ArtifactRelay/Inquiry
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Inquiry
Plate of Clever Digestion (Shataina)
Artifact • Orichalcum dinner plate Commitment: N / A Cost to Activate: 1 / 15 motes per edible item
This fine set of plates was manufactured by an ancient Solar investigator who was known for his bizarre methods and who always claimed that they were indispensable for the investigation of his most famous case, a dinnertime slaying.
The user places a piece of food on a plate, invests a mote into it, and eats it. Any edible item placed on these plates may be eaten with impunity; if the item is somehow poisonous or harmful, then the user will know, and she may reflexively choose to spend another 14 motes on top of the original (for a total of 15), which will cause her to regurgitate the stuff with no harm to herself. However, if the user does this, then she will not gain the real benefit of the plate. Some investigators have willingly undergone the effects of a poison in order to get the information they wished.
Having eaten, the user then makes a "digestion" roll (commonly Stamina + Endurance). Dependent on how well they digest the item, the user will get a better idea of who created or had an effect on it; i.e., for every success, the user gets a clear mental picture of one further person who last touched the item that was eaten, starting with the most recent and continuing backwards in time. Note that they get a picture of the person who actively interfered with the item; thus, for example, they will not get a mental picture of the servant who brought the food in on a tray, unless the servant spiced it further or sliced it themselves. They will get a mental picture of the the person who bit into it, the cook who prepared it, and with enough successes, the person who slaughtered the meat item or picked the vegetable.
This Artifact may be used on items that are technically edible, though not commonly eaten (paper, for example). However, in that case, the difficulty of the digestion roll is raised by how hard the item is to digest, starting with +2. Cheap paper would probably be difficulty 3 to digest; expensive, thick paper might be difficulty 4; et cetera. This cannot be used to make the user digest something they otherwise could not.
Remembered Deeds Blade (TedPro)
Artifact •• Starmetal Dagger Commitment: 4
A smooth, simple dagger, elegantly designed with a narrow blade and a terribly sharp tip, this weapon has the statistics for a normal dagger, with bonuses for being made of starmetal. As a weapon, it is passable. Any act of violence committed with the weapon, however, is marked by fate to be noted. Wounds, and especially deaths, caused with such a weapon attract attention and investigation and curiosity. Random deaths are discovered, descdendants seek the truth behind legendary battles, and assassinations become famous and deeply remembered. The body is far more likely to be found, and fate will lead those who may investigate toward evidence. The wielder and the weapon are no more likely to be investigated or discovered than usual, but everything else about a an act of violence with such a blade will attract attention. This blade gives a +5 to Investigations regarding such an act, except to discover the attacker and the murder weapon. This weapon is used most often by Sidereals of the Gold Faction, when seeking to be sure that a controlled act of violence has major social consequences. Whether seeking to be sure that an organized crime hit sends a message to other betrayers, to make a battle more famous, or to see to it that a murder attracts rumors, this weapon sends a message with every cut.
Macabre Sculptor's Tool (DODurden)
Artifact ••• Soulsteel and Moonsilver Tool Commitment: 7
The Tool is an item of possibilities and potential for great good or ill. It's powers are subtle and manifold, as is its shape. The Tool can become any surgical instrument, including essence-created thread, as well as a great many instruments that could be used in surgeries no man would willingly undertake, and often its form is limited only to the users imagination and the fact that however spiderlike and delicate it may become, it cannot become larger than a cubic meter in volume, and at that point it is a filigree cube or sphere. Its powers are as follows.
-Any wound created or caused by the Tool has either zero chance of infection, or +3 to difficulty to resist infection, selected at the whim of the user.
-The Tool is a Legendary surgical instrument, giving +2 dice to medicine and Necrosurgery pools.
-The Tool can be used to stop bleeding for three motes, or, as an attack causing serious bleeding but no actual levels of damage as it cuts veins and arteries all across the surface of the skin.
-The Tool can be used to repair the amputation of limbs, provided the amputation was done less than (User's Essence) hours ago. Anyone using Artful Maiming Onslaught with the Tool treats it as a +3+5/+5L/-3 weapon. Otherwise it's worthless as a weapon.
