Artifacts/IanPrice

The False Manse - Systems

Originally designed for use with Side Story: Crafting the False Manse.

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• Enlightening Sun Mirrors
  • Artifact ••••• weapons emplacement.

The Enlightening Sun Mirrors are a form of Essence cannon, designed at the same time for beauty and deadly effectiveness. A 150-foot high tower houses each mirror on a rotating platform, with the exterior consisting of a Jade-steel alloy, and the mirror itself made of 100% pure Orichalcum. Each of these mirrors is capable of channeling vast amounts of destructive Essence as if reflecting the fury of the Unconquered Sun. Moonsilver and Starmetal are used in complex circuitry within, creating a skein similar in design to the visual appearance of the Loom of Fate when viewed from Heaven. Stone, ice, charcoal, compressed air, and wood (as well as strange substances theorized to contain Solar, Lunar, and Sidereal Essence) from untapped Demenses are incorporated into a series of 10 Hearthstone sockets, which connect to the main mirror through the interior circuitry. Hearthstones inserted in these sockets provide none of their usual benefits; they will only power the weapon.

For one of these mirrors to work, it must receive power from a source equivalent to a Hearthstone. No living being's Essence pool can provide the kind of constant Essence flow necessary to make these devices function. Energy Taps, Essence Accumulators, and other alternate power sources are acceptable substitutes for Hearthstones. The power requirement is equal to 10 dots of Hearthstones, though the system is capable of functioning with less. No more than 10 dots of Hearthstones may benefit any single one of these weapons. For each dot of Hearthstones or their equivalent inserted, add 5 dice to either the Accuracy or the Damage of the mirrors. Without at least some power, the weapons will not fire. However, if dice are added to Accuracy first, they will fire with a base of 0 aggravated damage (thus, raw damage based only on extra successes). The damage is piercing. When fully powered at 25 dice, the extra subsystems of the targeting and beam output systems come online: the accuracy gains perfection as per Accuracy Without Distance, and the damage becomes unsoakable by non-perfect charms. The mirrors have a Rate equal to their Accuracy.

If several mirrors are constructed together as a network, only one of them needs to be powered in order for all of the mirrors to benefit. One mirror can reflect and redirect the beam of another, creating a relay in order to destroy any target in range of any of the mirrors. In fact, the mirrors can be connected by cables, so that stones of power inserted in one can be used to power multiples. When firing through an array like this, each mirror normally has its own operator stationed inside it. Use the lowest Dexterity + Archery dice pool among all operators involved for the attack roll, unless the operators are part of a military unit together. In that case, apply an external penalty of (5 - Drill) to each shot. Each mirror has a range of 500 yards for each dot of Hearthstone power invested in it, reaching 5000 yards in a straight line when fully powered. It is sadly not possible to increase the damage of a blast beyond 25 unsoakable dice of aggravated damage by powering multiple mirrors, because the mirrors are designed to limit the power to that extend so they will not experience undue strain. However, powering multiple mirrors in an array does allow an increased Rate of fire, since multiple mirrors can produce the source beam at once.

• Artillery Controls
  • Artifact ••••• central control system.

This artifact is a chair, apparently simply a solid armchair made of shining steel and cushioned with leather. Inside, it hides complex circuitry of the Magical Materials, and the leather on the arms conceals two spheres of Adamant under where a person's palms would rest. More intangibly, the dying oaths of dragons of the eight elements (the five terrestrial, and three celestial) are woven into the magic of this device.

Upon sitting in the chair and attuning to it (for a cost of 1m, if the device is properly powered), the user becomes aware of the field of vision of any artillery weapons attached to the device. Normal attunement and activation costs for these weapons must be paid in addition. Up to five weapon emplacements per device may be attached to the controls, and a user sitting in the control chair may fire each one as if stationed appropriately to the weapon's normal requirements. However, this is only possible for weapons which do not require manual reloading, though it is possible for one person to perform any other duties normally requiring a crew using this system. Aiming mechanisms normally requiring a crew, for instance, will be manipulated by Essence. The dice pool to fire each weapon controlled from one of these stations is the same as it normally would be for each weapon in question. Usually, this means it is a Dexterity + Archery roll, but some advanced First Age weaponry might use a Lore roll, or some other esoteric operation.

It should be noted that these controls, by themselves, do not provide a means of remote control effectively unless the person in control has a view of the weapon to be controlled and its target.

• Essence-Flux Panel System
  • Artifact ••••• interior defense system.

