ArmorOfGlassFlames
Armor of Glass Flames</b>\\ Artifact <b>•••••</b>\\ Crazy Wyld Armor\\ Soak varies, usually 10L/10B/10A\\ Mobility penalty varies, no fatigue\\ Commitment: 15 motes, 2 willpower
Description
There is only one Armor of Glass Flames in existence and it is worn by Qingu, an incredibly powerful fae who is in the service of a half-formed primordial entity living (or half-living) deep within the Wyld called the Sea of Chaos. The armor is also known as Chaos Mantle and Tiamat's Lamellar. It is believed that Qingu received his powers, along with his weapons and this armor, when he dived into the beckoning Sea of Chaos in the deepest reaches of the Wyld. The armor, like the half-formed primordial it comes from, embodies both the nature of the Wyld -- ever-changing, utterly chaotic, endless possibility -- and the nature of the ocean -- one can immerse oneself in its waters, the ocean covers and envelops those who dive into it.
It is incredibly unlikely that anyone but a fae can use the armor, and even a fae must be very powerful to use it because the armor itself is very dangerous to its user and requires a mastery of essence to properly attune to. However, there is the slight possibility that a sorcererous Solar or Lunar with a deep knowledge of the Wyld energies could one day attune to this armor -- if they ever removed it from the body of Qingu, which is a difficult enough task in itself.
In its base state, the Armor of Glass Flames consists of about 125 adamantine glass shards. All the shards are unique and each one seems delicately carved to resemble a tongue of flame. The shards fit around each other, almost like an incredibly ornate chain-mail, so one who wears the armor looks like he is enveloped in a static glass blaze. The shards seem to hang in the air close to the wearer's body; they are not interlocked and do not actually touch the wearer's clothes or anything else. Each glass shard is razor-sharp.
This is a very dangerous armor and anyone travelling with its wearer is almost instinctively wary of it and keeps his distance, as if he were treading carefully around the shores of an unknown black sea.
It is believed that, with the proper artifact, a powerful wearer can actually control the state of the armor as if it were an extension of himself, rather than having the armor randomly shapeshift.
System
If the armor was a product of the pure Wyld, its form would be forever shapeshifting and could never be static. However, as it is the product of a half-formed primordial--the same sort of entities who shaped static creation--it does have static properties and a static base state (described above).
The armor stacks with other armor and provides 10B/10L soak. Its shards can absorb aggravated damage like none other--it can always soak aggravated damage or armor-ignoring damage with whatever its lethal soak is, even damage that ignores armor. Exceptions to this rule are charms that "penetrate" armor or "pass through" armor; however, the armor would soak damage from, say, an energy blast (you can just pretend that it is an extension of its wearer's natural soak). It has no mobility penalty. It is recommendable to wear it along with another armor since the Armor of Glass Flame’s shards of glass are not very comfortable against skin or cloth (and the armor is potentially very dangerous to its user).
The armor in its base state does automatic damage to any hand-to-hand (not melee) attack against its wearer. If anyone strikes one wearing Tiamat's Lamellar with his fist or even a khatar or a similar weapon, he automatically takes his own strength + 4 in lethal damage.
The armor has a will of its own. Even though it is partially static, it is inherently chaotic and by its nature yearns to shift and change into different forms. The intensity of this yearning is a reflection of the emotional intensity of its wearer at any given time.
When its wearer is casually walking, engaged in conversation, or anything not-strenuous, the armor stays relatively static; it shapechanges occasionally but it is easy enough for its wearer to command it to stay in its current shape without serious essence cost.
When its wearer is running, arguing, or is under stress, the armor changes shape every couple of minutes. If the wearer wishes the armor to remain in its current shape instead of changing, he must spend 2 motes of essence every couple of minutes.
During combat, the armor seeks to shift its shape every turn. Its wearer must reflexively spend 4 motes of essence PER TURN to force the armor to remain in its current, static shape.
If the wearer does not choose to spend the essence to reinforce the armor's stability, he rolls a die. Depending on the number that comes up, the armor immediately shifts into a random form. This happens every turn.
Each form has its own benefits/disadvantages that are completely different from its base state--the only thing that is common to all forms is the armor's ability to soak agg/non-armor damage with its lethal soak. Here are the forms for each number of the die:
- 1. The shards of armor (or plates or whatever its current state is) drop the the ground inertly and uselessly. The wearer has no benefits for this turn.
- 2. The armor seems to melt or dissipate into a liquid glass bubble. It only provides soak against magical/energy attacks such as fireballs, elemental bolts, etc, (10L/A) and does not soak any damage from weapons. The wearer's image is refracted, however, and anyone attacking him subtracts 4 successes from his to-hit roll.
