The Chicken of Duplication

Although typically found in fantasy space, there is no reason why one couldn't find terrestrial Chickens of Duplication.

There are those who revere the divine entity called the Chicken of Creation, a deific chicken who birthed the world and all within it. (Some believe there are many such chickens, although whether or not there are many Chickens of Creation or merely one is probably not useful for most people.) Among its many progeny is the Chicken of Duplication, a semi-divine chicken of monstrous size. (As with the Chicken of Creation, it is unclear whether there is one Chicken of Duplication or several.)

The Chicken of Duplication is often found flying through other dimensions or even the void of space. If by some strange circumstance you need stats for one, your system probably has an equivalent of a Tyrannosaurus rex; just add a flight speed and you're basically all the way there. They typically don't bother astral ships or other large objects or creatures; they might approach a vessel and give it a curious peck before moving on. Of course, if the occupants decide the peck is an attack and fight back, they will face the full fury of this semi-divine chicken.

Lone travelers are in more peril, as the Chicken of Duplication is roughly as vicious as a regular chicken.

(For Chicken of Duplication stats in 5th edition-style games, I'd start with a regisaur, change the type to celestial, add a fly speed of 120 ft., and change the tail to some manner of stomp or talon attack, dealing slashing damage instead of bludgeoning.)

If the legends are true and there is only one Chicken of Duplication, killing it doesn't stop it: it is reborn in a few days from one of its own eggs. (And like a terrestrial chicken, it lays eggs periodically without fertilization. These eggs are often in remote places in other dimensions. As such, there might be many, many eggs that have not yet been found, and one cannot truly kill the Chicken of Duplication without finding and smashing every such egg.)

The divine beast is rarely seen, but the eggs are the primary reason why anyone knows or cares about it. (It's possible the "Chicken of Duplication" isn't even a chicken; if someone saw a giant chicken and someone else saw a giant hen's egg, a third scholar could have connected the two.) An Egg of Duplication appears to be a hen's egg that is a little larger than human size, somewhere in the seven-by-five-foot range. It feels like a hen's egg, too, although it is significantly stronger — cracking the shell requires a concerted effort, as the shell is harder than steel. It is vulnerable to acid, however. Destroying or cracking the egg renders it inert and kills whatever is inside. (Although if it has not yet been activated, it might produce a truly prodigious amount of yolk. Scholars and sages no doubt would have plenty of uses for the yolk and shell of such a potent celestial egg...)

However, touching the egg with bare flesh causes a reaction. The creature who first touches the egg is enervated, taking a handful of damage, ability score drain, a level of exhaustion, or some similar mechanic that would easily heal in a day or two. No further touches have any effect on either the egg or the person touching it.

If the creature is too large to be contained by the egg, the egg remains inactivated until a creature of the appropriate size touches it.

After being touched, the egg hatches in 1d6+4 days, producing a nude duplicate of the creature who touched it. The duplicate has the same statistics as the original at the time they touched the egg, and the duplicate likewise has access to all of the target's memories until the moment it touched the egg.

As far as anyone can tell, such duplicates have no sinister agenda. However, apart from being birthed from an egg, they believe they are the original, and so will no doubt be very confused and possibly upset by whatever happens next.

Artifact April 2022

Seven years ago, I posted Artifact April, a month of theme posts whereby I posted one magical item every day in April across various RPG systems. I was hoping to do that again this year, but it never materialized.

However, some Artifact April is better than none Artifact April, so here's a selection of seven magic items. I'm running a lot of fifth edition D&D these days, so stats (where available) will primarily reference that edition, but I'll provide some notes on other editions because I convert material with abandon. Anything here should be easy to convert to your game system of choice.

(But just to make everything more confusing, Hekanhoda's Bane and Straight Razor are both made for Dungeon Crawl Classics.)

Cage

It probably looks something like this.

This sapient blade is a greatsword, appearing as a scimitar sized for a giant (or an efreeti, in this case). It is always warm to the touch. The black iron blade bears glowing runes in the language of fire elementals, while the shagreen wrap on the handle bears binding spells in the language of dragons. The pommel is a small, black iron cage in which a single red ember floats.

That red ember is the efreeti noble Padishah Nurhan Solak, bound in the blade. (He bestowed that title on himself, so he's likely not as powerful as you think he is.) When he speaks — and he often makes demands in imperious whispers — his voice emanates from the ember as it glows and crackles. The ember flares when he is angry.

Trapped in his own sword by a vengeful wizard, the sword now has the statistics of a luck blade. (Interested parties can also find 3.x statistics. The AD&D version of a luck blade gives +1 to saving throws and contains 1d4+1 wishes according to the Encyclopedia Magica.) This particular blade contains 3 wishes, powered by the bound efreeti. When the last wish is cast and the blade loses the Wishes property, the efreeti is released. He almost assuredly returns to the elemental planes and begins plotting his revenge against every previous owner of the blade, whom he has perceived as exploiting and wronging him in some way. (However, he may be gracious to an owner who uses their first wish to release him from the blade, possibly even offering them a free wish. As a lawful evil entity, however, any wishes he offers are of dubious quality.)

In true It Follows fashion, Nurhan probably works his way backwards, starting from the most recent owner until he eventually plots his epic revenge against the wizard who bound him in the first place.

Unlike most sapient swords, Cage cannot initiate an ego battle as the sword is the genie's prison. However, nothing prevents the Padishah from talking, constantly trying to convince the sword's wielder of the benefits of using a wish in this particular situation. Since he wants to escape the sword, he's even less capricious than a typical genie, fulfilling the spirit and letter of any wishes he grants. (At least for the first two wishes. He probably perverts the intent of wish number three as a final "fuck you" to his wielder before he leaves and plots his vengeance.)

If this sounds a bit like recommended Shadowguiding techniques from Wraith: The Oblivion, then you know exactly how to play the Padishah.

In addition to the standard properties of a luck blade, the sword's wielder can speak and understand the language of fire elementals while they carry the sword, and they are unaffected by extreme heat. (Up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. That's about 49 degrees Celsius if you use metric.) The user can use a bonus action to cause the ember in the pommel to brighten, shedding bright light in a ten-foot-radius and dim light in a further ten-foot-radius.

The sword loses these properties if the genie is released, although it keeps the bonus to saving throws (and to-hit and damage for 3e and 5e versions and the Luck property in 5e).

Although it can't initiate conflicts, the sword's statistics might still be useful. It is lawful evil; has an Intelligence of 16, a Wisdom of 15, and a Charisma of 16; can hear and see (with darkvision) out to 120 feet; and can speak, read, and understand Common and Ignan.

If you're using 5e, Cage is a legendary magic item that requires attunement.

Dunce Cap

Nobody makes kids wear these anymore, right?

A standard paper dunce cap, albeit decorated with strange writing on the inside. While worn, it makes it hard to think but also makes the wearer less noticeable as a threat: people tend to ignore the wearer, and enemies target them less often.

For fifth edition, I'd probably give advantage on Charisma (Deception) checks to seem unobtrusive and Dexterity (Stealth) checks to remain hidden. The downside is that this item grants disadvantage on Intelligence checks, attacks, and saving throws.

This is likely a rare item that probably requires attunement. Assuming it requires attunement, it grants disadvantage on Intelligence rolls while it's attuned, but only grants the bonuses while it's being worn. Tricky, eh?

It's paper, so it folds away easily but is also easily damaged. If you'd like, maybe it's made out of something more durable, like leather.

