Rynel/ExaltedInSpaceArtifacts
Items and Artifacts for Exalted In Space
- Yeah, I asked Rynel if he wanted a page just for the artifacts we'd have to cook up. It'll probably be best if they were broken down into categories. -Darzoni
== Thaumaturgic Items ==[#ThaumaturgicItems]
Void Breather (Resources 2, or Artifact 1, or Artifact 3)
[#VoidBreather]
Also called a breather, this is a mask that fits snugly over the wearer's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It allows anyone who wearing it to avoid the problem inherent in working in the Void: lack of air. The wearer has a 12 hour supply of fresh air, after which the reagents must be replenished (Intelligence + Occult, Difficulty 1, requires supplies costing Resources 1). This is a very ancient design that predates even the Primordial War, created by thaumaturges at the behest of their Dragon King masters to allow their human servants to crew their voidships. It requires Occult 2 to make, and even apprentices in the Art of Alchemy can make them as they are common knowledge. Over time, thaumaturges have made the breathers as efficient as possible, to utilize common materials for reagents and fabricate breathers out of relatively cheap materials.
The Mountain Folk have their own versions of these, detailed in Exalted: The Fair Folk, that is an artifact. During the First Age, the Mountain Folk design was copied by the Exalted, and continues to be made in large numbers even today. The Shogunate version is Artifact 1 and requires the replacement of a blue jade disc every 100 hours of active operation (Resources 3 to replace the blue jade disc).
- I need to verify that this is how the Mountain Folk's breather thingy works. -Darz
The High First Age versions are rare and considered to be Artifact 3, and can operate indefinitely. Most of these imperishable breathers are in the hands of Dragon-Blood fleet commanders in the Realm or Lookshy.
== Voidship Parts and Weapons ==[#VoidshipParts]
Dragon Pulse Cannon (Artifact 2)
[#DragonPulseCannon]
- Repair: 2
An adaptation of the Alchemical Charm Essence Pulse Cannon scaled up and mounted on the Voidships of the Autochthonians, dragon pulse cannons resemble an Essence Pulse Cannon deployed with the Siege Devastator submodule active. A dragon pulse cannon by default has 3 modes of firing: normal (lethal damage), stunning blasts (shockwaves of bashing damage), and pattern distruption (aggravated damage). These all require motes to power it, and like the Essence Pulse Cannon, are variable power and variable configuration. The standard firing mode simply deals damage. The Pattern Distruption Mode was designed for any void-borne monstrosities, since very few things can withstand their fabric of being being unraveled. Shockwave Blast mode is primarily designed for scattering large crowds and knocking enemy crew overboard.
The weapon can be powered by a number of sources: essence batteries, ship engines, or Exalted. It must be primed with 4m of Essence from one of these power sources (Misc Action, Speed 3, DV -3). Once primed, it can be operated for the rest of the scene. The operator uses Dex + Archery to fire the shots. Use the following statistics for the Dragon Pulse Cannon in its various modes.
||Mode||Speed||Accuracy||Damage||Rate||Range||Tags|| || Standard || 4 || +1 || 1m per 4L, 9m max || 5 || 500 || - || || Pattern Disruption ||6||+1||1m per 2A, 9m Max||2||750|| P, See notes. || || Shockwave Blast || 5 || +1 || 1m per 6B, 9m Max || 3 || 250 || See notes. ||
Pattern Distruption: Any bonuses to raw damage are halved. Anything destroyed or killed by fire from this mode was disintegrated into essence.
Shockwave Blast: When this bolt hits something, everything within 1 yard is hit with the raw damage of the attack. Subtract 1 die from the raw damage for each yard out from the center until 0 dice are reached. Those hit with the blast are hurled outward from the centerpoint one yard for each point of damage suffered.
This weapon requires maintenance for every 100 motes fired through it. For every 10 motes above that, the maximum number of motes that can be fed for any one shot is reduced by 1 until the weapon is repaired.
Superb Manuevering Thrusters (Artifact 3)
[#SuperbManueveringThrusters]
- Repair: 1
These thrusters are fitted to the outside of a ship (seafaring, skyfaring, or voidfaring), and provide a +1 bonus to manueverablity under normal circumstances.
Under more stressful circumstances, 10 motes can be fed to these devices through the ship to let the pilot use his Dodge Value in place of the normal dodge pool for vehicles (and may use Charms to enhance this). The pilot must be aware of the attack to utilize this ability, and it is a reflexive action to activate. As normal, this ability is useless against effects which renders dodges inapplicable.
- Why not the parry value? What? What would you parry with? The ship? That's sort of useless since the whole point is to get the ship out of harm's way, not shove the ship INTO harm's way. -Darz
The Unconquered Sun's Endless Fury(Artifact N/A) [#UnconqueredSunsEndlessFury]
This is a one use artifact that is actually piloted out of a voidship by a Solar Exalted, and was typically used as a last resort during the Primordial War due to their effect. The devices have other names, such as Starkillers. They resemble spherical man-sized sleds made entirely of Orichalcum, and have a setting for a single Hearthstone. When flown into a star by a Solar Exalted and activated, the Celestial essence making up the star is catalyzed into the most destructive essence chain-reaction known as the essence of the entire star system is disrupted and explodes.
