ArtifactRelay/Abominations
Artifact Relay
The twenty-sixth theme is Abominations
Things that should not be.
- back to CrunchRelay.
- back to Artifacts.
- Plagueworn Threads - haren
- Artifact: •
The wearer of these clothes is most obviously carrying a foul and terriblely slowly killing disease. Is he a leper? Is it something else unknown? Who honestly cares? Only those who make a successful compassion roll may approach within 2 yards of the wearer, for only they feel the desire to help someone so damaged and risk disease. This is not quite the illusion one might suspect, for those who do touch the wearer find them suffering from a number of symptoms (though in reality they are harmless) from blisters and boils, to coughing up blood. Note that while few will wish to approach close, they are often more than willing to kill and burn the body from a distance for the good of themselves or their community.
- Body Recalibrator - Paincake
- Artifact: ••
This interesting contraption was created by a eunuch sorcerer who found no joy in life. He intended it to replace for himself the sexual highs he remembered blearily from before his accident left him unmanned; instead, he discovered an interesting flaw in his designs which he exploited instead. This artifact painfully reconstructs a target's body to suit the sorcerer's tastes. Much like a neomah can craft flesh, this artifact crawls up the person with its spiderlike legs and tears into their body to make them a new body part, or more attractive, taller or shorter. The flaw is that the artifact does not always create functional limbs or body parts; they will always be aesthetically correct, but more than half the time the nerves are damaged beyond repair and the musculature is not correct. The owner can also command the construct to fail. Each item seems to take perverse pleasure in the fact that it does its task without anesthesia of any sort, and gains a +1 to its craft roll when commanded to fail. The sorcerer-creator of the item made several and gave them to various Exalts seeking beauty, beautiful lovers, or a more interesting and humiliating torture-cum-execution device. (you can order it to give a particularly mouthy peasant a dog's throat and lower jaw; the peasant will be lucky if the jaw is functional.)
Health Levels - -0 -2 -3 Inc. Destroyed
MA 3 (to make a touch attack against unwilling or moving targets)
Dodge 3 (small and quick)
Craft: Flesh 3
Medicine 2
Soak: 6L/5B
Attune: 4 Motes
It looks like a magical material bracer until activated by a spent point of essence by its attuned owner. Then its four legs split out and it appears to be a motile X with a center full of whirling spinning saws, clamps, needles of all sorts and a small red eye. A large simple task like weight loss/body sculpting or height alteration takes the same amount of time as a delicate operation like facial reconstruction or remaking a hand. Each turn spent on making the craft rolls (Difficulty ranging from 3 over one turn to many over a few turns) the construct must also successfully roll its medicine to have created a functional body part.
- Talisman of the Blighted Hand - ArabianNinja
- Artifact: •••
- Commitment: 3 motes
A seemingly innocuous Artifact that can be found shaped in almost any form of Jade, in many different styles, often mistaken as Tokens of good fortune, and indeed they are. Whenever an attuned owner of such an artifact performs any action whatesoever that benefits themselves directly they recieve their Essence score in exta dice.
In truth, such talismans hide a darker secret, for within the ornately carved Jade is a core of Soulsteel wrapped in a fine webbing of Starmetal, and the good fortune it gives is taken forcibly from others. Whenever the attuned bearer performs any act that benefits anyone other than themselves directly will cause the roll to act as a failure. Trying to apply an Intelligence + Lore roll to give instruction to others will be flawed, and detrimental to their efforts, an medicine roll to heal others will cause even greater injury to the patient, if not deformation. In truth, the only way they ever may benefit others while still bearing the talisman is to botch the affecting roll. Such dismal failures cause a minor paradox in the Artifact causing them to become great success.
- Freedom the Kiss of Mercy - Paincake
- Artifact: ••••
- Commitment: 7 motes
Wielded: Speed +2 Accuracy +3 Damage +6L Defense +3 Rate 3
When alone, it uses the same stats above + the stats below, and gains + 1 to rate.