Green Sash

A gift from the Fair Folk always comes with strings attached.

You probably know this one already. Lady Bertilak gifts such a sash to Sir Gawain for his confrontation with the Green Knight.

There aren't any tricks with this one: the wearer gains immunity to slashing damage, but a critical hit from a slashing weapon cuts the sash, dealing full damage and rendering it useless. (If your system of choice doesn't include critical hits, assume it is cut on a natural 20. You might also decide a called shot can sever the sash, but you should make that decision based on your system of choice.)

While there aren't any tricks with the item itself, it is a sash of fairy make. There is a possibility that having the sash itself causes trouble, such as in the case of Sir Gawain.

For the fifth edition crowd, this is another legendary item requiring attunement, although I think it's a more interesting item if it doesn't require attunement.

Hekanhoda's Bane

It looks a little something like this.

If you've read Intrigue at the Court of Chaos, you already know Hekanhoda, Lord of Grotesques. (I believe Hekanhoda also appears as a patron in the DCC Annual.)

Hekanhoda's Bane is a powerful sword of Law dedicated to slaying Hekanhoda. However, this sword has great ambitions, as it has plenty to do before killing the Chaos Lord.

This Lawful +1 long sword has Intelligence 11, and can speak and communicate telepathically. In addition to killing Hekanhoda, the sword also wants its wielder to uphold the Law. It has several banes:

• Thieves: the wielder gets a +1 bonus to attacks and damage against thieves.
• Wizards: any wizard successfully struck by the sword is banished. The wizard must make a Will save against the sword's roll of 1d20+10 or else be banished back to its native plane or lair.
• Earth Elementals: the sword detects any earth elementals within 100 feet, even if they are invisible or concealed. The sword can overcome magical defenses with an effective Will or spell check of +10.
• Dragons: as with thieves, the wielder gets a +1 bonus to attacks and damage against dragons.
• Sphinxes: the sword acts as a spotter, making it easier for allies to attack. Allies can fire into melee between wielder and bane at no penalty and with no chance of hitting the wielder, and allies attacking bane with missile fire within 100 feet of the sword receive a +1 attack bonus.

In addition, the sword has several powers. It can detect gold within 1d8 × 10 feet, it can locate object twice a day, it can shed light in a 20-foot-radius at will, it drains 1d4 XP with every blow in addition to its other damage, and the wielder heals 3 points of spellburn each night without rest, or 6 points each night with rest.

The Princess' Ring

Using magic from lost kingdoms is like unearthing uranium.
It could power or destroy a city, and there's only one way to find out.

While the origins of this ring are lost, the story attached to it is that the princess of a lost kingdom owned this ring, which she used to sneak around the castle and even beyond its walls. This is often told as a cautionary tale, as she was executed or exiled for witnessing something she ought not to have seen. Others say that the magic in her ring somehow destroyed the kingdom. Some even say her ghost haunts the ring, providing an unpleasant surprise for anybody who uses the ring's magic.

This item is simply an ornate ring that, when completely covered by the hands, transfers the user to the Ethereal Plane as per the etherealness spell. Depending on the tales, you can either use it three times per day or as often as desired, but it does require the user have both hands free. As such, it probably takes at least an action to use it.

If you're doing the full 5e thing, this probably works as a very rare item, although it likely doesn't require attunement. Watch out for thieves! (You might want to make it legendary if the wearer can use it at-will. Then again, you might feel that being able to do nothing other than hold the ring is balancing enough. It's ultimately your choice; I'm a blog post, not a cop.)

Straight Razor

It looks similarly impractical.

Diametrically opposed to the monument of Law that is Hekanhoda's Bane, Straight Razor would see civilization reduced to rubble and ash. This Chaotic +1 long sword has Intelligence 10 but only communicates through simple urges. It seeks to build a monument to Chaos from the rubble of civilization and to punish interlopers and those who interfere.

The sword hates water elementals, sending its wielder into a berserker fury against them. When facing water elementals in combat, the wielder must succeed on an Ego check against the sword or else gain +4 Strength and Stamina for 2d6 rounds, and then become exhausted at -4 Strength and Stamina for 1d6 turns thereafter.

On the other hand, Straight Razor grants its wielder the ability to speak and understand thieves' cant, and it can shoot out a tongue of flame once per day. The flame jet is shaped like a cone, 40’ long and 10’ wide at end. All within take 2d6 fire damage and may catch on fire. They can avoid this damage with a Reflex save against the sword's roll of 1d10+10.

The Widow's Ring

Just what I always wanted: a ring that hates me!

Old tales speak of the maedar, the male versions of medusae. One particular tale speaks of a maedar who found a mate very late in life, but was as devoted to her as any other maedar is to his wife. In fact, he was so devoted to her that he ensured he would never leave her.

When he felt his life coming to an end, he undertook the ritual that maedars sometimes undertake to become a glyptar, a maedar's consciousness remaining in stone. Maedars are said to go mad if they become trapped in gemstones, but this particular maedar willingly projected his consciousness into amethyst so that he could remain with his wife until the end of her days, and could continue to guide and protect future generations of their family. Before death, he made arrangements to have the amethyst fitted into a ring, delivered to his wife, so that they could spend eternity together.

And so the glyptar spent generations with his descendants, at least until some group of adventurers murdered them and took the ring.

As you might imagine, the glyptar is very displeased with this state of affairs.

Any medusa can use the widow's ring to gain a burrow speed equal to her walking speed, even allowing her to move through solid stone. Three times per day, she can turn stone to flesh, either ending the petrified condition on a creature or turning an area of stone as large as a 10' cube into meat. (If you're using an older edition with a proper stone to flesh spell, just use that instead. If you want the classic glyptar experience, old-school maedars can technically use their stone to flesh power every 30 minutes. In AD&D, the spell mentions turning stone golems into flesh golems, but since 5e stone golems cannot be altered in such a way, we'll skip that particular detail.)

Humanoids and other folk might be able to use the ring's powers as discussed above, but they have to convince it of their intentions first. The original adventurers who stole the ring probably won't get it to cooperate, nor will any adventurer who kills a medusa and lets the ring know about it. (Even hearing a rumor that the wearer killed a medusa might be enough to prevent the widow's ring from cooperating.) In fact, such users find the ring is basically cursed: the glyptar will attempt to take control, leading the wearer into suicidal situations. However, wearers who seem sympathetic to medusae and are willing to help local medusa populations will likely receive the ring's aid. (Although it might just ask for them to deliver it to a proper medusa, unless it thinks it can better aid medusakind by staying with the current wearer.)

The widow's ring is lawful evil; has an Intelligence of 12, a Wisdom of 13, and a Charisma of 15; can hear and see (with darkvision) out to 120 feet; and can speak, read, and understand Common. (If you're using an old-school system, the ring can also speak the languages of medusae. It also has the equivalent of a Labyrinth Lord psyche around 15 or so, to give you an idea of what sort of Ego rating you should give it in whatever system you're using.)

For 5e, this ring is probably legendary and definitely requires attunement.

Greed in the Heart, Doom in the Mouth

I published a post on Monday and will publish another on Friday that are both blathering about the state of the industry. (The Short Answer: It's the same mess as it ever was.)

Both pieces elsewhere in the week are serious, so I'm hard-pressed to pay the Joesky tax on those posts, but I'm posting it here. Since a lot of my current content is bound up in scattered notes, 5e statblocks, and other such ephemera, I went with the recent Joesky tax writing prompts from Throne of Salt. (I rolled a 16 and a 52, if you're into that sort of thing.)

