Artifacts/DarlothSpellSpireScepter

Spellspire Scepter</b>
<b>Artifact:</b> varies - 3 for Terrestrial, 4 for Celestial, 5 for Solar
<b>Commitment:</b> 1/3/5 motes for Terrestrial, Celestial and Solar circle respectively.

Spellspire Scepters are ornately carved wands made of various magical materials, often with a large and depictive orb set into one end. They have essence channels carefully cut into and through both the end ornament and the handle, and each is a unique melding of intensely precise essence manipulatory geometry and art.

Once a day, an attuned holder of a spellspire may channel their essence and willpower through it to cast a single spell, which is set into the spellspire at its creation. This spell may never be changed without completely rebuilding the artifact, as it is physically carved into the very form of the artifact itself.

These artifacts are most commonly found in jade, as the dragon-blooded find sorcery the hardest to learn and have the smallest reserves of personal essence to cast it with, but they can and have been created in all five main flavours of magical material. Each material gives a different bonus, and the bonus is listed below:

• <b>Orichalcum - Orichalcum spellspires channel their essence with all the force and fury of the unconquered sun. In cases where a casting roll is needed, add Essence in automatic successes. In cases where there is some sort of fixed difficulty to resist the effects of a spell, add (Essence / 2, round up) to the resistance difficulty. In the case of some sort of variable mote cost spell where every mote has a specific effect (Imbue Amalgam and my own Invocation of the Sorcerer's Undeniable Privilege come to mind), then orichalcum rods add a pool of (Essence x 2) motes which can be spent before drawing on the caster's own essence. If the spell is fixed in effect and has nothing that can be increased, then the GM should try and decide what bonus the spell gets, based on the Essence of the user, but can always declare the spell is too fixed for the scepter to enhance. Spells such as this typically do not get made into Orichalcum scepters, for obvious reasons.
• Moonsilver - Moonsilver spellspires can draw prodigious amounts of essence and shape it in the blink of an eye. Reduce the casting time for the spell by 1 turn. For terrestrial circle sorcery, this means it is cast in a single simple action, the runes and display of power glowing to life and unfolding in a single fluid motion. Counterspells and anything already faster than normal can be cast reflexively and with only a single thought, even if the caster is restrained or would normally be completely unable to use sorcery.
• Jade - Jade spellspires are the most common, and for the dragon-blooded, probably the most useful. For every hour that the artifact is suffused in the element associated with it, it charges 1 mote of essence, up to the cost of the spell it is engraved with. Especially strong elemental manifestations will charge the spire at a rate of 3 motes per hour instead. If an appropriately aspected dragon-blooded is flaring at the top level of anima flux, they may also directly charge it at a 2 motes spent to 1 mote charged ratio, but noone else may charge it like this. Finally, if a dragon-blooded knows the appropriate Elemental Bolt technique for the type of jade, then every damage success rolled against the artifact with use of this charm or charms that derive from it also charges 1 mote, and has no chance of damaging the artifact . However it is charged, as soon as the spell is cast all stored motes are expended to help casting the spell, reducing the cost by whatever amount has accumulated. Suffusion in elements is roughly equivalent to the following - Placed somewhere high in moderate wind, placed in a fire, placed underwater, buried under the earth, planted amongst a healthy garden or group of shrubs. Examples of strong elemental manifestations are also provided: stormwinds or lightning storms(it makes a great lightning rod), rapids, forgefires, entombed in rock or buried more than 5 yards underground, or planted amongst the roots of a gigantic ancient tree. Finally, it should be noted that the colour of jade used must match at least partially the spell engraved, which limits multi-elemental spells to a single permutation.
• Starmetal - Starmetal spellspires cause a conjunction of fate when used, so that not only is the universe acceptable to being altered by the precepts of sorcery, but it actively aids such a process. As such, spells cost 1 less willpower to be cast from a starmetal spellspire, although they are as usual the rarest sort, often being topped by a delicately woven hollow orb with a much smaller smooth and intricately engraved solid sphere at the very centre of the tracery of metal.
• Soulsteel - Soulsteel spellspires contain only the most hungry and malicious spirits, and these wrest essence from the surrounding area whenever they are used, draining enough motes to halve (round down) the cost of the spell, although the willpower cost remains the same. This has no mechanical effect, but the storyteller may wish to assign small narrative effects such as plants wilting around the caster or small animals sickening and dying to fuel the magic. It works just as well in the underworld or other places with no life, as the spirits do not care from what they rip the essence, but in a complete lack of ambient essence, it may need a source of life to draw from (pets, or a few caged vermin should suffice)

As a final note, it should be recorded that attuning a spellspire scepter from another material other than your own can be exceedingly dangerous. Make the attunement roll when the spell is first cast, not when the motes are committed. In addition, for each circle the spell is above your current casting capability, subtract 2 dice from the roll. If it fails, the spell dissipates as if the caster had failed a concentration roll. If it botches, then the effects are likewise the same as if a caster has botched their concentration roll, often causing horrific backblast and likely annihilating the local area if it was a high circle spell. As such, there are only very few people using these artifacts to cast spells 'above' their natural level, and they are loath to allow their attunements to dissipate, for obvious reasons.