This system uses crystal-metal panels consisting of an alloy of all 6 Magical Materials, including Adamant. Behind the panels runs a conduit filled with the purest elemental Water and Air, heated by elemental Fire. These conduits are home to a Small God who has either been created for the task, or assigned to the task of identifying intruders and disrupting their Essence flows. It can be incorporated as the floor, walls, and/or ceiling of any structure when it is built.

This system can be hooked up to Hearthstone sockets for power, or rely on the Defense God for internal power. The specially prepared internal environment allows the Defense God to attack any single intruder with a base dice pool of 8 for accuracy, and 3A for damage, with a Rate of 1. For each dot of Hearthstone power added to Accuracy, this attack gains 5 accuracy dice and 5 Rate. A powered damage pool supercedes the unpowered one, with a damage of 5A (piercing) per dot. 5-dot Accuracy is perfect, and 5-dot Damage is unsoakable, just as with the Sun Mirrors above.

• Essence-Harvest Stabilization Engines
  • Artifact ••••• Power Source

This device contains trace amounts of Moonsilver and Starmetal in its power-transfer circuitry, and its housing contains Soulsteel and Jade-steel, but the bulk of it is the massive turbines of pure Orichalcum. These circle a tube made of pure Adamant, inside which is contained a funnel of pure Chaos. This funnel is accellerated by the turbines into another funnel of pure Essence from Creation. The mixture of the two explosively powers the turbines into further motion. The housing and circuitry of these monstrous engines is attuned to the outflow of this process, and passively absorb all the Essence shed by this positive feedback cycle. A stone casement is usually put around the housing, because touching it is dangerous to Essence-users; it will drain all motes from both personal and peripheral pools the instant of touch. Interestingly enough, any anima banner display in the room is also sucked into the machine. This is in fact caused by the specially prepared soulsteel, using no souls but Hungry Ghosts.

These devices are useless unless built on Tainted Lands. Ideally, one should be built just at the beginning of the Middlemarches. The function of an engine like this is to turn the raw Wyld into Essence, stable, usable Essence. The power output of a single Engine is enough to power a massive artifact of Power 5 with the level 5 Essence Glutton drawback, so that a user need only spend the single mote necessary to attune in order to use it. The design of this artifact includes Chaos-Resistance Preparation, so the occurrance of random failures even with the engine on its own is very low. The difficulty for disgruntled Fair Folk to work their wiles with Shaping effects is also increased by 2, and any Gossamer-based effects instantly fail due to the inclusion of Cold-Wrought Iron in several key places.

Starting one of these massive engines requires the sacrifice of 5 dots of Hearthstones in order to jump-start the Essence-catalyst reaction. Unlike the normal destruction of a hearthstone, the rapid Essence-suction from this process may cause associated Manses to explode, and will always cause at least some damage. Luckily, if several of these Engines are in an array, one can jump-start the others.

• Manse-Emulation Controls
  • Artifact ••••• Geomantic Design Device

Normally, the process of designing a Manse and finding a proper Demense to build it on are torturous prospects. This system does the work for you. Various Magical Materials provide the structure of a home for a choir of small Knowledge gods and various Elementals. This circuitry provides the design function of these controls, allowing the necessary rolls for Manse design to take place as 7-tick miscellaneous actions. In order to understand these controls, it is neccessary to possess the following traits: Lore specialization relating to Geomancy, Occult specialization relating to Geomancy, and a Craft (Earth) specialization relating to Manse construction. If all those traits are possessed, a standard difficulty roll on any of them yields understanding. Otherwise, the difficulty of the ability rolled increases by 3 for each of the required traits with no dots. This function alone is Artifact 4 and requires a commitment of 10 motes to use if built seperately. This sort of control panel could be the size of a writing tablet. Regardless, these controls provide a series of buttons and knobs for certain environmental settings, and a stylus which can write in the air above the panel with a golden Essence trail for 3-D Manse blueprints.

The second function of these controls requires the installation of all five Graces of a Raksha whose Essence trait is at least 5. Once incorporated, the Raksha is treated as Calcified for the purposes of any Fair Folk magics. This function also requires that the controls be incorporated into a huge, immobile device located at least in the Bordermarches of the Wyld. The artifact itself, though not any users, will be protected from the Chaos by Chaos-Resistance Preparation. With this full implementation, the controls will create a suitable Demense as soon as the design of a desired Manse is complete, fully formed and constantly maintained until the controls are re-set.

