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Overshee's Artifacts

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Silent Ending- 5 dot Starmetal Daiklave

Spd Acc Dam Def Rate +9 +6 +7L +2 5

Silent ending is a curved daiklave, in the shape of a large scimitar. Unlike most scimitars however, Ending is cloaked in darkness and silence. The blade and hilt, if not attuned, are starmetal alloy, with some pure starmetal tracings, in flowing lines and swirls. When unattuned, one might ask themselves, why is this blade said to be made with the directions of the Pattern Spiders themselves. When attuned, costing 8 commited motes, all of the blade and hilt but the tracings turn black (imagine something that Raven from Teen Titans is manipulating.), it turns feather light, and it's hidden powers activate.

Silent Ending mutes all sound coming from both the exalt at all times and the current target (the Pattern Spider designates these foes, most commonly those who will mess fate up) if they are within 10 yards. However exalt can always send a message through gestures, and the Exalt's gestures are always guaranteed to be understood.

The blade holds a reserve of 20 motes which may power Charms employed against these foes. Each level of Lethal damage the wielder causes in their pursuit restores 3 motes to this pool.

In exchange for a point of Paradox, the wielder may desginate any arbitrary foe an enemy of Fate and gain the above bonuses.

Additionally, the Exalt may forsake his name and nature to become an engine of Fate's whim. The effect invokes 1 paradox and costs 2 Willpower, while any active Resplendent Destinies fall. While this power is invoked:

• The Exalt may not make Social rolls unless to counter a combat effect.
• He himself is now considered outside of Fate, though more precisely he is such a part of it as to be untrackable.
• His footfalls touch less lightly on the physical world, adding +4 successes to Stealth actions and ensuring that he will not be noticed by individuals of lesser Essence unless he directly provokes them or they employ magical means of detection. No one will remember his face.
• His form blurs, trailing behind his actions and increasing difficulty to be hit by 2.
• The causality of location around him is lessened--if someone cannot actively see him, he may spend 1 Willpower to himself from Creation and into some other location up to Essence*10 yards away.

does this sound fair and good and non-broken

== Comments == (you know you want to!)

Really, really cool. My advice is as follows: 1) don't let the weilder talk telepathically through gestures. That's cheap, in my opinion. If you want to fight in silence, you should pay the price. 2) Give us more! Please, I'm begging you. Tell us about the thing's look, it's history, it's style. Give us more than a collection of badass states and cool powers! -Seraph

I will, but I've got school now :( -Overshee

Updated, thanks for the comments btw. -Overshee

Hmmm... Having a reserve of 20 motes of Essence strikes me as odd. Are there any other Artifacts that do that sort of thing? I think I'd be more comfortable with an Essence discount on Charms than a straight Essence reserve. Also, what's the attunement cost? -szilard

Think of them as a present from the pattern spiders, a little bribe almost, to do what they say. I was thinking of subtracting 1 from all VBoS charms, but I like this more.

Except that, as far as I can tell from what is written, the user invokes this at will - so it is more of a theft from th pattern spiders than a gift, no? A couple of questions: 1) what can this do without costing Paradox? 2) What happens if this is attuned by a non-Sidereal? Can non-Sidereals even invoke Paradox? -szilard

The Sidereal using this (this is for a game I'm STing) is a fate-trouble shooter. The pattern spiders gave this to him so he can kill all those who are messing up fate. Not a deep plot at all as this is him first time playing, so really this is a big experiment. I am trying to make it fun for him, and this is what he wants, a basic hack and slash really.

I suggested a fair chunk of these powers verbatim in this thread, including the bonus Essence sink. The original text only allowed the attuned to access the extra motes against 'enemies of Fate', generally at the behest of the Beauru of Destiny or direct orders from the Pattern Spiders. I didn't want to list specific Charms to apply a discount to, as that burdens characters to stick to those Charms even if something more interesting becomes available. I think my intent was that only offensive Charms directly affecting those targets could draw from the pool, but I wasn't very explicit. I can't think of a canon Artifact with such a widely applicable mote pool, but it is Artifact 5. The recharge rate might be a little much.

As for Paradox, it's a measure of the Pattern Spider's ire at someone for screwing with fate, so I think it'd apply to any individual with the capabilities to directly screw with destiny, which usually only includes Sidereals. At any rate, I don't think it's been made explicit either way. _Wohksworth

You know, I just got what you meant in the threads and stuff. I need more sleep. -Overshee

As for the essence reserve, you could simply give a slight discount to a certain types of charms. The Spiders simply make it easier for these charms to be used, thus less essence cost. -FrozenHermit

The interaction of Fate and Charms is a little hazy, but my understanding is the former doesn't really like the latter, because it's very hard to track; this current mechanic is an implicit allowance of Fate, not an explicit warping. That's pedantic, though, because you could just say the cost reduction is a power of the blade and that's justification enough.

I'm a little less uncomfortable with restricting benefits to particular classes of Charms than I was initially, and it might not hurt to limit this particular power a little, especially considering the current recharge rate gives Exalts in any Extra-laden combat field almost unlimited Essence for offensive Charms against specific (generally powerful) foes. I still wouldn't want to limit cost reduction to a set of Charms that might be less useful as the character grows, but I suppose a one mote reduction to either Melee or Violet Bier of Sorrows Charms is not be too restrictive, since those are both good workhorse trees even once a character starts turning eyes into newts with Sidereal Styles, or whatever. That hamstrings Lunars, and the Melee reduction would prove more useful to Solars or Dragon-Blooded than Sidereals, but it's not enough to spoil the theme.

Or were you thinking of reductions in differently quantified type of Charm--all Instant Supplemental attack Charms, or Scene-long Charms that grant Reflexive effects? Effects which cost a Willpower point? Because that could be interesting and metagamey. _Wohksworth

Geez, brevity truly is a dying virtue. _Wohksworth

I wasn't actually thinking of a particular category, however since the artifact is a sword you could state that the mote discount is applied to all melee charms as well as all MA styles that allow use of swords. Basically, if you can use this sword with it, the discount applies. Of course it will still not be useful for Sidereal MA, but then you wouldn't be able to use the sword with most of those styles anyway. (Excepting of course Prismatic Arrangment of Creation, where you can kick up the VBoS Form.) Also I don't think you need to worry about how useful it is to other Exalted, as the maker would build it for Sidereal in mind. - FrozenHermit