For this device to be flown, it requires an Essence 5 Solar to attune it for 10 motes and place a Level 5 Solar Hearthstone in the heartstone socket, protecting the Solar from the fury of the star completely. To activate it, the Solar empties his entire essence pool into the device. This has two effects. One, every celestial body in the star system explodes in a chain reaction, from which only perfect blocks can protect. Two, the manse the hearthstone was connected to no longer has any Manse rating as the underlying pool of Solar Essence is drained as the catalyst powering the explosion (if the manse still exists, that is).
Sidereals discouraged Solars from using these extremely rare devices casually, as they effectively rip an entire sector out of the Tapestry of Fate. None are known to exist in the Second Age.
== Other Transportation ==[#OtherTransportation] The Gate System(Artifact N/A)[#GateSystem]
One of the great works undertaken during the High First Age was the construction of the Gate System. Made to endure even the catastrophic explosion of a starkiller, the High Gates have stood intact since their creation. Glittering rings of magical materials a mile in diameter, the High Gates provide a faster avenue for interstellar travel, transporting ships from one gate to another in an instant. Each gate is positioned on an network of rating 10 Solar Essence streams forged geomantically during the First Age by the Sorcerer-Smiths, connecting them. There were once other galaxies besides the one that remains in Creation connected by way of this system, but these were lost during the Great Contagion and Fair Folk Crusade.
To activate a gate, the ship wishing to be transported must pray to the god of that particular gate for safe passage, stating the destination gate during this prayer. Offerings worth Resources 2 must also be sacrificed so that the god may use the results of the prayer and offering to power the gate. Then the gate will open, allowing passage to the other side. The Immaculate Order does not frown upon this ritual prayer and offering, since very few of the gods of the High Gates are prone to misbehavior. The gods of the High Gates enjoy a great deal of status and prestige in Yu-Shan due to their jobs, and think it best to continue doing a good job so they don't give their enemies excuses to depose them and replace them with somebody else.
Miscellaneous
Autochthonian Artifact Adapter (Artifact 1)
It was realized very quickly that access to Vats outside of Autochthonia would be difficult at best, with the Void being the huge vast expanse it is. The savants among the Alchemical Exalted developed small spider-shaped devices made from the five magical materials with a crystal of adamant they called Artifact Adapters to overcome this problem. The Alchemicals could set the spider on an artifact and feed it 3 motes, causing the spider to commune with the little god of the artifact and transform the artifact into something that the Alchemical can integrate into his body. This takes (Artifact Rating) hours to complete, and when completed, the artifact has a distinctly Autochthonian appearance.
The modified artifact is afterwards treated as an Alchemmical Charm with a minimum essence requirement equal to its rating, and only requires half the normal attunment cost. Items of the wrong material have the difficulty for attuning them reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 1). The artifact does not require maintenance or repair as long as it is integrated into the Alchemical. Use the rules for donning armor as a basis for how long it takes to integrate and unintegrate artifacts. The artifact cannot be attuned by non-Alchemicals except for Eclipse and Moonshadows who already have at least one Alchemical Charm implanted. Machine spirits are the only other exception to this.
The artifact may be returned to normal if the same Artifact Adapter is placed on the item and fed 3 motes.
Comments
Lots of really cool ideas here. Here's a few suggestions / comments. The Lunars created 'songlines'. The Torc of Breath makes me think perhaps you could have equivalent artifacts which would help to tame other people's auras into something useful--Torc of Energy would channel the Fire-Aspect's aura to power energy equipment (weapons, etc), Torc of Water could create a bubble of water around the Water-aspect or channel water into storage devices, since space lacks much water of its own, Torc of Wood might generate plant-based medicines, and Torc of Earth would channel the aura into producing useful metals. The Leviathans are very cool. Makes me think of the show Andromeda, imagining it as a core for an Exalted in Space Scenario. (Or the show LEXX). You need some long range scanning devices so that people can say they're detecting 'strange frequencies'. ^_- --JohnBiles
- I dunno, personally I'm getting an Age of Sail vibe from it. Overall the tech level is higher than the standard Exalted setting out of necessity. Dunno what Rynel's vision for the setting is though, and his vision is what counts in the end.
- The Leviathans will likely be radically changed or shunted into a different name, since I'm reimagining them as 'Behemoths' created by Autochthon. -- Darz.
- Age of Sail? My vision of it is pretty much exactly what the title says: Exalted fighting epic battles in the depths of space. Picture, if you will, what the Battle of Endor would've been like if the Rebels had a dozen high-Essence Solars on their side, facing off against the Empire's legion of Dragon-Bloods. --Rynel
- Dammit, JB, I see your point now. Recast Dylan as a First Age Solar who was trapped in a stasis field and the Nietzscheans as Dragon-Blooded.... XD. Okay, so I'm wrong about the Age of Sail. That's more for the standard setting than this. This is more like Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 space battles. -- Darz
