Artifacts/Capric4

Level 4 Artifacts

Sandstorm Savant

Art 4, commit 4

These dark goggles are named for their unsurpassed ability to track the instant minutae of movement all around them: it is said that the creator of these goggles could count every grain of sand that flew by in a sandstorm while wearing them.

• Activating these goggles costs 3 motes, and a miscellaneous action with a perception + awareness roll as the user activates the tracking mechanisms and the goggles key into the eye movements. For the rest of the scene, successes from this roll may be spent to enhance any action requiring vision (ie, any roll to which blind penalties would apply). For perception or awareness rolls, there is no limit to the number of successes which may be spent. For all other rolls a maximum of 2 successes may be spent (including DVs).

Sunglasses of the Heaven-Shattering Lord

Art 4 Attune: 10m

May be used as short diaklaive or skycutter with no MM bonus.

The Heaven-Shattering Lord was a legendary figure even in his own age, known for his ridiculous speeches, his ridiculous combat tactics, and his ridiculous power on the battlefield. Nothing could stand in his way, be it the fair folk, kingdoms led astray, unjust law or reason. These oversized sunglasses were modeled after the set he would wear in combat and may be wielded as a short daiklaive or skycutter as desired. In addition, they grant the following bonuses while worn as visors:

• • Performance specialty: hot-blooded speeches +3
  • These sunglasses allow for co-operative valor channels: By spending 3 motes and taking a miscellenous action, the attuned wielder of the sunglasses may make a charisma+performance roll, targeting up to essence x2 allies. Each of these allies may add to the speech, granting a limited cooperation bonus; this bonus may exceed the regular limit of (ability), granting +1 to the roll for each targeted ally. For the rest of the scene, the number of successes on that roll count as the effective valor for all purposes for both the wielder and all targets. Complementary units (ie, rank and file) are valid targets, but they may not cooperate in the speech itself.

The Feathers

Art: 4ish

Use standard Smashfist stats, no MM bonus.

This is seemingly a regular smashfist, made of undefinable substance. Attacking or using the special ability with it leaves a trail of feathers behind--feathers from all sorts of birds. Careful examination of these feathers shows that they sometimes seem to follow the form of a giant face or mask as they fly about, though more detail than that is impossible to determine.

• You may target Creation with this artifact. Typically this is done by hitting the ground, although anything else will suffice. To do so, declare an attack on creation in step 1 and reflexively spend 10 motes. The area of creation effected will be approximately a waypoint in scope; the exact size will depend greatly. More interesting places will tend to have smaller waypoints! You might only effect a neighboorhood (or part of one) in a place such as Nexus, whereas in the wilderness you might affect miles around you. Creaton has a soak of 30L, and 10/30 HL to break/destroy. "Break" in this case moves the waypoint one step towards Pure Chaos for a scene. "Destroy" moves it one step towards Pure Chaos for a week.
  • Waypoints affected by this artifact are also full of feathers to such an extent that vision in impaired: consider the waypoint to be covered in fog (see core pg 135). These feathers also impede essence sight.
  • There is certainly some interaction between the pattern spiders and fate-spinning with the amount of time it takes to fix the "destroy" level, but that'se best left up to ST. Week by default, but probably faster for "important" places.
• By spending a miscellenous action, the user of this artifact may define something about himself, much as the fair folk do. This is a "Wyld" tagged ability (see Lunars pg 140). It defines a single aspect of the character, and should be roughly as wide in scope as a normal ability specialty. Any application of that aspect gets (essence/2, rounded up) successes for the rest of the scene. Only one such aspect may be defined at any given time.

Devil Hand

Art: 4ish

Use standard Smashfist stats, with "N" tag. This weapon replaces one of your normal unarmed "Punch" attack. MM bonus is of Black Lead

• • Black Lead: Weapons gain peircing tag (on weapons with peircing, reduce armor to 1/3 rounding down), and apply a dose of poison (stats of Arrow Frog Venom) to every attack doing HL damage.

Not a regular smashfist so much as a full arm, weilding this flesh-and-metal artifact requires you to first remove your own arm. This artifact may only be attuned after you have a crippling tag reflecting an arm loss. Attunement may then occur normally. The crippling tag is lost after the artifact is attuned.

