HearthStones/Moxiane

Moxiane's Hearthstones

Just a few of these wonderful magical stones thus far, of scattered ratings and aspects. More as they come to me.

[#ExecutionersStone]

Executioner's Stone (Abyssal •••)

Trigger: Dice action, then constant.

Appearing as little more than the milky-white eye of a corpse, the Executioner's Stone grants to the attuned Exalt the ability to cut deeper and harder into the life's-blood of his chosen enemy, empowering his blows to inflict grevious, bloody wounds. To use this ability the character makes a Perception + a chosen combat Ability roll with a difficulty equal to the permanent Essence of the target. Extra successes on this roll add to the raw damage of all attacks with the chosen Ability against the target. This effect persists until the target has been permanently killed, whereupon the Exalted can select someone else for death.

[#FluidBodyStone]

Fluid-Body Stone (Water ••••)

Trigger: None (constant)

This Hearthstone is extremely soft to the touch, feeling like nothing more than an impervious sac of a thick clear jelly. Taken in the hand it can be squashed and squeezed quite readily although its volume will remain constant, and it is this property that it imparts to one who has it mounted into a properly attuned socket. The Exalted's body gains the ability to flow and deform when struck, something that can be quite unsettling to look at if the target is wearing little or no armour. Mechanically, whenever the character suffers damage from an external physical source the number of dice of damage is halved (rounded up) after soak has been applied, but before being rolled.

[#InfiniteUtility]

Gemstone of Infinite Utility (Water •••)

Trigger: None (constant)

The Gemstone of Infinite Utility appears as a perfect icosahedron, shaded a deep translucent blue. Those who stare into its depths are often struck with a sense of gears and clockwork moving deep below the surface, and a need to make things work better than they currently do. This Hearthstone has the ability to improve the functioning of the artefact into which it is plugged (assuming that it is not being used to power the artefact). The effect generally manifests as an improvement of +1 to all functions of the item, a list of the effects for combat artefacts is given below:

• Melee Weapons: +1 to Speed, Accuracy, Damage, Defence and Rate
• Bows & Crossbows: +1 to Accuracy, Damage and Rate, +50 to Range
• Thrown Weapons: +1 to Accuracy, Damage and Rate, +10 to Range
• Armour: +1 to Bashing & Lethal soaks, Fatigue value & Mobility penalty reduced by 1

For non-combat artefacts, the effects of the Gemstone of Infinite Utility are a little harder to quantify, but always result in a general overall improvement to the artefact’s function. This can be something as simple as reducing the mote costs of a given power by 1, or increasing the number of times per day (month, etc…) that the power can be used by 1 – the exact effect is left to the Storyteller.

[#IncomparableGeneral]

Stone of the Incomparable General (Solar •••••)

Trigger: Wearer leads 100+ troops in battle.

This hearthstone is shaped as a perfect octagon of clear crystal with the light of the sun glowing faintly from within and if someone places it next to his ear they can hear the faint sounds of battle emanating from it. If placed into an appropriate receptacle and the wearer leads troops into battle his battle-management skills are greatly increased, and the troops he lead are fortified to hold firm in battle. Mechanically, it grants the wearer a +4 bonus to all Performance and Presence rolls related to the job of being a general, and all troops directly lead by the character gain a +1 bonus to all Valour rolls they make be required to make.

[#SpiritsAnchor]

Stone of Spirit’s Anchor (Earth ••)

Trigger: Concentration (dice action)

With this Hearthstone an Exalt can prevent a materialised spirit from dematerialising, forcing it to stay in the real world. This is intensely uncomfortable for the spirit (the sensation is akin to drowning), since they can feel their grip on the spirit world fade away from them.

In order to do this the Exalt must roll his permanent Willpower with a difficulty equal to the target spirit’s Temperance. If successful the spirit is prevented from dematerialising for a number of days equal to the extra successes on the roll (minimum of one). The Exalt can have no more spirits anchored in this way than he has dots of Essence.

Note: Spirits hate this, and an Exalt who makes frequent use of this effect will soon find himself having great difficulty dealing with spirits who otherwise might be friendly, or at least not hostile.

Comments

With the Fluid Body Stone, do you round up or down? This is important for ping, especially in non-EPC rules.

I'm also not entirely comfortable with the Gemstone of Infinite Utility being level 3 instead of 4.\\ _Ikselam

Ouch, yeah - I hadn't considered how that stone would interact with ping damage (normal or EPC). As a rule I round down when halving, which could render a non-EPC tank immune to a lot of things. Normally I round down, but in this case I figure rounding up is probably better. (Another option could be that it negates the user's natural soak, due to their body becoming a rubbery sack of fluid.)

As for the Gemstone of Infinite Utility, I honestly thought I was overcharging by putting it at level 3 since, while it's pretty damned useful, it only affects the artefact it's plugged into (it has zero effect on a Hearthstone Amulet) and increases whatever it does by one. Wierdly, it gets less useful the more powerful the artefact - so it's nifty in a daiklave, but not so great in a grand goremaul. Hmmm... I suppose the biggie (under Power Combat at least) is the increase in Rate. Will think about this some more, but I can definitely see the argument for a level-bump.

Added triggers for the Fluid-Body Stone and the Gemstone of Infinite Utility as well as adding a couple more Hearthstones I have made - Moxiane