Timely!

The Avarice Beast

Have you ever met someone who hates? A real Ebenezer Scrooge-style bastard, someone who just takes and takes and takes. A bottomless pit for food, money, and affection.

Most of the time, these are just standard-style jerks, but occasionally, their festering hatred is almost a disease unto itself. (This usually occurs in men and always in humans. Whatever affliction menaces men is unknown to demi-humans. So far as we know.) Physicians have occasionally found small calcified stones in their hearts, the beginning of some sort of bezoar. (These bezoars are prized by alchemists for love potions, potions that allow the imbiber to smell gold as some dwarfs do, or other preparations that enhance the user's ability to covet.)

But the bezoar is less an accretion and more an egg. If the avaricious wretch continues on its path, the bezoar will continue to grow. (Any amount of genuine affection will halt or even reverse the bezoar's growth at this point. It's not too late for a redemption arc.) During this time, the person might notice a shortness of breath or increased fatigue, but most of them are so sedentary that they never notice the change.

Eventually, the egg will hatch.

If it hatches, the miser is living on borrowed time. The creature always hatches in the person's sleep and latches into the heart muscle. From there, it starts taking over the function of the heart over the course of a month. (It is apparent as a dark stain in the heart muscle, eventually turning the heart completely black. Once it has devoured the heart and assumed its function, it looks like a shriveled but overlarge dead fetus implanted into the circulatory tissue, curled in the middle of the victim's chest.) If the person is slain during this time, the creature cannot survive without the host, and will probably die within a matter of hours.

The creature will continue to consume additional nutrients (and negative emotions) from the host, growing to full size in 4d4 weeks. At that time, it messily tears itself out of the chest cavity, unfurling to the size of a small dog, all black skin and gristle and bone. It seems slick with moisture, but whatever is upon it either evaporates quickly or is merely the sheen of its skin.

(No doubt a number of alleged serial killings and botched robberies are actually the work of avarice beasts birthing themselves.)

From there, it begins its nightly hunts. It is a patient and cunning predator, seeking not only food but to cause the most harm possible. It typically targets people who will be missed, often children or lovers, stalking a lone child or half of a couple silently. When they are alone, it will strike quickly, snatching them away to be swiftly devoured. It will either leave their remains near where they disappeared, or in some other place where the family can find them.

Within the span of a week, the avarice beast will hunt enough to grow to roughly the size of a human. The upper limit of its lifespan is unknown.

Avarice beasts are intelligent, and understand the languages of their former hosts. They cannot speak, but can attempt a sort of mimicry, often mimicking children's laughs or cries, or speaking words and phrases of a couple of syllables. ("Come here" or "help me" are frequent favorites.) When the creature becomes aware that people are becoming aware of its activities, it often hitches a ride underneath a cart or other conveyance to leave town as soon as it is able. (On the road, it will hunt by night. In a bit of dark irony, having an avarice beast silently hiding among a caravan is good luck, as the creature often hunts or frightens any random encounters that might occur by night.)

It is entirely possible an avarice beast may not even originate from the town in which it is found.

The Avarice Beast: AC 15, Move 120’, HD 3+3, claw/claw/bite 1d6/1d6/1d8, Morale 10. Climb walls 99%, hide in shadows 95%, move silently 95%. Surprises on 5-in-6.

The Conch of the Damned

Recovered from an ancient shipwreck in the Weeping Bay outside Sorgforge, the conch of the damned is a wicked version of the horn of Valhalla, a way to summon the spirits of the dead to defend the user.

The conch's interior is gilded, and the exterior is decorated with black opals carved to resemble human skulls. When blown, 4d6 zombies arrive within 1d3 rounds, either staggering from the sea if it is in range, or arising from the ground if it is not. (If you want to draw parallels between the conch of the damned and the horn of Valhalla, make the zombies appear as draugr, dead Norse warriors.) They will follow the conch owner's commands for one hour; at the end of this time, they will turn and attack the blower of the conch and their companions, seeking to seize the conch. Where they take it afterward is unknown; in all likelihood, it is placed in some other remote place to cause ruin.

Assuming a conch blower survives the shell's curse, smart conch blowers will typically use the zombies for one task, then order them to destroy one another. Still, there is always the chance that one will not have the opportunity to do such a thing, or that the dead will still come for the conch eventually...

The Legend of Drusilla God-Biter

Torinn's axe has tasted of the blood of a god, and now seeks more.

Since it's entirely possible this axe might show up anywhere in the multiverse, I put it into the aethers for the consumption of the internet.

The stats below are for 5e, but it's pretty easy to convert: +3 greataxe dealing extra damage vs. dragons and gods, it can be used to parry cleric spells with a visible vector (like spiritual weapon or whatever), it can cast dispel magic once a day (but the axe chooses when to do it and will usually target cleric magic), and it can destroy any god-wrought artifact (but is destroyed in the process).

Drusilla God-biter is Neutral, and wishes to goad its user into conflict with dragons and gods, particularly evil ones.

If you use Drusilla God-biter, let me know! Let its legend grow. (Although the rumor is that Torinn is incredibly possessive of his axe, so beware...)

Drusilla God-biter, the Wyrmfoe

Weapon (greataxe), legendary (requires attunement by a creature of non-evil alignment)

Once just a mundane blade, Drusilla God-biter is a rough-hewn greataxe of orcish make.  Its blade is marred by a black stain that runs along the edge and is splattered across the blade; this stain occasionally writhes and changes, shimmering like motor oil when illuminated.  The rest of the blade is strangely clean and glitters like platinum.  In sunlight, draconic runes in some ancient dialect are faintly visible along the haft.

You gain a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic greataxe.  It has the following additional properties.

Wyrmfoe.  When you hit a dragon with this weapon, the dragon takes an extra 3d6 slashing damage. For the purposes of this weapon, “dragon” refers to any creature with the dragon type, including dragon turtles and wyverns.

Godsbane.  When you hit a deity with this weapon, it takes an extra 3d6 slashing damage and its regeneration trait does not function at the start of its next turn.  For the purposes of this weapon, “deity” refers to any creature as designated by the DM — typically a unique aberration, celestial, fey, fiend, or undead.

Doom of Divinity.  When you are targeted by a divine spell attack, you may use your Reaction to make a special melee Attack roll with this weapon.  If your attack roll is higher than the spell caster’s attack roll, the spell is negated as if by a counterspell.  For the purposes of this weapon, “divine spell attack” refers to any spell attack by a spell from the cleric, druid, paladin, or ranger spell list, as well as spell attacks by deities.  It can also refer to the spell attacks of other creatures with unique ties to the gods at the DM’s discretion.

Drusilla God-biter can cast dispel magic once per day.  It decides when to cast the spell, and will usually target divine magic.

Drusilla God-biter can be used to destroy even artifacts and unique magics wrought by the gods, but is destroyed in the process.

Sentience.  Drusilla God-biter is a sentient neutral weapon with an Intelligence of 9, a Wisdom of 12, and a Charisma of 14.  It has hearing and darkvision out to 120 feet.

The weapon communicates telepathically with its wielder, and can speak, read, and understand Common and Draconic.

Personality.  Drusilla God-biter seeks the destruction of dragons and deities, particularly evil ones.  Conflict arises if the wielder fails to destroy dragons or deities when the opportunity arises.

