When the Encyclopedia is opened, its heavy cover creaks, releasing the faint scent of ancient parchment. As the professors fingers delicately trace the faded illustrations and ornate calligraphy, the book seems to come alive with whispers of forgotten lore.
Casting a soft luminescence onto the surroundings, illuminating the professor's path through the secrets of human anatomy. Turning to the section dedicated to human anatomy, the pages reveal intricate illustrations and detailed descriptions of the human body. Every organ, muscle, and bone is meticulously depicted with astonishing accuracy, capturing the intricate interconnectedness that underlies our physical existence.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
All Stabilizations you attempt are considered Proper Stabilizations.
You also gain the following effects:
The piercing glows with a weak green shimmer, the eye which the piercing adorns glows green as well. Moments later, a noticeable tremor goes from the user through the ground and walls into the weapon the user looks at as it breaks or disintegrates in a green wave of light.
This piercing was made from blessed metal, dedicated to a goddess of both peace and destruction whose name has been lost in the eons.
This artifact was loaned to one Jacob Sterns by the British Museum.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action or Reaction. Select a Weapon within 20 feet no larger than a duffel bag (35 liters). Roll Perception + Occult Difficulty 6.
If your Outcome is 4 or higher, the target will be fully and completely destroyed, leaving behind no meaningful remains. If your Outcome is less than 4, the target will be partially damaged, and any attempts to use it will suffer a dice penalty equal to your Outcome.
The piercing glows with green light for a moment and the user's eyecolor on that side changes to green for the duration of the effect.
To effectively remove weapons you need to know where they are. The user of this artifact will be able to see through solid matter to find weapons.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
You may perceive things within 75 feet of you with perfect clarity as though there were no walls or obstacles blocking your view for the next 30 minutes.
Others near you may choose to observe what you are perceiving by engaging in physical contact.
You may perceive through up to 15 feet of material. The Difficulty of all Perception rolls made through a wall are increased by 1 per wall.
The piercing flashes and a green shockwave expands from the eye of the user, pushing all targets to the edge of the area. If a target tries to approach, repeated waves will hold them back.
To be able to enforce peace you must be able to not currently be under attack.
Spend an Action or Reaction.
Create a repulsion field which extends out 45 feet from you in every direction, and lasts for the next 5 Rounds. Any Animate targets within the field cannot move any closer towards you. If they were within 45 feet from you when you activated the effect, they are immediately pushed back to the edge of the repulsion field.
You must maintain Concentration during this Effect.
When you activate this effect, you may designate any number of specific individuals to exclude from the Effect. Anyone designated in this way is unaffected by the repulsion field, and can approach you as normal.
You must remain standing in the same location while this Effect is active. Moving to a new location will interrupt your Concentration and end the Effect.
This Gift's Cost is capped at 2 and cannot be increased further.
The usual white tone of the eye with the Piercing takes on a significant green color, like bleeding out of the artifact, whenever it's used to see through darkness or the wearer concentrates on seeing far away things.
The final part of the ultimate defense against attackers is the ability to see in the dark, a necessary ability to remove weapons beyond walls in hidden armories.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
Your senses are enhanced in the following way.
Any senses which have been heightened cannot be overloaded. Battle Scars you receive cannot affect these senses.
Despite its bulky shape, it’s actually light and comfortable to hold. When functional, a slight light and buzzing emits from its core, energy dances between the three prongs at the end of the weapon. When fired, it shoots bursts of blue energy, those killed by it are disintegrated, with only their clothing and a blue skeleton remaining.
The Electron Mauler saw a lot of action upon its conception during the Mercuiod war. A war that marked the Zetotho as an empire that is not to trifled with.
This Artifact can be used as a rifle. It is roughly the same size as a rifle but can be collapsed into a white L shaped block and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Firearms, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +5 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
You start typing on your phone. Upon closer inspection it's just a brick of uranium glass with a sticker on it. Besides hearing a weird voice, the target sees the message in the corner of their vision. It's suspiciously like Twitch's Text-to-Speech. May or may not be rereadable.
On Delphyrion's career:
As much as Delphyrion makes a joke out of it, he still relies on making chemistry videos to make a living. Contracts aren't enough to maintain a good budget for his experiments so he has to dabble in all sorts of different platforms and content. Livestreams, short-form videos, and podcasts are all on the table here, it's just that he doesn't want to be recognized for anything but his actual alchemy. Few friends know what his channels are.
On Twitch Chat:
Some find it endlessly entertaining to watch an hour-long video of a chair sitting in a hot tub. Delphyrion knows of a bell pepper guy in Los Angeles who has done pretty well for himself by doing that, much to the streamer's chagrin. In Delphyrion's case, Chat has been asking him to blow things up for the longest time. It's an enticing idea but he's still trying to figure out the legality of broadcasting the creation of chemical weapons in front of thousands of people online. With this ability, Delphyrion can finally become Chat too.
On brainrot:
After a long day of brain usage, Delphyrion sits down at his computer and doomscrolls. However, the sheer power of an entire Chat shutting down their brains at once can be devastating. They either become a hivemind or an apocalypse. They drive him insane all the time. Who knows if that's really the reason why Delphyrion's a mad scientist?
On uranium glass:
It was incredibly hard to obtain uranium, and he's probably ended up on another watchlist for this. To make the most of this, Delphyrion has made it into a piece of uranium glass shaped just like his phone, complete with some black dye in one part of it to simulate a screen. This is to confuse people whenever they try to steal Delphyrion's phone, because most would stay far away from radioactive materials of any sort. He himself is much safer than he was during the process of making it but he still feels a bit odd about putting it to his ear every time he mistakes it for his own phone. Maybe that's how this gift came about.
