Shataina/FairHeartGem

A Gem of Emotion

This Artifact enhances the bearer's emotions and convictions, strengthening her attachment to her Virtues and making her sure to accomplish great things for what she believes in.

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Gem of the Fair Heart

Artifact ••• *
Palm-sized, iridescent, colour-changing jewel
Commitment: 4 -- no magical material.

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These gems are incredibly rare and difficult to find, for several reasons. The first is that they must be forged from the living heart of a Fair Folk Noble. The second is that they are kept inside the body, next to the heart.

In order to create a Gem of the Fair Heart, the crafter must find a Fair Noble who has ravaged a mortal quite recently (since the last sunrise). She must use a ritually enchanted gossamer knife to cut the Fair's heart from its body, and she must use craft or magic to ensure that the heart remains living throughout the course of the day-long creation process. Often, the process fails: in the modern day, it is unknown why, but the reason is that the mortal ravaged by the Noble must have been an extraordinarily passionate one (mechanically: a Virtue at 4+) and it is necessary for the Noble to have drunk up the last of the mortal's passion (mechanically: that Virtue must have been reduced to 0 during the Ravaging). If, at any point, iron touches the jewel, during or after its creation, then it will be rendered instantly and permanently inert -- a pretty rock, nothing more.

If the entire ordeal succeeds and the jewel is created, then it may be used comparatively easily. She who wishes to take advantage of the jewel's powers must first commit the motes; then she must grind up the jewel into a fine powder. She must fast for a day, and then she must mix the powder into clean water and drink the resultant potion down to the last drop.

For a few hours, the attuned character will feel strange: she will experience sudden frenzies, depressions, feelings of coldness or heat, and extremes of emotion. She may hallucinate, experiencing feelings or memories of either the mortal whose passion was ravaged to create the jewel or the Fair whose heart was used. If the owner is killed during this process, then the jewel is left in fragments floating about her bloodstream (probably irrecoverable). After this time, she will go back to feeling relatively normal: the jewel has reformed itself near her heart, within her ribcage. There is no way to then remove the jewel save by cutting it out, a process which is unlikely to leave the owner alive without the aid of either magic or the most skilled of surgeons. If the jewel is successfully removed, whether or not the character who originally owned it is alive, then (after her attunement fades) someone else can attune to it using the same grinding-up-plus-water process.

A Gem of the Fair Heart intensifies the emotions of the character it is attuned to, and makes her feel more passionate about everything that is important to her. It is unlikely that people who know her well will fail to notice the change, and strangers will find her to be an extremely intense person -- sometimes unsettlingly so. It becomes harder for her to discount, ignore, and repress her emotions, and if she held any convictions close to her heart, then they will likely become more extreme and far harder to argue her out of.

Mechanically, the effect of this is that whenever the character spends a temporary Willpower and a temporary Virtue point to channel through a Virtue, she receives automatic successes equal to the number of dots in that Virtue rather than dice. In addition, if the character succeeds on the action she has channeled for, then she feels validated and energized by her emotions. The experience is a very fulfilling one: after doing so, the character receives temporary Willpower equal to the number of dots in the Virtue. This may raise the character's Willpower above its normal maximum (to a maximum of 10), but any "extra", unused Willpower vanishes at the end of the scene.

When the character uses the jewel, it flashes brightly for a moment; it is unlikely that any onlookers will notice the sudden, brief glow near the character's heart, unless the character is naked. Using the Gem automatically adds one point to the character's Limit, should she have one.

Example. Ishira is attuned to a Gem of the Fair Heart, and wishes to channel through Compassion to persuade a cruel king to spare an innocent subject. Ishira has 7 permanent Willpower and 6 temporary Willpower; 4 Compassion; 2 Manipulation; 2 Presence; and another artifact which gives her 2 extra dice in social situations. Ishira spends 1 Willpower, bringing her down to 5, and rolls 6 dice, adding 4 automatic successes. Her attempt at persuasion succeeds; she feels a rush of fulfillment and passion, granting her 4 temporary Willpower and bringing it up to 9. If she had failed, then she would have gained no Willpower. If her temporary Willpower is still above 7 by the end of the scene, then it goes down to 7. Ishira is a God-Blood, and has no Limit Break, but if she did, her Limit would increase by 1.