Drusilla God-biter is gruff, grim, and matter-of-fact, albeit with a vaguely maternal tone toward its wielder.  It is somewhat distrustful of arcane magic but seems to truly disagree with the precepts of divine magic, claiming the gods as petty tyrants who seek to control the fates and souls of sapient beings.  It similarly claims that dragons are attempting the same thing in a pale and rote imitation of the gods.

It has some measure of respect for the god Bahamut, whom it seems to regard as its creator.  (But it would probably still goad its wielder to attack him if given the opportunity.)

If someone proselytizes in its vicinity, Drusilla God-biter will speak out against them, trying to provoke an argument.

That Old Silk Hat

And now, a bit of Christmas magick: an artifact for Unknown Armies, third edition.  Enjoy!

That Old Silk Hat

Power: Significant

Description: That Old Silk Hat is usually treated as a joke or urban legend (it seems soundly ludicrous to think the holiday song "Frosty the Snowman" holds mystical significance), but some checkers in the occult underground claim it's an actual thing.
     That Old Silk Hat appears as an old, unassuming, and somewhat battered top hat, made of cheap felt.  Any story depicting it usually indicates it's found in the garbage or has been otherwise abandoned — it usually smells like refuse, and is occasionally described as being crusted with blood.  The stories claim That Old Silk Hat rarely stays in one place for long, as misfortune tends to befall those who use it.  It won't be long before it shows up in some dumpster, or abandoned basement, or forgotten corner of someone's garage...
     Chargers in the know claim there are many such hats, each with a limited number of uses.  In that case, the magick is not in the hat, but in the ritual that empowers them.  The chargers who tell such tales claim a ritual to empower That Old Silk Hat is a significant one, and requires the ritualist to murder someone and entomb them in a snow effigy.  The hat placed atop the snow effigy is then empowered as That Old Silk Hat.
     (Such a ritual would probably take 2 significant charges, and would empower the hat for a number of uses equal to the sum of the dice.)

Effect: When That Old Silk Hat is placed on a mound of snow that has been sculpted to resemble a human shape (typically at least given a face and rudimentary limbs, although most people who receive That Old Silk Hat are under explicit instructions to make the snowman "as lifelike as possible;" some of them are quite elaborate), the hat summons the nearest demon to animate the snowman.
     While demons are always hungry for experiences on this side of the Veil, That Old Silk Hat does nothing to make the snowman stronger, or grant it significant structural activity.  As such, snow golems animated by the hat are pretty fragile, and will still melt if the ambient temperature gets too far above freezing.
     As a result, demons are usually pretty annoyed with being trapped in a snow-body.
     Still, it beats being on the other side of the Veil.  Clever (and stupid) checkers can use this to communicate with demons, and particularly smart ones use this as a negotiation tactic; after all, a summoned demon probably needs the occultist to enact any particular schemes it has in mind, so it allows a would-be demonologist to negotiate from a position of strength.
     While in a snow body, a demon's wound threshold is only equal to 20% of its Urge (round down), and it only deals an amount of damage equal to the tens place of the roll when making hand-to-hand attacks.  When a snowbound demon makes a melee attack, it takes the same damage itself as it shakes its snow body apart.  A snow-body only takes hand-to-hand damage from guns, although any explosions or sufficiently large trauma will probably deal full damage.  (When in doubt, the snowman is fragile and probably just falls apart.)  If you're tracking movement, snow-bodies can typically only move at half-speed (check out "Running Around" on page 63 of Book One: Play), and take 1d10 wounds if they move at full speed.  Likewise, if it's too warm outside, the demon can take anywhere from 1d10 wounds per hour to 1d10 wounds per minute.  (Although the degradation of a snow-body in high temperatures is ultimately up to the discretion of the GM.)
     A would-be snow-sculptor can potentially heal a snow body by re-packing the snow, restoring a demon's full wound threshold with a few minutes' work.
     A demon is released when its snow-body is destroyed or when the hat is removed.  Sensation-junkies they are, however, no demon will willingly remove its own hat.  (If, as some stories say, That Old Silk Hat has limited uses, any given found hat probably has 1d10 uses.  A single "use" ends when the demon is banished; there is otherwise no time limit.)
     At the GM's discretion, a particularly skilled snow-sculptor might be able to make a sturdier-than-normal body.  If a character has an Identity uniquely suited to building a particularly-sturdy snowman, then the snow-body has a wound threshold equal to the character's roll or 20% of the demon's Urge, whichever is higher.  Likewise, such a snow golem might deal additional damage on a successful Struggle roll, such as dealing half standard hand-to-hand damage, whole damage, or even weapon damage (for a sculptor adding sticks and knives to the snowman's construction).  Such a snow golem might even maintain its integrity when it makes hand-to-hand attacks.
     It is exceedingly unlikely someone could make a snow sculpture sturdy enough to use a gun, but who knows?
     A character living in a cold climate or otherwise with access to a sufficiently-large, frozen place could potentially keep a single snowbound demon around for a long time, if they so chose.  It's possible that a particularly demented charger has a demonic snowman familiar stashed away in an old restaurant freezer somewhere.

A Tale of Two Swords

A parable about the importance of choosing names. This is a tale of two sapient swords, Perversion and Pervert.

Perversion

It probably looks something like this.

Crafted by the warlord Bamara Ondus in the second millennium before the Common Epoch, Perversion is a wicked sword: a slayer of Men, a burner of churches, and a bastion standing in opposition of Law. (They say Bamara Ondus forged the sword — or had it commissioned, sources differ — to launch a pogrom against the dragonborn of the northeastern Sorrowfell Plains. The fact that the sword is currently lost, as well as the prolonged existence of Archmagus Iandak Voiddrake, implies how well that went.)

Dedicated to the Demon Lord Baphomet, Perversion is as cunning as the demon lord in whose name it was forged. It is a +3 bastard sword, and Chaotic (Evil) in alignment. (If your system doesn't differentiate among different swords, treat it as a long sword.) In Labyrinth Lord, it has Intelligence 12 and Psyche 5, with a total Willpower 18. (In 5e terms, it has Intelligence 17, Wisdom 12, Charisma 18. If you're using another system, it should have an effective total Ego 18 with which to oppose characters, however that shakes out stat-wise. It's a fairly strong-willed sword.) It communicates telepathically with its wielder, an imperious voice resonating in the skull. It wishes to smite the Lawful and reward the ambitious, eventually uplifting the cause of Chaos amidst the ruins of civilization.

Perversion is adept at navigating mazes and smiting the weak. It can detect secret doors and sloping passages within 10'. When it attacks a foe, its damage dice "explode" — so if you roll an "8" on that 1d8, roll another d8. (If you roll additional dice on a crit, go ahead and assume all of them "explode.") While holding Perversion, the wielder regenerates 1 hit point per round.

It is intelligent enough to suggest its wielder engage subtly, although it relishes any opportunity to goad its wielder into berserker rages and glorious combat.

Pervert

Maybe a little like this.

Urrion Slenderblade forged this magic blade millennia ago in an attempt to remove parts of his own id he considered strange or shameful. The histories do not record whether he was ultimately successful in hiding his urges in swords, but they do record at least one sword he forged. Although it is more properly known by its Elvish name, Solavelque ("the sword of forgotten memory"), it is more frequently called by its Common moniker, Pervert.

