TheBloodGauntletsofTirKai

The Blood Gauntlets of Tir-Kai, Lord of the Small Deaths - by Fifth

Soulsteel Razor Claws (Artifact 4)

Stats(Power Combat): Speed +0, Accuracy + 3, Damage + 5L, Defense +0, Rate 6

Commitment: 4 motes each, Soulsteel

Once in the past there was a god. He stalked and scurried, killing those things whose time had come or those who prolonged their lives beyond their ken. For ages he endured, much as he was. He was Tir-Kai, and his domiinion was the final death of all those lesser beings in Creation. Then came the the Usurputation. Tir-Kai swelled; the deaths of the Solars came only at a price, and that price included in it the deaths of countless small things. Tir-Kai's essence and being grew and grew, and he became more powerful than ever before. But for Tir-Kai, that growth eventually led to a price that he had taken countless times but never paid. Tir-Kai paid this price in blood; trapped away from his Sanctum, forced into being, Tir-Kai was rended and ripped, destroyed and unmade almost entirely. Only one thing; that which is executer made him pay his price for; remained.

Description: These twin claws are formed from huge skeletal inhuman hands bound by Soulsteel and onto a Soulsteel frame. They fit comfortably onto a human's hands, although the wearer will sometimes feel a cold... shift, as if the hands desire to once more grasp and throttle the life out of a living throat. The fingers on each hand end in a razor-sharp claw, and each finger is reinforced with a Soulsteel structure.

System: The Blood Gauntlets of Tir-Kai have many powers; some are known, some are not. The three most common are listed as follows:

• At a command, the wearer of The Blood Gauntlets of Tir-Kai may cause the hands to begin shifting of their own accord in order to better kill their targets. Bound to the wearer, the Gauntlets do demand a small sacrifice of being; one lethal health level; but as long as that level remains unhealed, the Gauntlets increase their damage by twice the wearer's permanent Essence. Healing the health level by any means immediately removes this extra damage.
• Upon drawing blood (in the form of any lethal or aggravated damage) the Gauntlets greedily drink more, in an sad echo of the God's once insatiable lust for death. The wielder may immediately drain his Essence in motes from the target. Half of these (rounded down) go to the user's Essence pools; the remainder is simply lost.
• The third known power of the Gauntlets is one that comes most clearly from the God that is bound into them. Any mortal (animal, human, or other) struck by the Guantlets that takes even a single health level of damage is instantly killed. There is no roll; the Small Death was Tir-Kai's domain, and even dead, his hands still carry out his work.

Possible additional powers: The Blood Gauntlets of Tir-Kai were not made by a normal smith, in a normal means. They were made in Tir-Kai's death, again by a smith in the foulest pits of the Underworld, and finally when they were drenched in the blood of a hundred sacrificed innocents. This making means that the Gauntlets are not codified; they are not made to be known. They change and grow in power as they kill more innocents, and the day may come when Tir-Kai's purpose is finally fully fulfilled by his hands. Any additional powers the ST wishes to have the Guantlets "develop" or have already been developed are approprite; additional powers may, however, increase the artifact's rating to 5 or even N/A.

Comments

What would you recommend as non-PC stats for this weapon? I've been looking for level four soulsteel razorclaws exactly, but I don't use PC in my games (PG came out just after I had finally got my PCs used to the old system, which is somewhat simpler). - TheMyriadOfShades

It's been a long time since I've checked this, so I have no idea if this is still useful, but the only changes to the claw stats from normal are +2 accuracy and -1 defense. Making those changes to the normal stats for Razor Claws would probably do the trick. -Fifth