On the brand placement:
Delphyrion's mom has always been adamant that Dell products aren't good (their old home computer was very beaten up after a year or two of use, one of the hinges was about to pop open if not for the bull clip Delphyrion had forced onto it) but it's not like he's trying to endorse or renounce the brand. It was just very convenient. See, Dell, Delphyrion, Dell-phyrion, get it?
On the sticker:
One would assume that after so many years of using devices, Delphyrion could type with his eyes closed. He could, it'd just end up in a jumbled heap of random letters. He's trying to convince himself that this isn't like writing the name of each note onto individual piano keys. It's for the cosmetic. It's for the bit.
On TTS:
Text-to-speech sometimes acts as a hindrance to the stream-viewing experience, but some may argue that it's an integral part of it. Delphyrion doesn't have much opinion on it, he doesn't usually notice the text anyway so it's just a disembodied voice to him. This gift is also similar in that it's really hard to notice, much less read, the text in your peripheral vision because your peripheries don't have the cones to distinguish the shape of each letter. It's incredibly elusive because you can try to look at it but it'll just forever be a step too far to the right. This part is purely to annoy people, but if the target tries hard enough they might just be able to reread the message.
Spend an Action. Select a target any distance away from you. You must have a specific target in mind, but you require only an intuitive understanding of them, such as their name, face, or Location.
You open up a line of communication to your target, and may converse with them as long as one of you maintains Concentration
The conversation will only be perceived by the intended recipient. You must share a common language for your target to understand the message.
This Gift cannot have more than 3 Drawbacks, and its Gift Cost is capped at 1.
Upon typing up an order on your phone, you watch as a hypercube spins into existence and a hand reaches out from the 4th dimension to hand you a large takeout box. Upon opening it, a (legally distinct) String Cheese person according to your order specifications springs out, slightly larger than what the box could normally have held. They start talking to you in fluent English???
As the box slowly decomposes, you have yourself a lifelong friend! ...Unless it dies.
Exert your Mind and spend an Action.
Summon up to 3 Sapient String Cheese People at your location. They last until they are destroyed They are controlled by the GM but will follow any commands you give. This Artifact may have at most 3 minions active at a time.
Bankston wears the silver Bullet around his neck as a ward. the gallic script and bullit faintly glows when an outside force attempts to invade his mind.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You get +0 dice to any Mind resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects:
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This Artifact produces ephemeral projectiles that can be used as a throwing knife.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Athletics, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +2 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
The 255TE "Lancer" Rife fires an extremely deadly spike of plasma at its targets. It comes standard with a volume control, allowing the soldier to mute its normally fearsome lightning crack report for stealth missions. When not in use, it can collapse into a small metal disk that can fit into any utility belt.
This Artifact can be used as a rifle. It is roughly the same size as a rifle but can be collapsed into a metallic disk and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Firearms, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +5 Weapon Damage.
You also gain the following effects:
Standard issue in the Future Soldier's home time, the Personal Shield Generator (PSG) projects a protective energy barrier around the body. It absorbs damage far better than traditional armor, but its battery is quickly drained. When depleted, the PSG must spend a few seconds recharging.
When struck, the normally-invisible field of the PSG flashes, revealing a bright yellow honey-comb pattern encasing the body.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.
You have 6 Armor, which reduces incoming Damage. Armor from multiple sources does not stack.
Your Armor cannot be destroyed, and it always provides a minimum of 2 Armor regardless of any Armor shredding or penetration. It cannot be circumvented with Called Shots. When shredded, it returns to full potency in one hour.
Any time your Armor prevents Damage, your Armor rating is temporarily decreased by 2. Whenever it goes five Rounds without preventing any Damage, it is restored back to its full value.
The Predatory Raiment has a cloak feature that allows its owner to hide themselves and their equipment with active camouflage. When viewed, they look like a slightly shifted and shimmering version of the surrounding environment.
You gain the following benefits as long as you are not at all wet and you are wearing this Artifact.
You and everything you are carrying is obscured in one of the following manners. You may Spend an Action to change the way in which you're concealed.
While this Effect is active, any Effect that would obscure you or your equipment specifically from other, additional senses fails automatically.
If someone discovers you, this Effect will not help you hide from them for the next minute. This Effect does not end early when you activate an obvious Effect, attack, or receive an Injury.
When Winter Fang's glittering string is drawn, an ice arrow crystalizes nocked and ready to fire. These ice arrows melt quickly after piercing their foes, leaving deadly wounds instead of evidence.
This Artifact can be used as a bow. It is roughly at least twice as large as a bow and cannot be concealed on your person or disassembled for storage.
Attack by rolling Dexterity + Athletics, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +3 Weapon Damage. Attacks do not require a successful called shot to do damage.
You also gain the following effects:
Dazzle Glasses are advanced "black-tech" espionage gear. They can be styled as any sort sunglasses. When the wearer is recorded, they will quickly flash a non-visible laser into the recording device, destroying it after only a moment of footage is taken.
This Effect activates whenever you are recorded. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Select a Non-Sapient Object within 20 feet no larger than a duffel bag (35 liters). Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event. Roll Perception + Culture Difficulty 6.
If your Outcome is 4 or higher, the target will be completely destroyed and can no longer function, though it may still be repaired. If your Outcome is less than 4, the target will be partially damaged, and any attempts to use it will suffer a dice penalty equal to your Outcome.