PaincakeArtifacts2
- Monkeylock Key - Paincake
- Artifact: ••
The key is about four fingers wide and tipped with only a tiny glimmer of moonsilver. The main body of the artifact is forged out of Orichalcum and glitters the purest bright gold; this delicate item serves an equally delicate purpose. When faced with a mortal (monkey)'s embarassing prattle or scene of drama, you merely slip this key between your lips and speak the command word. The victim must be in sight and must be agitated (if they have failed a virtue roll they get a -2 penalty on the opposed Essence vs Willpower roll) upon uttering the word, you rob them of their humanity for the rest of the day. Animal instincts take over; if they've always found their brother's wife attractive, they will now attempt to seduce her in an entirely primitive fashion. If they fear something, they will run. Communication is nearly impossible and confusion is easy. (They still like their friends and hate their enemies; reason simply no longer cages their animal and they are easily swayed by circumstance) Treat them as having no virtues for the day. This effect does not work on essence channelers or heroic mortals with Willpower 7 or greater. Once used upon a victim, the key cannot again be used on them for a full year. You may affect a number of people up to your essence x 2 with this key per day, but must make each roll seperately. A botch on the roll means you are the one affected, so most use this item carefully. It has no effect upon those in combat, but storyteller discretion is advised. (It takes a turn and one mote to activate the item's power and it can be used on the same person until you succeed at the roll, but each use takes up one of your Essence x 2 per day.)
- Jade Firefly - Paincake
- Artifact: ••
This small item is shaped like a firefly made of red jade chased in gold. Its wings are made out of thin sapphires and emeralds, like gemstone parchment; at rest it is about the size of a small cat. The soul of the Jade Firefly responds well to kind words, but the simple command phrase and 10 motes will suffice; it unfolds slowly into a light powerful enough to heat armor or water to boiling. (This is not its intended purpose, and would take several hours.) The light is a red-gold beacon, and the simple controls allow the beam to be closely contained (seen from several hundred feet away) or sent high into the sky. (seen for 10 miles, understood from 3 miles) The beacon of the Jade Firefly paints a picture in the sky, using its incandescent wings to create blue patterns in Old Realm speech, or a cipher unique to the Jade Firefly. (Lore or Linguistics difficulty 3 to understand) It may be aimed to blind (Acc - 2, range 200 yards), or used to eventually boil water or start fires, but this is a poor usage of essence. It remains in its broadcasting state for the caster's essence in weeks, if necessary. These items are mainly used as signal beacons and information relays in large-scale warfare where magical communication between every officer is impractical.
- Joy Throne - Paincake
- Artifact: ••
Forged out of Orichalcum and Red Jade the Joy Throne is a delight to all who view it! Its power lies in a mild distracting effect that radiates outwards for 50 yards (greater for more powerful variants) and numbs people to the chair's purpose. It is an execution device, plain and simple as the thick needles that plunge into the victim's throat from each side to siphon their blood away quickly, cleanly, and painfully. The chair's red jade radiates a seductive, playful charm while the Orichalcum lends to it that friendly bright glow. The chair eases fear in those viewing it; "This chair's is warm to look at and nice to be around. Really, really comfy to sit in too. And those straps are nice.. nice and tight! Ooo, what's that tickling at my neck? Those must be the..." but after that point (no pun intended.. o.o) the designers apparently found no reason to continue the charming illusion and allow the executed individual to suffer their last moments in surprised and agonizing fear. (roll wits+awareness to notice the chair's purpose, difficulty 3 and Essence to resist the fun fun happytime charm.)
- Body Recalibrator - Paincake
- Artifact: ••
This interesting contraption was created by a eunuch sorcerer who found no joy in life. He intended it to replace for himself the sexual highs he remembered blearily from before his accident left him unmanned; instead, he discovered an interesting flaw in his designs which he exploited instead. This artifact painfully reconstructs a target's body to suit the sorcerer's tastes. Much like a neomah can craft flesh, this artifact crawls up the person with its spiderlike legs and tears into their body to make them a new body part, or more attractive, taller or shorter. The flaw is that the artifact does not always create functional limbs or body parts; they will always be aesthetically correct, but more than half the time the nerves are damaged beyond repair and the musculature is not correct. The owner can also command the construct to fail. Each item seems to take perverse pleasure in the fact that it does its task without anesthesia of any sort, and gains a +1 to its craft roll when commanded to fail. The sorcerer-creator of the item made several and gave them to various Exalts seeking beauty, beautiful lovers, or a more interesting and humiliating torture-cum-execution device. (you can order it to give a particularly mouthy peasant a dog's throat and lower jaw; the peasant will be lucky if the jaw is functional.)
Health Levels - -0 -2 -3 Inc. Destroyed
MA 3 (to make a touch attack against unwilling or moving targets)
Dodge 3 (small and quick)
Craft: Flesh 3
Medicine 2
Soak: 6L/5B
Attune: 4 Motes
It looks like a magical material bracer until activated by a spent point of essence by its attuned owner. Then its four legs split out and it appears to be a motile X with a center full of whirling spinning saws, clamps, needles of all sorts and a small red eye. A large simple task like weight loss/body sculpting or height alteration takes the same amount of time as a delicate operation like facial reconstruction or remaking a hand. Each turn spent on making the craft rolls (Difficulty ranging from 3 over one turn to many over a few turns) the construct must also successfully roll its medicine to have created a functional body part.
Warmstone by - Paincake
Artifact •• Commitment Cost: None
This simple device was once akin to a child's comfort blanket. Much like a duckling, once 'impressed' upon a youngling it remains the owner's until the time of his death. The device is exactly the temperature of the owner's skin and is somewhat tied to the owner's moods, providing a soft glow of the exact right color to set their mind at ease. The glow is perhaps enough to read by, comparable to a strong candle flame, varying with the need of the owner to a dim flicker. Created in the first age and nearly universally used for comfort, the artifact grows up with a child into adulthood. At a young age, it would provide a barrier against darkness or a warm presence at the small of the back. As the years go by, it provides a dizzy array to complement pleasure and joy, and in adulthood deep contemplation can awaken a serene glitter that can stimulate the mind and heart. These items are rarer now than they have been for ages. This is because violent death or extremes of hardship tax the egg-sized jewels beyond their capacity for empathy, and they fail at their owner's greatest need.
With a successful Int+(Ability) roll, the item adds an extra die to an action, aiding its owner with its simple confidence-boosting once per scene. It can also be used once per story to reroll a Virtue check, (For children only, though Storyteller can determine this.)
