KittenyKat/OmniPack
The Omni-Pack
Artifact •••••
Commitment: 6 (All)
Activate Wings: 2 motes / scene
Created in the First Age by a Night-Caste Solar Exalted named Kaiera Treshen, known as one of the few who has equaled the Twilight caste's achievements while following the Sun as another caste, this wondrous artifact was intended to truly be an inventor's friend, and assist her in her work. In the current age, this artifact was recently rediscovered by Ryeka Windwander on her archaeological explorations, who curiously enough, happens to be the current incarnation of Kaiera.
The Omni-Pack is a backpack style artifact in appearance, appearing as an ornately designed gold and black metal pack, apparantely Orichalcum mixed with an unidentified metal, and has four fist-sized amethyst 'spheres' protruding halfway from the surface, on at the top, bottom, left, and right sides of the pack. Amethyst colored circuitry traces outward almost randomly from each sphere's setting on the surface of the pack, covering the black but vanishing at the gold. Four gold straps extend from each corner of the pack, fastening in the front with a four-piece buckle which interlock together like puzzle pieces. The artifact itself is crafted of almost equal amounts of all five magical materials, though only Orichalcum and Starmetal are visible externally.
When worn, the straps vanish, and it seamlessly fuses itself harmlessly and painlessly into the wearer's back, magically bypassing any clothes or armor between it and their skin without damaging or adversely affecting their performance. This makes it impossible to remove without the wearer's permission, who can put it on and take it off at will as though it were any other garment. It takes only the desire to remove the pack for the straps to reappear, and the device to remove its connection to their body, leaving no mark upon them or their vestments.
Having incorporated the feathers of a thousand god-touched swans in its construction, the artifact can produce glowing, feathered wings of essence capable of granting the wearer full flight, as if they were a natural part of their body. This is it's most prominent effect, and is a fairly easy setting to induce, requiring the expenditure of 2 essence to activate. The wings are capable of supporting up to 300 pounds including the wearer and their gear, and can fly at up to a leisurely 30 miles an hour. They appear as gossamer, bright blue-white feathered wings, seemingly permeated with, or made of glowing essence. This feature is labeled 'The Wings of Ether'.
The artifact can also produce just about any tool the wearer wants on command, from a mapping unit and compass, to crafting tools, binoculars, survival tools, and so on, making it truly a tinkerer's friend. If the device does not currently have a tool (I.E. If the tools in question have never been requested of it before), it can construct one internally with the simple expenditure of one mote of essence to power the process, which is nearly instantaneous. One must however posess the knowledge of the item they wish to summon, for they can not simply ask the pack to invent a tool the world has never seen and expect it to comply. The endless variety of tools produced by the pack are of the highest quality one could wish for, short of truly magical tools, and they provide a +2 dice bonus to any Craft or Survival tests where the pack can provide relevant assistance.
The artifact can also produce four long, articulated mechanical arms capable of assisting the wearer as though they were her own. These arms are for utility use only, however, and while they can aid construction or repair of an object, hold up an unsturdy ceiling, or grab out of reach objects, they are incapable of wielding weapons or acting as weapons themselves, and may not carry shields. These arms have strength equal to the wearers' own, and become stronger or weaker to match whoever it is attuned to. The arms, when fully extended, can reach up to 2 meters away, and can be used to assist in grapples during combat, preventing the user from losing their actions to maintain the hold.
Finally, the Omni-Pack itself is very sturdy, and when affused to its host, provides 1 point of Bashing and Lethal soak on top of any armor they may be wearing, without adding any mobility or fatigue penalties. If the wings are active in combat, they also provide a +2 mobility bonus.
Just as with a Manse or Demense, the artifact must be attuned to an individual for them to use it. The only way for anyone else to attune themselves to it afterwards is with the permission of it's current owner, or upon their death, when it becomes free once again.
There may be, and indeed most likely are, more, hidden functions to the pack which will not be revealed until the artifact becomes more one with its wearer, growing used to the presence of their essence. Time can only tell what powers may manifest as it's user grows more powerful themselves.
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Comments
I realy like this one, but I have few coments:
The arms should provide some mechanical benefit when crafting and they should use the stats for a fighting chain, or perhaps even a dire chain when in combat.
The flight speed should be based on the wearers ground speed. I suggest the double. That will give an average dex char a movement of about 18y/sec (in second edition).
Also, only the possibility of hidden functions truly justfies a level of 5. Otherwise, consider it yoinked - Azurelight
- Enjoy ^_^ Really though, it's not easy making a utility artifact at level 5 power, and being new to the game doesn't help when trying to find a balance between too much and too little. That's the main reason I gave it the ability for future expansion there at the end. ^_^ In that vein though, it's meant to be utility and not a weapon, so making the arms more offense-oriented by giving them weapon stats doesn't really fit the artifact's theme.. And this is meant for first edition, to clear up any confusion. ^_^ (Also, 18yards/sec = 64,800 yards/hour = 36.818181818 miles/hour, so it's not all that different ^_^;) - KittenyKat
- I would say that the arms should probably have weapon stats regardless, just not very good ones (give them Punch stats + lethal damage), for a utility artifact. It seems reasonable. It is a little weak for a 5, although it's too strong for a 4 - possibly the arms should reduce multiple action penalties by 1? Great concept. :) - FrivYeti
- Glad you like it ^_^ We'll see what happens after this thing gets some testing in-game, so far I've only been through 2 sessions. >.> - KittenyKat
I had trouble deciding whether it was worth artifact 5, most certainly, but I was eventually pushed towards it both because of its relatively low commitment cost and the sheer number of useful abilities. Artifacts in exalted are only very rarely multi-purpose, typically focussed on at least one concept, wheras this does many different useful things. That, the low costs, and the possibility for useful features later, are why I decided it was worth 5, although I'm still not exactly sure ^_^
-- Darloth