Name: Wretched Kiss
Nature: Caregiver
Attributes:
Strength 7, Dexterity 8, Stamina 6
Charisma 6, Manipulation 2*, Appearance 6 *completely innocent personality Believes it is 'doing good'
Perception 5, Intelligence 3, Wits 6
Abilities:
Athletics 3(Chasing Down Victims +3), Awareness 4, Dodge 5, Melee 6 ("Freeing" Obviously Weak Opponents + 2), War 2, Lore 3, Presence 5, Stealth 3,
Virtues: Compassion 5, Temperence 2, Valor 4, Conviction 5
Virtue Flaw: Freeing Heart (Can't resist 'helping' others.) (Compassion)
Willpower: 8
Health: -0 x 2,-1 x 3 ,-2 x 3,-4,Incap
Essence: 4
Essence pool: 48
Charms: Materialize (24 Essence), Measure the Wind, Siren Song (5 motes to roll Essence+Charisma vs Essence+Willpower to captivate those who can see it for 1 turn)
Combat:
Join Battle: 12
Soak: 10L/10B/10A (Unliving Artifact Weapon)
Dodge DV: 8
Parry DV: 8
When it was being made with love and care, the spirit in the metal of this blade began its life. Artistry went into it, so that it is impossible to call an axe, or a sword, or any other common word. Blade is partially correct; that it is a weapon is unmistakable. That it is delicate and heavy and beautiful is obvious. That it is alive is only sometimes discernable in its cold metal glare, or the soft eager gurgle when it strikes cringing flesh. The weapon wants only for slaughter and the debasement of life; it is indestructable and things left in its presence for too long begin to dissolve. However, in its mind it was created for one purpose: To preserve life. As long as it exists its purpose will be carried out; those it kills have their agony extended to an infinite point that will never end until this weapon is destroyed. Their souls never reach the wheel of reincarnation; the madness in this thing hopes to one day freeze every mortal life in that half-state, for when it was born its name was whispered to it: "Mercy, Freedom from Death", and it Kissed its maker with love and freed him first before beginning its holy mission.
It can be attuned only by those willing to share its mission; if it were to ever be convinced of its missions evil or madness, its heart would break and the weapon would instantly shatter. Those of Essence less than 2, inanimate objects and animals included take 1 lethal damage a scene from being in the weapon's presence.
- Seed of the Listless - Ambisinister
- Artifact: •••••
- Commitment: 10 motes
In its default state, the Seed of the Listless is a tiny soulsteel mass shaped like a seed. Its true power and state are only revealed when it is planted in a town, village, city or any other type community, and then activated. Activation requires a simple prayer roll and the expenditure of 20 motes of essence, of which 10 are committed. The prayer is to the souls contained within the device, and if successful, causes the Seed to begin sending out roots of soulsteel into the surrounding area. As time passes, the Seed begins to feed on the community, slowly siphoning away their hope and motivation. Ennui will spread eventually the community will become a listless, wasted mob that will slowly die out as members cease caring enough to live and their hearts just stop. Once the community is destroyed, the seed will grow into a tree of bone and soulsteel, where it will wait until its owner comes to harvest it.
For each week that passes after the Seed has been activated, community members will lose a point of virtue. Points are taken first out of conviction, then compassion, then temperance, and finally valor. A person with no virtues halves all their die pools. Once the virtues are gone, intimacies and then motivations are the next to go. A person with no intimacies or motivations needs to succeed at a willpower roll to perform any type of action more complicated than moving, eating, or sleeping and can no longer regain willpower. Willpower is the last to go, and once it reaches zero the person dies. Heroic mortals and beings with an essence of 2 or greater may roll to resist the Seed's effects. They must succeed on a check involving whichever trait is being fed upon. Failure results in the loss of a point from that trait while a botch prevents them from attempting to resist the next trait loss. Willpower is rolled to resist the lost of intimacies or motivations. Each subsequent roll for a given trait has its difficulty increased by 1 for Heroic mortals. Spirits, Terrestrial exalted, and mortals with awakened essences add 1 die to their resistance rolls. Lunars and Sidereals add two dice. Solars add three dice. Abyssals and beings of essence 6 or greater are immune. Should a being with an awakened essence leave the community for at least a week, they will begin healing trait loss at a point every three days. Mortals cannot heal trait loss, although they may be rehabilitated and raise traits with xp.