According to the tales, Urrion instilled his sexual urges into this blade, to "better purify himself for the trials ahead." (The tales don't record what these trials were or why he potentially considered his sexuality shameful — most elves don't dwell overmuch on that sort of thing, although it is possible that his tribe had certain unrecorded rituals or taboos that might shed light on this strange practice.) Pervert counts as a +1 rapier, Chaotic (Neutral) in alignment. In Labyrinth Lord, it has Intelligence 10 and Psyche 5, with a total Willpower 15. (In 5e terms, it has Intelligence 16, Wisdom 10, Charisma 15. If you're using another system, it should have an effective total Ego 15 with which to oppose characters, however that shakes out stat-wise. It's a moderately strong-willed sword.) It speaks its desires aloud, a reedy voice capable of speaking Common, Elvish, Sylvan, Gnomish, or Chaotic (Neutral).

Pervert detects gems and jewelry within 60', invisible or hidden creatures within 20', and has the unique ability to sense the gender identities and sexual proclivities of sapient creatures within 10'. This is very much based on how a given creature perceives itself, and so is mutable from moment to moment. Beyond just sexual inclination, this also gives an inclination of symbolic societal gender roles as the person understands them — are they aggressive or nurturing, for instance? (Astute observers no doubt recognize this last sense as the first channel of The Sexual Rebis avatar from Unknown Armies.)

Pervert doesn't have motivations or goals, per se, but it is an expression of its creator's repressed desires without the mediating influence of nerves, time, or a sense of scale. If the Referee wants to include Pervert, they have to make a decision as to how weird or pushy the sword is about its appetites. I left the sword's convictions deliberately vague, as well as whatever Urrion considered "shameful." It could be anything from the sword pining over a lost love that Urrion considered a distraction, to straight-up Slaanesh worship. You have to judge what works best for your player group, whether it should be dramatic, tragic, comedic, or grotesque. (Personally, I'd go for whatever mood is most currently lacking.)

The obligatory warning: This is not an excuse to push your players into an uncomfortable situation. If they don't want to deeply delve into the psychology of a sapient sword and its long-dead Elven creator, Pervert is not the sword for them.

Spore Week: The Crown of the Mushroom King

Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Is there an actual King of all Mushrooms?  Is this just a particularly venerable myconid sovereign?  Or is there an actual mycelial king lurking somewhere in the Deepearth, secretly lording over all fungi?

Regardless, there is a crown, and it is said to belong to the Mushroom King.

(Who knows how it works?  Fungal sovereignty no doubt works differently than the monarchies of humans and demihumans.)

The crown appears to be a standard sort of mushroom cap in a rich purple color.  It is shaped to fit on standard humanoid-sized heads, although it's elastic enough to be a little forgiving.

Why do the caps conform to human symbolism, anyway?

Regardless, whomever acquires and wears the cap of the mushroom king effectively gains the spore-based powers of a myconid sovereign.  Other myconids will follow your orders more or less without question.  Additionally, as per the AD&D Monstrous Manual, pages 264-265, the character can use each of the following spore types six times per day:

• Distress: This spore type is used to alert other myconids to danger or a need for aid. The cloud expands at a rate of 40 feet per round, expanding to its maximum of 120 feet in three rounds.
• Reproducer: These spores are only emitted at the proper time for growing new myconids so the population can be rigidly controlled. They are also automatically ejected by a dying myconid.
• Rapport: These spores are primarily used in the melding process. However, they can be used by the myconids to communicate with other species, since the fungus men do not talk. A small cloud of spores is aimed at one person; if the person fails a saving throw vs. poison (it can choose to fail), it can go into telepathic rapport, speaking mind-to-mind with the myconid as if it were normal speech. The range of this effect is 40 feet and the duration is 60 minutes.
• Pacifier: This type of spore cloud may be spewed at a single creature. If the creature fails its saving throw vs. poison, it becomes totally passive, unable to do anything. The affected creature only observes; it is unable to perform any action even if attacked. The range of this effect is 40 feet and the duration is 6 rounds. The duration of this effect is a number of rounds equal to the Hit Dice of the myconid.
• Hallucinator: This type of spore is usually used in the melding ritual, but a myconid can project them at an attacker. The spore cloud may be shot at one creature, and if that creature fails its saving throw vs. poison, it suffers violent hallucinations for 60 minutes. Hallucinating creatures react as follows (roll 1d20): 1-10 Cower and whimper; 11-15 Stare into nothingness; 16-18 Flee shrieking in a random direction; 19-20 Try to kill the closest creature. The range of this effect is 40 feet.
• Animator: The king uses these spores to infect a dead animal or creature. A purple fungus quickly covers the corpse, taking over the dead body systems and putting it to work, animating the corpse to resemble a zombie (AC 10, Move 9, HD 1, hp 4, #AT 2, Dmg bony claws for 1-3/1-3). It is not undead and cannot be turned by priests. It always strikes last in a round. The body continues to rot and the fungus gradually replaces the missing parts, becoming specialized to take over their functions. Eventually, however, the decay proceeds too far, and the body stops functioning, able to rest at last. Animation takes place 1d4 days after infection, and the corpse is animated for 1d4+1 weeks before it decays. Animated creatures will follow simple orders given by the animator (with rapport spores) to the best of their ability. Orders take priority over self-preservation.

If you're using 5e rules, the character wearing the crown can use the animating spores, hallucination spores, pacifying spores, and rapport spores from the myconid sovereign stat block (Monster Manual, page 232).  The crown requires attunement, and counts as a very rare item.

You know what's coming, right?

Of course, there are side effects to joining with another species.  Wearers find that the cap does not easily come off; indeed, after the wearer dons the cap, it joins with them and reacts as a part of the body.  (Attempts to pry it off are exceedingly painful.  If someone makes a good faith attempt to pull it off, it stays put and deals 1d4 damage.)  This precludes the use of helms, and at the GM's discretion, worsens the character's Armor Class by one or two points as the head is now a much larger target.  (It is possible that the character can get a custom helm manufactured, but that sucker is going to be heavy.  To avoid collapsing your neck from the strain, you'll probably end up having to wear custom armor that makes you look like the Juggernaut.  Or maybe druids or elves can manufacture something appropriate.)

Maybe you get used to it after a while, and regain your full Armor Class.  That all depends on how generous your GM might be.

At this point, sufficiently high-level restoration magic can still remove the cap.  (Remove Curse doesn't work, though, as strictly speaking, it's not a curse  It's just part of you now.)

Every week you wear it, make a saving throw vs. poison.  On a failed save, you begin the transformation into a myconid over the course of 1d6 weeks.  At the end of this time, switch your race or class: you're permanently a myconid now, and the cap has bonded with you permanently.  (Good news, though: if you're using 5e attunement, it stops being attuned when you become a myconid.  It's part of you now, although you're unlikely to find another magic hat that will fit you.)

It's up to the GM if you eventually become so absorbed by your myconid sovereign mindset that you become an NPC, but that seems a likely outcome for most afflicted with the Crown.

If the wearer is slain, the cap detaches, ready for another host.

Probably best to remove it before then.

The Forgetting Shield

This is a relic of the Ulvenbrigad in my Frostbitten & Mutilated game.  A rival adventuring party stole it, but the PCs managed to steal it back, although the cleric died in the process.  Anyway, enjoy!

This large shield of black metal bears a strange, twisting symbol on its face, done in some manner of relief.  Anyone within 60’ viewing the front of the shield must make a save versus Magical Device or be affected by the symbol’s effect.  (During combat, attackers get a +2 to the save because they aren’t concentrating on the shield as much as their opponent’s movements.)