Comments:

I had considered changing the celestial ones to once every 2 days, and solars to once every 3 days... what do you think?
-- Darloth

I say go for it. -Seraph

Ah, but -why- do you say go for it? I'm undecided, so I need reasons, not votes.
-- Darloth

Well, how about looking at it this way. Savant and Sorceror notes that an Artifact 5 item can do roughly one Essence 5 or 6 effect, and if made of orichalcum, can include perfection. Solar circle sorcery as a concept is Essence 5, and some of the things can take hours to cast, and boatloads of Essence (such as summoning 3rd circle demons 'safely'), so it's definitely pushing the top bound. At the same time, Gaia's Rebuke is a Solar circle spell, and can (and will) pretty much kill ... anything. The best defense against it is to kill the sorceror in the 3 rounds he's casting, and unable to use charms. With this thing, you're looking at launching a Gaia's rebuke pretty much once per day. Now, depending on how it works (and the description isn't really clear), can you use charms while you're using the Scepter? After all, you're not using the real casting charm, which is where it specifies that you're busy for those rounds. In addition, from the description, it seems that you still need to pay the Willpower and Essence costs of spells. So really, all the scepter does is give you the ability to use the charm for the sorcery, and even then, only once per day, and even then, for a single predetermined spell. Methinks, then, that this is perfectly reasonable, and in fact, seems canonical, in that it's things like this that I imagine Mnemon uses to do all her weird tricks. Crazy psycho probably found an artifact long ago that allows her to attune to other MM's without penalty, as if they were appropriate to her type, and so she waltzed into the armory, picked up a bunch of things too dangerous for anyone else to dare touch (and risk breaking), and became the uber-psycho she is today. I'm just saying, it makes sense. To me, it's not too powerful at all, because once a Solar learns Solar circle sorcery, this artifact is really only a cost-reducer for that one spell. At the same time, if a Twilight was casting one spell over and over, such an artifact would be quite useful. The only thing I'm really worried about is the non-Solar ones, as a result. I worry that the WP-cost reducer and the Casting-Time reducer are both scary, in that sorcery was never 'checked' againt being able to fast-cast, or not needing a WP cost to use Terrestrial circle spells. I'm not saying it is a problem, but that it could be. In practice, I'd case-by-case which spells can be put into a Starmetal or Moonsilver Sceptre, just to make sure. Finally, I'd suggest a forced re-attunement to the Sceptre every so often, or some other check to make sure you're up to the task of using Solar sorcery. While initial attunement might be scary, something like Iron Skin Concentration can make it much less frightening, as you can keep trying to attune without too much fear of death, wait a week while you heal, and try again. Once attuned though, you have hundreds of possible years to keep using that spell, which I find a bit scary. Perhaps every time you use the spell, you've got to make an Essence+Occult roll, difficulty 1, +2 for every circle above your current casting level. Not really that bad, as Mnemon's expected Essence 6 Occult 6 + Charms can keep her over 5 pretty safely, but it keeps others from just using one all the time. I mean, at that point, you'd probably want to channel WP or a Virtue to get more successes, which would make sense, as you pour yourself into this focusing sceptre, to exceed the power of your station, and wreak changes upon Creation. Just my two cents. - GregLink

Aha, it's you again! You comment all my stuff! You must be my personal power-level auditor or something *grin*
On to the commentary however... I remind you that a botched solar circle spell probably unleashes a couple of terrestrial circle spells on the unfortunate wielder, whichever the GM thinks are most appropriate, and Iron Skin Concentration isn't going to save you from everything in there. Perhaps Adamant Skin Technique might, but I doubt you want to botch. Plus, they're both solar charms. Solars can eventually learn solar circle anyway, so it's not really a problem.

As to casting and using charms... It's only the first turn you can't use a charm on, since you've already used [whatever] Circle Sorcery as your charm. The following turns, you have no -action-, but you're free to use reflexive charms, by my reading of the rules. I'll go check that, but I'm fairly sure I'm right. **after checking** Well, the rules, as usual, are open to interpretation. It says a) you can't do anything except... but b) you can't do...

