PaincakeArtifacts3
Claw Strider Armor - Paincake
Artifact • • •
Soak: 6L/6B
Mobility: -0 Fatigue: 0
Commitment: 6
A lightweight alloy mesh or filigree shirt and roman-style skirt, complete with a ferocious facemask. The armor comes with special boots dusted with the appropriate material. Created to aid in swift movements and savage sneak-attack efforts, this light suit of reliable armor was favored by Fire and Wood Aspect Terrestrials and Lunar Exalts. Red and Green Jade suits are common, Moonsilver and even Orichalcum being less common variants. In bursts costing 1 motes per two turns,(used a maximum number of times equal to the user's Essence+Athletics) the armor can grant the user quadrupled movement speed. This speed increase can only be activated once a day, so planning ahead is essential. When stalking an enemy, the user gains a +3 bonus to remaining undetected but only so long as they intend to engage the enemy within 2 turns. In the turns following a surprise attack, the armor's wearer gains a diminishing bonus to all attacks starting at +4. It diminishes by one each subsequent turn.
Certain suits of Claw Strider armor have been modified by martial artists to provide a permanent +2 bonus to kick attacks instead of a surpise attack bonus. Such kicks also cause lethal rather than bashing damage, as the boot has been modified to sport wicked talons.
Soul Disruptor (Cradle of the Mind) by - Paincake
Artifact ••• Commitment Cost: 45m Minimum Essence: 7
A small tiara with a diamond set at its center, elegantly woven from finger-thick bands of Moonsilver and hair-thin lines of Starmetal. For the artifact to function the diamond at its center must actually be a powerful (4 or 5) Hearthstone, and the essence to attune the item actually belongs to a different person than the child who will wear it. Finally, only Celestial Exalted can attune to the item, and only by expending twice the number that will be invested.
Called by the deceptive title 'Cradle of the Mind' by its original inventor, the Soul Disruptor is an item of singular evil. In the days of the Solar Deliberative its use became the center of a Creation-shaking trial and lead to the execution of several powerful Solar Exalted and one of the highest ranking members of the Bureau of Destiny.
The lifespans of the Celestial Exalted are measured in Millenia. Mortals are flickers in the mind's eye, God-Blooded and the Terrestrial Exalted mere footnotes on the pages of history, turned past and gone.
Yet there can grow in the heart of even the longest-lived Celestial the fear of Death and what comes after.
When placed upon the brow of a newborn infant as it draws its first breath, the owner attuned to the artifact makes an Int+Occult roll, Difficulty 5. When succesful, the artifact bonds permanently with the infant, and the child gains a bonus to all Mental and Social rolls equal to their Essence+2, to a maximum of the artifact owner's Essence-3.
At any point in time the Exalt who owns the Soul Disruptor can sacrifice 6 points of permanent Essence.
At this point the person gifted with the Soul Disruptor dies, their spirit not merely evicted from the mortal coil but utterly dissolved. (Exalts are immune. God-Blooded save with their Essence against a difficulty of 4.) They gain the person's physical traits, appearance.. and Permanent Essence. The Exaltation shard will not truck with being shifted from the body it inhabits in such a manner, (It considers the person dead and reincarnates as normal.) a complication that the hurried hands of its creators did not deem a terrible inconvenience. They lose all charms and spells, but may teach them to others and gain a mere mortal lifetime to live.
This may puzzle most, until the implications of Sidereal divination used in concert with the device are considered.. an infant destined with Solar Exaltation was a ripe and tempting target for the truly vile in the days of the First Age, and this is the reason for the death of the ancient Sidereal Exalt Jue Che-Ju, who with the aid of Solar Twilight craftsmen created the device. Only two ever were made, and the art of their creation was given to the Maiden of Secrets by the Unconquered Sun himself. One of the two items was annihilated, its pieces turned to slag and ash and never reused. The other has disappeared from whence it was kept in the Celestial City of Yu-Shan, warded by sorceries and Godhead and guarded by a hundred Celestial Lions. None among the Celestial Incarna have yet turned their eyes from their Games since its theft, and chances are they would not notice if they did.