-The user can immediately discern the cause of death of any dead creature. For 6 motes and several minutes study, the user can recreate the progression of blows used to kill a combat victim, as well as knowing the exact shape and composition of the weapon used.
-In the case of horribly maimed victims, the Tool can completely reconstruct their dead flesh, for a price. For every one pound of blood or flesh from a being of the same type (human, yozi, spirit) as well as two motes of essence, the Tool can restore the same weight/volume of crushed faces, annihilated limbs, burned entrails, or any other possible trauma to a state in which they appear to have died peacefully in their sleep. This can, in the case of a severed head, take a lot of flesh and blood. The Tool can extract blood from a willing subject or a restrained and unwilling victim for this purpose. This can make for very peaceful-looking walking dead, or restore identity to an anonymous corpse.
- For 8 motes of essence per limb/head/torso, the Tool can sculpt dead flesh into something else entirely, resulting in horrific creations, zombies with animal heads, 'living' tables made of human legs with human torsos for a writing top, or whatever the user can think up. Alternatively, the user can alter a corpse to look like it died in some vastly different way from truth.
There may be other powers to the Tool, but no one has been inventive or twisted enough to come up with them.
Yet.
The Golden Book of the Rules of Inquiry (Quendalon)
Artifact •••• White jade and orichalcum book Commitment: 4 motes
This is a broad, square book, two feet on a side and five inches thick, though strangely light when infused with committed Essence. Its white jade covers bear the Old Realm phrase ‘Rules of Inquiry’ in gold inlay; the pages within are thin, flexible sheets of beaten orichalcum, covered with elegant Old Realm script in black jade ink.
Whenever an inquest is held to determine the truth of a matter, if the rules of order set forth in the Golden Book are exactingly followed, the Investigation roll made to determine the outcome of the inquest gains four automatic successes. In addition, any witness at such an inquest who swears upon the book to tell the truth is bound by its magic to do so. Any attempt to lie while under this compulsion requires a Willpower roll at difficulty 4. Failure means that the truth forces its way past the witness’ lips. Success allows the witness to lie; however, the liar will thereafter suffer a single botch at a crucial moment in the future, as the botching effect generated by breaking an oath secured by the Eclipse anima power. Each attempt to lie requires a separate roll, and botches gained in this way stack with each other and with those generated by breaking Eclipse oaths.
The Book of Questions - FourWillowsWeeping
- Artifact •••••
- Blue Jade Book
- Commitment: 7 motes
This is a narrow book shaped like a pamphlet. Its covers are blue jade plates, so thin they are translucent. When the book is closed, the frontispiece can be seen through them; each time it is a line drawing of a different, unidentifiable beast. It's not clear whether it's the style of the drawings or their subject matter that makes them so obscure.
Its pages—there are five—are made of soft, indestructible leather. Somone attuned to this book can describe a goal he intends to achieve on the first page of the book, with the blue jade stylus in the spine that's present for this purpose. Scattered marks of ink will begin to appear on the remaining four pages. In a day and a night, these marks will have resolved themselves into a lengthy question. Finding the answer to this question will result in success at the goal the user has described, either as a side-effect of the search, or because the answer recommends a course of profitable action.
Until the user is deceased or the goal achieved, the writing in the book does not fade away.
Comments
I apologize, but that question mark was just beckoning me. Besides, I'd like to see some good investigative artifacts... I'll probably chip in eventually, but I'm tired now. -- AntiVehicleRocket
I don't have my Exalted book with me, so I couldn't give specific stats for the Remembered Deeds Blade -- TedPro
Even without stats, it's an interesting artifact with lots of really cool plot opportunities built in. - willows
- Thank you! -TedPro
I started with an idea for a way to reconstruct crime scenes, but realized that most Exalts can do that anyway. Now I'm thinking autopsy tool, and went way, way overboard. -- DODurden
- This seems more like a Level 4 Artifact, IMHO. -- TedPro
I like the Tool, and fixed a few minor typos and things in the description. Hope you don't mind. A minor query I wasn't sure on: Does it cost 3 motes to inflict bleeding? -- Darloth
- Nah. It's harder to heal than hurt. And thanks for the fix. --DODurden
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