Now, it never mentions using reflexive charms under what you can't do, and certainly doesn't state that the sorcery charm counts as charm use for the turns after the first. It does make restrictions on dice-actions however, so I'd guess if you did activate a reflexive dodge-charm or parry-charm, that would probably force an interruption roll, but anyway... All the scepter's get as an advantage is you've not used a charm in the first turn. You're still casting a spell, so you can still be distracted and still can't take any other actions. You simply get to use charms more freely up until you throw the spell (and afterwards, if your GM allows such things mid-cast, like I do.) I disagree with forced attunement, since there are a fair few things that can force you to reattune anyway, like those evil de-attunement cubes and a couple of charms. I've always assumed being totally drained of essence starts removing attunements also, but I suppose that too is interpretation. But anyway, first, they have to find a scepter of a spell they want... Then... Either they have to cast it somewhere they don't want to actually use it (which costs mondo motes, lots of wp, and is almost always noticable for solar circle) and hope they succeed the attunement roll, or chance it in the middle of combat, where even failing will cost them the battle (BIG essence costs there, wasted utterly on even a simple fail). I think that's fair enough, on top of costing some more committed essence and a massive chunk of Artifact background. If they succeed after all of that, let them, it's hardly unbalanced. They could buy Soul Mirror for the same cost, or even an Adamant Sorcery Capturing cord, which is much, much better for battle-casting.

Talking about battle-casting... Sorcery Capturing Cords, all the way. They make ANY spell practically instant to cast, and you can store three in there. Most people say you need an un-rolled dice action to unleash a spell, and some people say you need a simple action (thus taking your entire action for the turn) but they still mean you get to throw the spell on your action. A moonsilver scepter only insta-casts Terrestrial circle, or reflexive-casts things which were already damn fast (countermagic, that bird spell, and possibly the snake-skin stealth spell, stuff like that) and so have been checked for speedcasting. Everything else benefits from it, but it's hardly broken at once per day. It's a neat trick, but it's not broken, especially if you compare it to the Sorcery Capturing Cords. Gaia's Rebuke in a single action is really, really painful. Go look at TonyC/SolarsVsLion for an example of this, yet they're canon artifacts, and incidentally cost the same. They also have defensive applications. That's why I don't think cutting a turn of casting as an MM-bennie is overpowered.

The willpower cost... I agree, it's a fairly large reduction, but starmetal artifacts are -rare-... and these things probably only come for a limited selection of spells unless you build one yourself. That's GM discretion as to whether he wants you having a Scepter of Almost Free Guillotines... Even so, it's only once per day, so it isn't so useful for combat magic as it might seem. Especially for sidereals, who are usually grasping for motes, not willpower. It might be a little more overpowered if you consider the non-combat applications... gives you an ISoB every day for only the mote-cost, which is pretty nice, but no more overpowered than, say, the Hound-Chases Rabbit blessing "When I cast a spell" activating once per scene, which does exactly the same thing. That's also canon, they used it to great effect with the Wyld Hunt, check CotI.

Anything else? ^_^
-- Darloth

---

Long ago, or perhaps, soon to come, there was a man. His name does not matter, if it ever did. He was not a nice man, but he was skilled, and in his chosen craft, he was unto a god. This is what he made, wrought from the acid of the fallen lords, and tempered with the fires and ichor of his own heart. There say he made only the one, yet none can say which spell it was crafted for... But none know the truth of this... and, as always... someone will learn to make... more.

• Vitrioline - The half-legend half-nightmare Vitrioline scepters are always sharp, with cutting edges and angles that should never have been. They frequently have acidic thorns coating the handle with a stunningly beautiful selection of madness-invoking traceries circling these thorns, and it is rare to see one without a hollow spearpoint jutting from the handle, like the tip of a piece of bamboo cut at an angle. They seeth with unrestrained fury at their existance, and the existance of everything around them, and in fulfilling that hatred, they grant their user power. When they are used, this hollow spike (or whatever is used in lieu) draws forth the blood of the wielder, and the traceries steam as the red mist of boiling blood cascades through and around them. For every lethal health-level the user sacrifices, they may reduce the cost of a spell by 10 motes, gain 5 motes for powering 'additional effects', or reduce the cost of a spell by 1 willpower. For every aggravated health-level the user sacrifices, they may reduce the casting time of a spell by 1 increment(usually a turn). If a user kills themselves with such a device, the spell is successfully cast before their death. None of these wounds may be healed before the end of the scene or the duration of the spell, whichever comes last. It is rumoured that the instant the nameless craftsman finished his finest work, he plunged it into his heart, bringing forth a spell of such momentous terror that none even speak of it today. If such is true, then the duration is still ongoing...