These controls are immensely power-hungry in their full form. Each Demense requires 1200 motes to shape, and only someone who has committed the full 500 mote attunement cost may do so. However, the controls are also specifically designed to hook up to Essence-Harvest Stabilization Engines, thus benefitting from their fully powered abilities with only a 1m attunement cost. When connected in such a way, it is possible to adjust the power input needs of this device, depending on the level of the Demense to be emulated.

• Hearthstone Coalescing Circuitry
  • Artifact ••••• Geomantic Accellerator

Stone encases lead, encasing White Jade, alloyed with Soulsteel, surrounding Orichalcum, inlaid with the most delicate and intricate wires of Moonsilver and Starmetal. A network of these cables runs all throughout a Manse or Demense. In a Manse, this circuitry incorporates a Hearthstone Amulet tied to it by an Arcane Link. Attuning to this Amulet costs 2m instead of the normal 1, but its properties are extraordinary. The Hearthstone which the Manse would normally take a month to produce is created in only a minute, already set into the Amulet. This can happen any time the bearer of the Amulet wishes, causing any Hearthstone created by that Manse set elsewhere to crumble.

If inlaid into a Demense, a crystal of Adamant must be set into the core of this device, containing full blueprints for a Manse which could be built on that Demense. The crystal contains this information by means of miniature runes spelling out the whole design, carved into layered spheres inside itself. In only a minute, the circuitry will transform the Adamant into a Hearthstone according to the design contained in its precision runes. This Hearthstone will last until the device is used again.

If connected to Manse-Emulation Controls, this circuitry is shaped along with the Demense created, and the blueprints for the Manse contained within the Controls supercede the need for the Adamant crystal.

• Chaos-Repelling Matrix
  • Artifact ••••• Wyld Warding Device

This device resembles a golden box connected to an iron grating. The golden box is Orichalcum, containing power-transfer circuitry involving all 4 other Magical Materials, including all 5 flavors of Jade. Trace amounts of all the mundane elements are also included in this box, as well as a talon and a tooth from each type of Elemental Dragon. This device is approximately the size of a normal siege catapult. When hooked up to a sufficient power source, these devices can push back the Wyld's influence to any degree desired. One cannot attune to these devices; they will only accept power from Hearthstones or equivalent power sources, up to and including Essence-Harvest Stabilization Engines. The ward against fair folk and other wyld creatures created by the Matrix (as per the thaumaturgical art of warding) operates with a strength of 10 times the dots of power invested into it, maximum 5 dots. The Ward can cover a Tainted Land of any size. As long as the Ward receives some power, it will protect the Tainted Land it is set in and a single waypoint into the Wyld. In addition to the Ward, the whole area will be affected by Chaos-Repelling Pattern, Chaos-Resistance Preparation, Integrity-Protecting Prana, and Spirit-Repelling Diagram.

Any artifact whose function would be impeded by the effects of this device may be linked to it with cables such as those described for the Hearthstone-Coalescing Circuitry. This will allow those artifacts to function normally.

• Chaos-Reweaving Engine
  • Artifact ••••• Reality Creation Portal

This device cannot function without a Chaos-Repelling Matrix. It attaches a special conical arrangement of cables to the back of the matrix, expanding to attach to an iron frame. Around this frame, the Moonsilver and Starmetal wires leave their encasing cables, snaking around the frame in tight braids, so that no iron is left exposed. A smaller ring of an alloy between all five types of Jade lines the interior of this ring. This system can only be active when the Chaos-Repelling Matrix is fully powered. At that point, this Engine concentrates and contains all the excess of raw Chaos the Matrix is negating. With a control panel installed to the side of this portal, it is possible to precisely shape this Chaos. A difficulty 2 Lore roll, or possession of Wyld-Shaping Technique, allows understanding of these controls. Once understood, the controls may be attuned at the cost of 1m. While attuned, the controls allow Lore rolls as if using Wyld-Shaping Technique in a region of Pure Chaos, causing things to be formed from the portal. However, these items are intrinsically and entirely real, as if shaped out of real materials using Wyld Cauldron Technology.

