will rise to 5, whenever it is required for the next Charm he is learning. The character will be able to use Reflexive Charms freely as though they were a Dragon-Blood, and will have access to (Essence x10) motes, but will not otherwise be able to form Combos. What Martial Arts are learned varies wildly.

Approximately one season after learning his final Charm, the character will be brutally killed and the empire that he was raising will collapse (one average, this will be two to three seasons from the moment the character began his rise to power). As iwth the rise of it, this will not damage the fabric of Fate in the slightest, and within a year, everything will have restored itself to more or less how it was before the mortal arose. Occasionally, Sidereals have managed to track the spear and interrupt the process; sometimes they have even succeeded. This has not had a noticeable effect on the spear itself; it does not seem to mind being short-changed, although Sidereals often report noticeable paradox flaws developing in the aftermath of such an interruption. The general protocol for dealing with the Spear is to simply minimize the damage it causes without interrupting its path; after the effect is complete, the Spear has always vanished from Creation, returning to its original owner as though it had never left.

Notes

Effectively, Loginius is Artifact 5 most of the time, but arbitrarily turns itself into an Artifact N/A that can't possibly be used by its original owner for a few seasons every so often. I figure it still qualifies as Artifact 5. ;) - FrivYeti