Anyone failing the above save is lulled into a state of unconsciousness that lasts for 1d4 hours.  Upon awakening, he or she has completely forgotten the events of the previous day.  In cases where the subject has experienced severe mental trauma, this amnesia will cure them of any insanity or mental disorders caused by those experiences.

However, the shield also has a massive side effect: it emits microwave radiation in a 60’ radius.  Water within 60’ of the shield begins to boil, and living things are wracked with pain as if they are on fire.  The pain is so intense that everyone within 60’ of the shield, including the wielder, must make a saving throw versus Paralyzation in order to act normally.  Those afflicted will usually either collapse or attempt to move as quickly as possible out of the radius.  Creatures that roll a 1 on the saving throw against Paralyzation take 1 point of damage from blisters and surface burns.

Because both of these effects are permanent, the Forgetting Shield is usually stored in a strange basket of woven metal, and only removed by the strongest warriors.  (This basket acts as a Faraday cage, in case any of your PCs get any brilliant ideas of what to do with that.)

This artifact works roughly the same way in any old school class-and-level RPG variant, but if you're using 5e, I'd check out the Symbol spell to help adjudicate the effects — Con save for pain, Wis save for amnesia/sleep.  I'd set the save DC at 20, although you can set it at 15 if you're a generous soul.  If you see the shield in combat, gain advantage on the Wisdom saving throw.

Artifact April: Table of Contents

So, every day in the month of April, I provided a write-up of a different object, and I called this cockamamie idea Artifact April.  So, without further ado, the artifacts of Artifact April:

Artifact #1: Kingmaker

Artifact #2: Samuel's Eye

Artifact #3: Liber Gnaritatis Veneficae

Artifact #4: Cheep Sunglasses

Artifact #5: The Daedalan Crucible

Artifact #6: The Automaton Gear

Artifact #7: Bran's Cauldron

Artifact #8: Caledfwlch

Artifact #9: The Key of Perception

Artifact #10: Grigory Novykh's Rosary

Artifact #11: The Chronicle of Vun the Damnéd

Artifact #12: Grimoire of the Deathless Servant

Artifact #13: The Sickening Blade

Artifact #14: The Herald of the Night of Burning Stars

Artifact #15: Pendant of the Maelstrom

Artifact #16: Iron Phylactery

Artifact #17: The Book of Summonings

Artifact #18: The Crux of Eternity

Artifact #19: Durandal

Artifact #20: Shakespeare's The Tempest (rough draft)

Artifact #21: SYNTHESYS.ARC

Artifact #22: Vienna in Wintertime, 1909

Artifact #23: The ChAOS Bomb

Artifact #24: Reading Glasses

Artifact #25: The Thief in the Night

Artifact #26: The Lentic Helm of Lordship

Artifact #27: The Conveyance Mirrors

Artifact #28: The Excision Shears

Artifact #29: The Sammas

Artifact #30: The Comb of Youth and Vitality

Artifact April #30: The Comb of Youth and Vitality [systemless]

The Comb of Youth and Vitality is an ivory comb with an opal set in the handle.  It always feels unnaturally cold to the touch, and its presence sets one's teeth on edge, like drinking a cold drink with sensitive teeth.

The first person to use the Comb of Youth and Vitality removes one year of age for every brush stroke.  This person instantly feels themselves getting younger and more energetic, and so can usually determine what is happening and stop before, say, becoming a child.

You're going to want to write down how many years the first person removes, though.

All subsequent users of the comb age that many years for each brush stroke.  So, if the first person removed twenty years of age, all subsequent users become twenty years older for each brush stroke.  Brush your hair in four strokes, and you're now eighty years older (and likely dead, if you're a normal human).  If your players like to tinker, it's likely at least a couple of them will try the comb, hoping that the effect will somehow skip a person or whatever.

After the initial use, the enervation effect lasts for a number of years equal to the years of age stolen.  So, if you lost twenty years of age, all subsequent users will gain twenty years per stroke for the next twenty years.  Then the comb "resets" — probably after a group of concerned do-gooders locked it away somewhere and it has been forgotten.

Just in time for another to use the comb.

Artifact April #29: The Sammas [Dungeons & Dragons]

[Dungeons & Dragons]

(With all apologies to the Finns, as the Sammas is another name for the Sampo.)

According to the legends, the Sammas is a large, ornate, ivory drinking horn, carved with magical runes, which is always full of water.  The legends are exceedingly hazy on its pedigree, although must suggest it was made by an unnamed craftsman to purify the River of Tears, grown corrupted by the blood of dead primordials, or that it was made to provide enough water for the craftsman's village.  (A few legends claim the Sorrowfell Plains used to be desert, and the Sammas is the vessel that made them the verdant plains they are today.  These tales also tend to claim that the dead god Sorg made the vessel.)

The important, common element is that a craftsman needed a lot of pure water, and so made the artifact.

The Sammas is similar to a decanter of endless water, in that it produces limitless water.  However, there is no variance to the amount of water — if poured out, it always pours at a rate of one gallon every six to ten seconds or so.  (One gallon per round, like the "stream" setting of the decanter.)  Unlike a decanter, though, this water is pure (and should likely be treated as holy water).  So pure, in fact, that it purifies things it touches.  Water from the Sammas will decontaminate food, drink, people, and objects as per the spells purify food and drink, neutralize poison, or remove disease (or their local equivalent in whatever game system you happen to be running).  It will also purify areas and people of various types of corruption, and possibly even throw off haunting or possessing spirits.

The main problem with the Sammas is its location.  It has been lost for centuries, and no one has yet determined its location.  It is commonly thought the be hidden somewhere in the Hoarfrost Ridge, far to the north, but it could legitimately be anywhere.  (It is thought that some shrines advertise a connection to the Sammas either as an attraction to bring pilgrims or as a trap for the unwary.)

The last person to seek the Sammas was the fey noble, Lady Graunwen, who departed with a retinue of elves to seek the artifact in the autumn.  Since her final message last winter, two search parties have gone to find her.  Neither has returned.

Artifact April #28: The Excision Shears [systemless]

The Excision Shears look like a rusty old pair of scissors — big scissors, like your grandmother would use to cut fabric.  They cut things, as well they should.

The fact is, they cut things really well.

Anything that can reasonably fit between the blades will get cut.  If it's too big, you can't get enough leverage to get started, but anything smaller than that is fair game.  As a rule of thumb, if you have to open the blades more than 90°, you're not cutting it.  You could cut a high-tension wire, but you couldn't get enough leverage to cut a car in half.

The weird thing about the shears, though, is the fact that they cut things that aren't supposed to be cut.  Like emotions.  If you cut your hair with them, you'll always feel better about the new haircut, because you simply won't have an emotional connection to the old one anymore.  Cutting that high-tension wire will always feel cathartic, because it never should have been together in the first place.  The new state always seems more natural than the old one.

That's not the only thing, though.  If you cut up a book, the new book seems more pleasing than the old one.  Nobody knows how far this effect spreads, although if you decide to play William Burroughs and use the cut-up pieces to make a new work, it'll probably be well-received.  (Maybe it's possible to drive a popular book back into obscurity this way.  Or maybe only the person holding the scissors will think the new version is superior.  Or maybe only the author loses the emotional connection.  Who's to say?)

The most disturbing usage of the scissors, though, is with modern photographs.  Cut up a photograph the right way, and you can make someone uncomfortable in their own skin, because they no longer feel the same connection to how they look at they used to.  Or maybe they think one of their features is now extraneous.  Maybe you'll drive them to self-harm, because that part needs to leave.  Or maybe they just grow lethargic and apathetic about it, they just don't care.