* A note on artifact level: If you play in, or Storytell, games in which the duration of a "story" is kind of short, then it may be a good idea to make this artifact a level 4 (or add some other limitation of your own devising), because the only limitation on its use is the fact that a character can only channel through a Virtue once per Virtue dot per story. Obviously, this caveat also applies to short-term games such as one-nighters.

Comments

I like the artifacts, but have a couple of concerns... The Gem of the Fair Heart is fantastic, but I feel a drawback is required. Willpower is one of the real limits I've found in playing Exalted. Each time you pull out a combo it costs willpower and I find myself running out of willpower before motes every time. The ability to significantly add to your temporary willpower is a bit too good for a level 3 artifact as it is, IMO. I'd advise limiting it by making it useable once per day. Alternatively you could make it once per scene but say that the enhanced emotions also double any limit you gain. If you really want it to be useable any time you channel a virtue then there should really be a downside every time the power is used. - CorlanDashiva

Thanks for the comments.
I tend to think that the Gem of the Fair Heart is limited enough by the fact that any given Virtue may only be channelled through once per Virtue dot per story. I figure if people have issues with it, they can just define "story" as a longer period of in-game time ... I know it tends to be a damn long period in my games.
~ Shataina

Gem of the Fair Heart is an okay idea, but seems much too powerful for level 3, especially since it's essentially impossible to take it away from the character, and it lets her recharge Willpower extremely rapidly without any real negative effects. I don't think that the fact it's limited by Virtue-activations-per-story is enough of a check on its power; I'd place it at level 4 at least, and add in some drawbacks. An obvious (though unfortunately non-universal) one would be to have it increase Limit every time it's used. Or you could just limit its use to once per scene / day / whatever, or have activation cost a bunch of motes, or something like that.
_Ikselam

Hmm. I wonder how long people generally make their stories? I have to wonder this, because the thought of channeling at times when it isn't completely desperate and necessary is kind of foreign to me. I do it sometimes in one-nighters and such, but for long-term games, I find that channel slots run out pretty fast, and I have to be careful or I might find myself with nothing to call upon when my character's life is on the line during the final battle or whatever.
Increasing Limit makes sense for the artifact; I think I'll have it do that, especially since everyone who's commented on it seems to agree. Definitely within the general theme. I hadn't really thought about it because I only have one character with a Gem, and she's a God-Blood.
I still don't know about the artifact level thing. I've been reviewing other artifacts of level 3 and 4, and I really have to say that an artifact like this, although it does give the user some Willpower, is, to my mind, an awful lot less powerful and versatile than, say, Flying Silver Dream or the Cloak of Vanishing Escape, neither of which ever "run out of charges" for their disgustingly powerful abilities (unless you run out of Essence, in the case of the Cloak -- but Essence comes back at an hourly rate, and Virtue channels don't).
I can see making it more expensive, perhaps, or having it cost motes to activate, but raising it to the level of Flying Silver Dream seems a bit much.
I do think that I'll at least note under the artifact that if you're playing in a game where players are liable to channel often without any real limits, or in a short-term game, then you should probably take that into consideration in terms of how much it increases its potential power.
On a completely different topic, Ikselam, you should join the Lexicon.  :) Voidstate agrees with me, too. You would be a great contributor. Join us! Be assimilated!
And thank you for the comments.
~ Shataina

So I've depowered the Gem of the Fair Heart slightly, by making it only refill Willpower when the relevant action succeeds. I think this is more within the theme of the artifact anyway; and hopefully this will make it seem a little more palatable to commenters.  :)
~ Shataina