For the first five weeks, the only way to stop the Seed is to find it and dig it up or kill the being that activated it. After five weeks have elapsed, the only way to stop the Seed is to kill its owner. The owner need not remain anywhere near the Seed once it has activated and he will instinctively know once the Tree has grown. Once the Tree is grown the owner must return to the site to harvest it, which consists of another prayer roll. The owner has two options: He may make a difficulty 1 roll, the success of which causes him to gain a number of points of temporary willpower equal to the weeks the Seed spent feeding. This may take him over his cap. Or he may succeed at a difficulty 4 prayer roll and cause a small shadowland to form centered on the tree. Any such shadowland will fade away in a number of weeks equal to the time spent feeding. Failing either of these rolls cause the Seed’s energy to be wasted. In any case, after the roll the Tree will rapidly wither leaving behind a tiny soulsteel Seed. If the roll is botched, the new seed will remain inert for a year.
Comments
Hey ArabianNinja, do you want to set this theme? I did get my arty in under the wire, but clearly you were working on yours first. - willows
Thanks willows, you're all class. - ArabianNinja, Using Auspicious Relay Theming Prana!
Very cool messed up item Paincake, but a query: Does it always make a "damaged" reconstruction? If so then all is well. However if it can cause proper reconstruction, as in rebuilding a lost limb, etc, then this artifact should certainly be level 3 or higher. - ArabianNinja, who loves the reference to the dogs jaw thing.
- It says it makes it functional if the medicine roll succeeds. It only has medicine 2, so for anything complex it would certainly be unlikely to make it work. - IanPrice
- Ah, how true, very good then. - ArabianNinja
Not sure if the power scope is right for my Taslisman of the Blighted Hand, any opinions? - ArabianNinja
- I have one concern: as written, this completely reverses the penalty for breaking an Eclipse oath, if the actions are directly beneficial to others. - IanPrice
- Okay, scratch my last comment, it made no sense when read outloud. Anyway, if they break an oath they are treated as if they were hit with a major botch, not a naturally rolled one. The wrath of the Unconquered Sun cannot be stilled by a mere trinket. - ArabianNinja
IanPrice, that's why its in the abomination section. =) what do you do when you can order it to do any number of things to a person and it will most likely fail? You use it on people you don't like or don't care about. It is more of a torture device, though a callous enough individual wouldn't care about some of the people he'd use it on even if they were underlings or friends. You liked my example? Its extra good because of this: If the dog jaw is nonfunctional, you suffocate. And if it functions.. its the functioning lower jaw of a dog and that may work for a dog but.. I guess the item itself is only an abomination because it could've been made better but why bother? It has a very low medicine score to show that it causes terrible harm far more often than any good. Is it still overpowered? - Paincake
- I wasn't objecting - I was replying to ArabianNinja's comment about it being "overpowered if it makes functional things," pointing out how unlikely that was. Personally, I think it's all the more horrific that it might create something functional. Horror is much worse when you had hope in the first place, after all. - IanPrice
Or an Abyssal Daybreak character takes a batch of these and Ninja's them onto compassionate people :D - ArabianNinja, who is enjoying this theme a little too much.
I realized you were on my side a little late. =P Paincake who likes the theme just enough to unnerve, but not enough to prosecute.
Is this submission ok? Hoping so.. Paincake
Is it customary to post the new relay as soon as possible or to leave the old one up for a day or so for people to comment and the like?- Ambisinister
- Ooh, what's the next theme? =D - sssssz
Just post the theme when you're done. It's not like archived relays vanish when we're you're not looking; people can comment on them whenever. - LeumasWhite