And of course, if you cut between people in a photograph, they'll lose their emotional connection with each other.  Maybe someone will use this to make enemies not hate each other so much, but it's always more likely that some vindictive sort will make lovers drift apart.  It's never a sure thing, and some people can resist it, but it's still going to make for a rough time in your life when those whom you hold dearest now seem distant and alien.

Artifact April #27: The Conveyance Mirrors [Mage: the Ascension]

[Mage: the Ascension]

(8-pt Artifact)

The Conveyance Mirrors are a set of objects created by Adeptus Astrum, the leader of a small, research-oriented cabal called "Gibil Esagil" in the town of Brady's Glade, NE.  (He hoped to use them to coordinate actions with another, larger cabal, although he was rebuffed.  It is, of course, entirely possible that he might try to contact another cabal to assist in Gibil Esagil's research.)  Consisting of two floor-length mirrors with Enochian glyphs carved around the frame, each mirror has a small panel on the right side of the frame, right about where a doorknob would go on a door.  This panel is marked with a crown, and if it is flipped open, causes the mirror to immediately transform to a portal connecting to the opposite mirror if and only if the other mirror's panel is also flipped open (this is a safety precaution to help prevent unauthorized travel).  Through this portal, one can travel across any distance to the opposite mirror.

(The mirrors are enchanted with a variation of the Correspondence 4 rote, Hermes Portal, although they are enchanted such that the rote is permanently in effect.  This is fairly vulgar, and so the mirrors should probably be stored in a sanctum, lest Disbelief and Paradox rear their ugly heads.)

If the panels are closed, the mirrors will not function.  If a mirror is placed facing a solid object, the object will block the portal, although a sufficiently strong character can certainly attempt to break the barrier to traverse the portal.

If a mirror is broken, both mirrors break and become inert, leaving behind eight pawns of Tass in the form of mirror shards.

Artifact April #26: The Lentic Helm of Lordship [Dungeons & Dragons]

[Dungeons & Dragons]

The Lentic Helm of Lordship is a strange and grotesque object.  Meant to be worn on the head, the Lentic Helm is a domed structure made of some manner of transparent gelatinous substance, rather like the flesh of a jellyfish, and held together by surface tension or some strange cohesion of molecules.  The back of the "helm," such as it is, bears several clear, writhing tendrils; these are purely decorative, but tend to unnerve viewers and wearers alike.

The Lentic Helm allows the wearer to issue short commands (maybe five words or so) that must be obeyed, rather like the suggestion spell.  Unlike suggestion, these commands can be harmful to the listener — "Strike yourself!" is just as acceptable as "Sleep!" or "Flee this place!"

Victims must make a saving throw vs. spells/magic/Will (with a +1 bonus for every victim beyond the first to be affected) or else carry out the instruction for one minute.

The origin of the Lentic Helm of Lordship is unknown, although Far Realm influence is suspected.  Some scholars even think that the Lentic Helm might be the work of the aboleths — as much a tool of control as a trap for the unwary who dare use it.  A few dark rumors even suggest that the thing is alive, and part of the aboleth lifecycle.

Artifact April #25: The Thief in the Night [new World of Darkness]

[new World of Darkness]

4-dot Relic

Durability 2, Size 0, Structure 2

Description: This small ring looks to be made of some dull, grey metal.  It is shaped like a crocodile looped over the finger, with the snout pointing outward slightly.  At the bottom of the ring are two seams, and it has a faint, powdery, green sheen to it.

Background: The Thief has changed hands many times over the centuries, but it is apparent that it is a copper ring shaped like a crocodile.  Some aspects of its design and history suggest that it may have come from Egypt, though it is just as likely that someone was trying to copy the design.

Some scholars suspect that the ring's history has something to do with the worship of Set, as it aids with travel, while others think it invokes Sobek to protect the wearer from watchful eyes.  Of course, it's just as possible that someone used the design because it looked pretty.  No one knows.

Effects

Forgettable (••••): The ring makes the user easily overlooked.  By twisting the ring once and rolling Wits + Stealth, the user becomes invisible — not to sight, but to the minds of others.  So long as the person does not draw attention to herself (by stealing objects larger than her Size or committing violence on others), then she continues to be invisible.  If she does draw attention, the invisibility ends.  Note that, unlike the typical power, she does not risk being forgotten or forgetting herself.

Unnatural Travel (••••): By using the ring's exposed edge to etch a mark into a substance, the user can make that mark into a portal.  The user can create two such marks and travel between them freely by spending 2 Willpower and rolling Wits + Manipulation.  On a success, she disappears from one location and reappears at another one minute later.  An exceptional success reduces this time to one turn; a dramatic failure causes the user to reappear at her point of origin one hour later covered in scratches and bruises (having taken four points of bashing damage).

(Curse) Derangement: The user finds it easier to avoid problems rather than facing them.  Using this ring, the user gains the Avoidance derangement until the next day or until she sleeps for eight hours, whichever comes first.

(Curse) Vulnerable: For four days after using the ring, the user is susceptible to magic.  Any supernatural powers used against her add +2 dice during this time.

Artifact April #24: Reading Glasses [new World of Darkness]

[new World of Darkness]

2-dot Relic

Durability 3, Size 0, Structure 3

Description: This looks like a pair of antique reading glasses.  The frames are tarnished, but the spectacles are otherwise unremarkable.

Background: The origin of these glasses is not immediately apparent.  The age suggests sometime in the mid- to late-nineteenth century, although the manufacturer, if any, is not apparent.  They are probably worth a little on their own, and definitely worth more to the right buyer who understands their mystic properties.

Effects

Knowledge Seeker (•): By spending 1 Willpower point, the character's next Research extended action task will be reduced from 30 minutes per roll to 5 minutes per roll.  If the time interval is not 30 minutes, assume it is reduced a comparable amount (roughly by a sixth).

Potent Success, Attribute (•••): By spending 2 Willpower points, the character's Academics rolls all gain the 9-Again quality for the rest of the scene.  This power may only be used once per 24 hour period.

(Curse) Vulnerable: However, meddling with alien forces does have its dangers.  After using the Potent Success power (above), the character becomes vulnerable to supernatural or magical powers.  For the next three days, any creature using such an ability on the character gains +2 dice to its roll.

Artifact April #23: The ChAOS Bomb [Mage: the Ascension]

[Mage: the Ascension]

(12-pt Invention)

The Chemical Acceleration, Orgone Separator Bomb, the masterwork of rogue Son of Ether Professor Vapor in tandem with fellow rogue Etherite Doctor Ferric, is a highly destructive superweapon.  The ChAOS Bomb is a stationary device which disrupts natural orgone flows through living organisms, reducing them to their base components.  The Bomb must be primed by charging the generator, which may be charged with a combination of mechanical, electrical, and bioetheric means.  In layman's terms, this device sends out a black wave of energy which disintegrates all living matter in its path.  This has the eerie effect of leaving behind small piles of dust surrounded by clothes and other personal effects of the deceased.  After unleashing its destructive wave, the Invention remains behind to be reused again and again (although it must be primed once again).