- 3. The armor's glass shatters into millions of tiny fragments which swirl around like a cloud of crystal sand. Like #2, it only absorbs magical attacks (10L/A) and provides no soak against weapons. However, anyone attacking the wearer is down a number of dice equal to the wearer's essence, as the glass cloud gets into his eyes and he cannot see.
- 4. The glass shards swirl around the wearer, doing damage to anyone in about 10 yards vicinity. The shards are parryable but cannot be dodged. Roll 10 + Essence to hit and the shards do 5L damage plus any rollover successes. The wearer can reflexively spend 5 motes of essence to command the shards to refrain from harming his allies in the vicinity. The wearer has no soak during the round this effect is active.
- 5. The armor coalesces into a solid plate surrounding the wearer and any appendages/weapons he has, shimmers like sunlight hitting clear water, and the wearer vanishes. The wearer is undetectable if he stands still unless someone is using sorceries. If the wearer moves, he appears to be a shimmering translucent, human-shaped spot of air. If anyone attacks the wearer while he is not moving, he must first roll perception + awareness at difficulty 3. If the wearer is moving, he can be vaguely seen and attacked. Anyone who attacks the wearer, whether he is moving or not, uses half their attack pool, rounded up. Anyone parrying or dodging attacks by the wearer does so at half of those pools as well. The armor provides no soak this round and the wearer suffers a -3 mobility penalty.
- 6. The shards of armor coalesce into slightly larger pieces and begin to circle and hover defensively around the wearer. The wearer benefits from 5L/B/A soak this round and suffers a -3 mobility penalty. The pieces of armor reflexively parry a number of attacks against the wearer equal to his essence for this round. Roll 5 + essence for these parries. These parries cannot be augmented using charms. However, the armor and the wearer can parry the same attack and stack the successes.
- 7. The shards coalesce into larger, blade-like pieces and begin to hover menacingly around the wearer. The armor provides 5B/L/A soak this round and suffers from a -3 mobility penalty. The wearer can make a number of attacks with the armor against specific targets up to his permanent essence. The attacks have 5 + essence dice to hit and do 5L base damage. These attacks cannot be augmented using charms.
- 8. The lamellar flashes with a brilliant glassy light and instantly there are a number of reflected copies of the wearer equal to the wearer's essence in the combat area. Only one reflection is real, of course. All copies move as reflections in a mirror around a central axis and neither take nor deal any damage, they are only illusions. The armor's defense is sacrificed for these illusions -- subtract the wearer's essence from each of the armor's base (10) soak values.
- 9. The armor coalesces into a solid, curved plate of translucent glass that spins around its wearer. Its wearer is immobilized for the turn and cannot perform any actions. The armor provides 10B/10L/10A damage. Anyone who attacks the wearer this turn automatically suffers from his own attack. This "perfect counterattack" cannot be dodged or parried without perfect defenses. The wall of glass forms a mirror image of the opponent's striking arm and weapon which strikes the attacker at the exact moment he attacks. Mechanically, the attacker's accuracy roll simply does damage to himself as well as the wearer at the same time. This applies to ranged attacks too; the armor projects a shard of glass shaped like an arrow or thrown weapon at the moment it is attacked. It also applies to sorcerous attacks, even very powerful ones, for the counterattack literally comes from a mirror. Like all counterattacks, you can’t counterattack if you get hit by this effect. Also, at the STs discretion, this counterattack does not work on incredibly powerful celestial-level sorceries.
- 10. This is the base state of the armor, as described above. No action penalty, soak of 10L/10B/10A, and non-melee hand-to-hand attacks against the wearer take their own Strength+4 in damage automatically.
Outside of combat, the wearer can always choose to spend 3 motes to make the armor revert to its regular base state (#10). Note that any of the "numbers" for the armor can potentially be a base state, but the wearer can only will the armor to form into #10. The wearer can never choose any of the other states, and must wait until the armor shifts randomly of its own accord into the state he wants. (This could take a long time if the wearer is not in combat, and it is expensive to maintain a state whilst in combat). When combat is finished, the armor continues to shift every turn, then every couple of minutes, etc. until the wearer calms down.
The Armor of Glass Flames requires two willpowers to use. However, this requirement is after-the-fact, in that its wearer basically must maintain two dots of temp. willpower while wearing the armor. If his willpower should fall to 1 or 0, the armor violently shapeshifts and the glass shards randomly fly all over the place, damaging the wearer and anyone within his close vicinity. The accuracy and damage of this effect is identical to #4 above (soakable, but obviously not with the Tiamat armor!) These glass shards keep flying everywhere doing damage for a number of rounds equal to the wearer's essence before finally falling lifelessly to the ground (like #1). The wearer can then collect the heap of glass shards and reattune the armor at a later time (once he has enough willpower). It would be interesting to not tell the players about this last caveat and let them find out for themselves that they need 2 temp. willpower to use the armor.
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