• God's-Eye
  • Artifact ••••• All-Seeing Eye

The God's-Eye is an orichalcum sphere set with one smooth gem of pure adamant. Its surface appears smooth, but in fact is entirely covered with lightly traced spell-runes. Concentric rings of Starmetal lace the interior of the sphere, melded magically into the solid orichalcum. Deep within the heart of this device is the eye of the Solar who crafted it. When powered, any number of Essence-wielders may commit 1m to this device, and be able to look into the adamant gem. It shows attuned viewers anything they wish to see within a thousand miles, and grants the effects of Keen Sight Technique, Unsurpassed Sight Discipline, Eye of the Unconquered Sun, Spirit-Detecting Glance, and All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight. Because this device is only about the size of a pumpkin, it is difficult for very many people to use it at the same time.

• The Room of Standing Upon the Heavens
  • Artifact ••••• War Room

This room is perfect for commanders in war. It is a perfect cube ten meters on a side, made of Orichalcum panels lined with Moonsilver, and Starmetal at the seams. Beneath the floor is a place where a God's-Eye device must be set. If this is done, and if both devices are provided a sufficient power supply (see Essence-Harvest Stabilization Engines, above), then anyone attuned to the God's-Eye may call up a view on any of the panels in the room as if looking into the God's-Eye. Each panel is a half-meter on a side, so in total there are 592 - 8 less than the dimensions of the room would suggest, because this space is taken up by the door to the room. Unlike the God's-Eye, whatever one panel is showing, it is showing, and all may see it even if unattuned.

In the False Manse, rooms like this also house the Artillery Control devices, allowing effective remote control of multiple Enlightening Sun Mirrors against multiple targets.

Comments on The False Manse

Yoinks and starts to imagine an Essence heart powered version....nice :) Also a`very unimportant nitpick: From what I know an artifact may only contain a number of HS-sockets equal to it's rating. Also a question: since the essence seem fiery in a sense, and archery is used, would it be compatible with Archery charms, as most essence weapons are, and perhaps even with RDS-Azurelight

Normally, yes. However, two factors change that for this device: the Hearthstones are used only for power (not granting Essence respiration or special abilities), and some of the power I could have had from a massive level 5 artifact was sacrificed (it could have done more damage) in order to power the weapons this way instead. - IanPrice

Wait a minute, are those 10 sockets suposed represent the power influx for the whole structure? In that case, consider the nit pic even less important -Azurelight

Yes, I have edited for clarity. - IanPrice

I gotta say that I love this. Anything that involves First Age magitech always makes me interested, but such reality-shaping devices and weapons is even cooler. I wish you luck on their development and can't wait for them to be completed. :) - Heru.

Heh... this is actually primarily for my attempt at designing true magitech in the Age of Sorrows, but the original concept was for a hidden fortress built during the Usurpation. Glad you like it! - IanPrice

Just to clarify, the Essence-Harvest Stabilization Engines would, If I read it correctly, lower essence drawdack by 8 a (power 2artifact costs one mote of expediture to accticvate). I just wanted to note and insure that. How big is is? -Azurelight

No, by 9, with a little bonus. A Power 1 personal artifact costs only 1 mote to attune. That's what the Engine does to a massive-scale artifact with the biggest possible power requirement. As for size, it's "massive." Use your own imagination and style, but the combination of size and location requirement renders this thing extremely non-portable by default. I imagine it would take a Strength + Athletics total of around 30 to lift one of these assemblies. - IanPrice

I buy that. Also, I am not sure craft manse exists anymore, I haven't seen ite in X2 and they seem to have narrowd down crafts quite a bit. I HAVE seen ait as a speciallity for craft earth I THINK. also, I wouls suggest tha the Geomance thuing can be met with the taumaturgical path Geomancy, -Azurelight

Since Craft (Earth) would be used to build a Manse, then I'll make that a specialty requirement, thanks for the pointer. As for Thaumaturgy, those paths are now a special kind of Occult specialty, so that's already covered. - IanPrice

Thats true. But they don't take up a speciallity slot, do they? I don't remeber. -Azurelight

Just like Linguistics specialties, they don't. - IanPrice

Like before, I gotta say I love these. Oh, by the way, these all would be at minimum high Celestial Rank, but more likely Solar Rank Artifacts under my system, hehe. Great job as always. -Heru

I'm glad I'm not trying to craft them in your game then, no offense. =) - IanPriceWho realizes, oh yeah, how WOULD that system affect crafting?

No offense taken, I'm just glad that you are designing and posting them. They are fun to read. But to answer the question you didn't ask but thought about, it wouldn't effect it that much. The requirements for epic ingrediants and power sources and materials, etc. would remain the same. Thus would the cost. But yeah, it wouldn't effect it much. Solars (for example) have Charms to make the crafting process easier. -Heru