In game terms, the ChAOS Bomb uses Entropy 4, Forces 1, Prime 3, and Time 4 to produce its effect.  Entropy 4 and Prime 3 uses a variant of the Wither Life Effect to attack living organisms, dealing aggravated Pattern damage.  Time 4 allows the user to set a timer to delay the Effect; otherwise, she'll be caught in her own explosion!  Forces 1, if combined with Time 4, allows the user to set the device to blow if it receives a strong kinetic shock (such as being dropped from an airplane onto an unsuspecting city, let's say).  Use the damage and duration chart to determine damage as normal, spending extra successes for the area to be affected.  To completely vapourise a city the size of, let's say, New York City, the ChAOS Bomb would need to be primed with somewhere in the neighborhood of a whopping 35 successes at difficulty 9 on an Arete roll from the user, giving plenty of opportunity for enterprising do-gooders to intervene or for Paradox to engage in its natural state.  Paradox, in this instance, usually strikes as direct damage as the device malfunctions or explodes (or even if it detonates prematurely).  Unsurprisingly, the ChAOS Bomb is pretty vulgar, although it's just far enough within the realm of action movie science that a determined mage might be able to explain it away to a frightened populace and make it coincidental.  ("And just so you know I am serious, permit me a demonstration of the awesome destructive potential of the ChAOS Bomb!")

By the way, for those of you playing at home, in The Imperial City, the Order of Portoblax hoped to goad Doctor Ferric into using this weapon so that they could use the sacrifice of New York City to power their Portoblax summoning ritual from The Book of Summonings.  Fortunately, an alliance of Technocrats and Traditionalists stopped them from enacting that plan.

Artifact April #22: "Vienna in Wintertime," 1909 [systemless]

This watercolor painting is 50 cm wide by 64 cm tall.  It is a relatively pleasing, albeit unremarkable, work in the impressionist style depicting a relatively empty city street in downtown Vienna, Austria.  The sky is grey and everything is covered in snow.  A mother and child may be seen on the street, hurriedly walking in an attempt to get out of the cold.

Two things make this painting interesting.

The first is the painter's signature.  Handwriting analysis confirms that it is not a forgery; it reads "Adolf Hitler."  No such painting is known to exist; indeed, the 1909 date coincides with the period in which Hitler had been rejected from art school and was nearly penniless on the streets of Vienna.  It is exceedingly doubtful he would have had the resources to afford a canvas and painting supplies.

The second notable characteristic is a small, metallic, blinking box on the back of the painting, attached to the backing board on the frame.  This box appears to project the electromagnetic field surrounding the painting, extending from the box in all directions to a radius of 40 cm.  This force field is incredibly sophisticated, and has yet to be disrupted by any known means.  Contacting the force field with bare flesh produces a numbing, tingling sensation that disappears as soon as contact is broken.  The painting levitates in the center of this force field, and anybody wishing to move it will probably find rolling it to be the best option.

It is likely for the best that the energy field around the painting cannot be disrupted, as it is the only thing separating our atmosphere from the antimatter air bubble and painting within.  Contact between the molecules of our universe and the antimatter molecules inside the energy field would prompt an immediate and violent reaction, probably somewhere on the magnitude of the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba detonation, if not more.

Artifact April #21: SYNTHESYS.ARC [systemless]

The SYNTHESYS program is found on a series of twenty 5.25" double-density floppy disks with 360 KB storage capacity each.  Each one is marked with a piece of masking tape, and written in Sharpie, labeled "SYNTHESYS #" followed by a number between one and twenty.  None of the disks are missing.

Nobody has enough records to determine the origin of SYNTHESYS, but all evidence suggests that the program would have been created sometime in the mid-1980s, most likely as artificial intelligence experiments regarding expert systems.  The storage medium suggests an old IBM PC.  However, nobody has been able to determine a specific creator, whether that might be an academic institution, a company, or an individual.

When SYNTHESYS #1 is inserted into a floppy disk drive connected to a computer (a difficult proposition these days, although certainly not impossible), and if someone runs SYNTHESYS.ARC, the program will attempt to install on the computer's hard disk (or possibly the RAM if it's one of the older computers without internal storage).  It will prompt the operator to insert the disks in sequence, until all twenty have been installed.

Installing this program irretrievably crashes the hard disk; any time the computer attempts to boot, it will attempt to run SYNTHESYS and crash again.  (If the program is forced to install itself into RAM to execute, it will be deleted when the computer is shut down, just like anything else.)  Unfortunately, the data on the computer is now irretrievable: any attempt to connect the hard drive to another computer and read it will activate the SYNTHESYS program, which will install on the new system and crash it.

Strangely, attempts to load the pieces of SYNTHESYS without installing or inflating them seems to have the same effect — if all twenty SYNTHESYS.ARC files are found on the same system, the first somehow forces the computer to decompress them and crash in the process.

Programmers who have had the opportunity to look at pieces of the program, or have tried to run it in some sort of controlled, virtual environment, have noted that it appears to unpack an extremely sophisticated artificial intelligence program, which crashes any computer onto which it is installed because it is simply too big for the computer to handle.  Nobody knows how the program operates given a rough storage capacity of 7 MB — especially given that it appears to expand to fit the storage capacity of any computer onto which it is placed — but there it is.

SYNTHESYS typically also crashes computers too quickly to upload to any networks — the partitioning of network architecture is enough that the program crashes the first computer before spreading anywhere else.  (It's entirely possible that people have uploaded pieces of the program to their home systems or to cloud storage, but if the whole program ever exists on a single system somewhere, it runs and crashes that system.)

For now, it's just a curiosity, and an excellent sabotage tool if you can get into direct contact with the system you want to render unreadable.  (You'll also need to connect a 5.25" floppy drive to the system you want to sabotage, although that's doable.)  Of course, that's just because nobody has ever tried to load SYNTHESYS.ARC on any of the arrays with more than 1 PB of storage space — if somebody takes it over to one of the big data installations like Google or Facebook, or IBM Almaden's 120 PB storage array, or Cray's Blue Waters Supercomputer whenever that one's done, then the program will have enough space to finally run...

Artifact April #20: Shakespeare's The Tempest (rough draft) [Unknown Armies]

[Unknown Armies]

There was a buzz going around Europe's occult underground in the early- to mid-seventeenth century that somebody uncovered an early draft of Shakespeare's The Tempest before it was edited for publication.  (Although the references to it occur right around the time scholars think he wrote it, so it's entirely possible that the early draft started circulating in the occult underground before the play came out.  Then again, it's not like these things are exact.)

Dukes who claim this story is true claim that the original play was less an allegory and more an occult history — the original Duke Prospero was a thinly-veiled Lodovico Lazzarelli, who instead of dying in 1500, retired to some weird island Otherspace that was supposed to be Avalon.  (In this scheme, Sycorax was an immortal Morgan le Fay, served by a legion of Romani hardcases.)

Nobody knows what became of Lazzarelli or Morgan or anybody else — although some of the stories in Europe at that time suspect the House of Renunciation got to them first — but the crux of The Tempest is that Lazzarelli renounced magick and then left the island, leaving his library and artifacts (and Ariel, for that matter) behind.

Now I'll admit this whole thing sounds pretty sketchy, and maybe it's even a more recent hoax, but there's a little corroborating evidence — apparently somebody found some old plans written by Fausto Veranzio and commissioned by Louis XIII for a clockworker device to find the island.  (Apparently, one of the plans was to incorporate Durandal in the design, operating on the belief that it's Excalibur and would sympathetically point to the place where it was forged.)

If we can find those plans, I bet we could hire Knezevic to build 'em.  What do you think the odds are that the island is still there?