This seems to be a regular arm in may ways; the size, build, and natural coloration will match its owner after the artifact is attuned. However, the arm is covered in glowing black tattoos, much like the moonsilver tattoos of the Lunars. More careful inspection will reveal that they are are of unknown origin and type. They are written in an obscure demon tongue which predates the First Age, and seem to tell the first part of a story about a young demon child.

This is a "forbidden" artifact in many or most circles. Many who would find it would attempt to destroy it immediately.

• Jumping distance is tripled, and this stacks with other effects. Fall damage is reduced down to 0.
• Anima banner shown while this artifact is attuned is a demonic and malfean-twisted version of your normal anima; expending 30 peripheral motes in a scene while this artifact is attuned counts as a success towards altering a demense towards Malfean alignment (see Oadenol's pg 54). Every 10 motes past 30 gives an additional success; this effect caps out at (user's essence) succeses per month.
• Attuning this artifact allows you to take a week-long dramatic action to change an existing locale's influence towards Malfean essence (see Oadenol's pg 53). Add (essence) extra successes on this roll, which is otherwise made as normal. No more than 1 dramatic action may be taken in a given place per year, and this roll is very easy to botch--extra successes do not count for the purposes of botching!
• You may target Creation itself with this artifact, punching a crack in it which will allow demons to creep into Creation. Any time an inanimate object is target, Creation itself must also be targeted. Creation has a soak of 30L, and 10/30 HL for break/destroy. "Break" means a crack small enough for creatures no larger than a cat to escape through. "Destroy" indicates man-sized creatures may enter. This effect happens in parallel with any mundane destruction caused with this artifact. Demons who do come out of these cracks suffer a -(essence) penalty on all rolls (and DVs) to oppose the wielder of this fist.

Medusan Tiara

attune: 6m, green jade only, 1 hearthstone slot.

The Medusan Tiara looks in all regards like a green jade hearthstone tiara, but does not give any of the normal benefits of one. Instead, it gives the wielder control over his hair, adding +2 dice to int+larceny rolls for disguise as well as an effective +1 bonus to appearance as his hair moves in perfect harmony with him.

However, the true power of the Medusan Tiara lies in a different form of control over the wielders hair. By committing a single mote to the tiara, the wielder's hair writhes and lengthens, gaining a greenish tinge. This is an obvious effect, and grants +2 dice to any presence rolls. When the character desires, he may form the strands into the shape of serpentine bow: treat this weapon as a green jade long powerbow in all regards. The bow must be readied as normal in order to be fired, and when not readied the mass of writhing hair grants +1 DV cover bonus, much as a tower shield strapped to the back would. Furthermore, the character's hair is considered to be made of green jade for all purposes while the mote is committed.

The wielder may choose to fire strands of his own hair instead of normal arrows: these cost 1m per arrow to create. The wielder may choose any type of normal arrow. These arrows are, like the character's hair, considered to be as strong and difficult to destroy as green jade. Finally, as these arrows are formed of the wielder's body, they count as "touch"-tagged archery attacks for any applicable effects, notably the Wood Aspect anima power.

When the mote is decommitted from this artifact, excess hair falls into a fine green ash, and arrows shot turn into long, single strands of the character's hair.

Nightmare Recursion Cannon

attune 5m

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spd 6, acc +2, dam 10B, range 300, rate 7, tags P, 2

min str 3, valor 3

• • 2m to fire normally
  • may fire nightmares. Substitute a single nightmare for the normal essence cost to fire; an action may fire either a nightmare or the regular gouts of blood, not both. If firing a nightmare, the multiple action penalty is changed to only the number of actions preceding it in the flurry, and the attack is a ranged crushing clinch. Only one nightmare is fired per flurry. All wounds inflicted give a stackable 1-dot derangement effect (mechanically identical to wyld derangements) as appropriate to the attack stunt. This is a natural crippling effect, difficulty 4 diagnosis and difficulty 3 treatment.
  • nightmares fired will be suffered by the wielder the next available night. The character gets no rest from sleep, must roll the lowest of valor or conviction to regain willpower, and is considered to be exposed to hysteria. Nights of nightmares may stack indefinitely if this weapon is used frequently, or the character, for whatever reason, can not suffer nightmares.