Legendary Artifact

Due Diligence

Created and held by Francis Constantine.
A very ornate-looking handgun, it’s flashy and it’s fancy.

I’ll add the description later.

This Artifact can be used as a handgun. It is roughly at least twice as large as a handgun and cannot be concealed on your person or disassembled for storage.

Attack by rolling Dexterity + Firearms, Difficulty 6. Successful attacks deal Contested Outcome +4 Weapon Damage.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Keyhole: Any bullet that kills your target tumbles through their body and may strike a target in a 90 degree angle behind them. Any damage beyond that needed for the kill is applied to the secondary target.
  • You may spend a Quick Action to change this firearm's base stats into those of any other basic firearm.
  • Shredder: If you successfully hit your target, the value of any Armor they are wearing is reduced by 2. For material armor, this penalty lasts until it is repaired. For intrinsic armor, it lasts until the end of Combat and any relevant wound is healed.

  • Excess keyhole damage does not reapply the weapon's damage bonus and is affected by Armor as normal. The secondary target may React to the tumbled bullet if they have a Gift which lets them do so.
  • Changing this weapon's base type affects its range, Weapon Damage, concealability, and roll. Other mechanics of the chosen base firearm (such as the tripod requirement for sniper rifles) apply.
  • This Artifact cannot be disguised or morphed with other Effects like Shape-Changing object.
  • Reminder: additional Weapon Damage granted by this Effect does not stack with any other bonus to Weapon Damage. Instead the largest bonus is used.
  • Rifles are +1 Difficulty to use in melee range. Sniper Rifles are +3 Difficulty to use without a tripod or in melee range. Setting up a tripod takes an Action.
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Community Artifacts

Wario bike

Created and held by Louie G.

A ridiculously loud, low riding bike with huge exhausts protruding from under the seat and upwards.

This Artifact can be used as a motorbike. It is roughly the same size as a motorbike but can be collapsed into Car Keys and concealed. Collapsing or expanding it costs a Quick Action.

This motorbike has preposterously sized exhausts. Any roll to pilot this vehicle receives +2 dice.

You also gain the following effects:

  • Mind of its Own: This vehicle can move and take Actions without you driving it. It has seven dice for all Drive rolls.
  • Steady As She Goes: The motion of your vehicle never causes your passengers dice penalties, and you do not suffer dice penalties from the unsteadiness of any vehicle you are riding in.
  • No Muffler: Any stealth rolls made to hide your vehicle automatically fail, and any rolls made to notice your vehicle automatically succeed.

The Ferryman’s Spirit Box

Created and held by David Vance.
A gilded handheld radio. It has a coin slot above its channel selector, which appears to accept American $1 coins

The user inserts 2 American $1 coins into the slot on the radio, which disappears in a quick second as the slot dimly, briefly glows green. The radio begins to spit out quiet static, as the user sees through their clouded eyes the memory of the target.

The target experiences the wandering dead spirits of the world accepting their offer of currency, and showing them a memory they have witnessed in the world in exchange.

If David showcases something with emotional resonance to the target’s soul to the wandering spirits, they may use that resonance to find/track the target in the world and glean some secrets. The spirits may even comment on the item in question, whispering opinions on it into the user’s ears (ex: “Quite a large painting. This one you send us to look into must be quite gaudy…I almost don’t want to bother. But I suppose the toll is paid”)

David, while repairing the Thomas Edison Spirit Cellphone, managed to reverse engineer some of its more…unique components. He even found a small manual hidden inside, which described that, according to Spectrum S, wandering spirits in the world can make a great fuel source. David was disgusted at this discovery, and wondered what would happen if one instead offered them a coin of value for their troubles and aid, the way the Greeks did in the days of old. A modern day way of giving them Charon’s obol. So he set about constructing the Spirit Box, and soon the wandering spirits of the world became aware of his offer of coin.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select an Animate target within 200 feet You may select a target at any range if you use up an Object of sentimental value to the target of the target. You must use up 2 American $1 coins in order to activate this Effect. You must maintain Concentration while the effect is active. Roll Perception + Occult at Difficulty 6. The target may resist by rolling Mind at Difficulty 6.

If you succeed, you are able to view your target's memories. If you fail, the target knows you're attempting to read their memories.

You may ask a number of specific questions about their memory equal to your Contested Outcome. For example, “what is their computer password,” “What were they doing at 4:00PM yesterday,” etc. You cannot get answers to broad, analytical questions like “are they a good person?” or “what are their plans for the future?”

Each memory takes as long to read as it takes to answer the question. When replaying a full memory, it is replayed in double time.

  • In the case of a failed activation, GMs should consider how bystanders would realistically react to a potentially-outlandish accusation of mind-reading.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

Magpie radio

Created and held by Eins.
A handheld ham radio, bearing the magpie symbol

Eins fiddles with her radio, the screen flashing red as static begins to overflow from it and forms into a physical substance that she manipulates with ease.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action. Select a Location within arm's reach.

Select one of the following alterations to create out of Static originating at the target:

  • Sculpt: Sculpt a surface made of Static up to 40 feet by 40 feet. You may make aesthetic changes or minor functional improvements like a ladder or stairs. You may sculpt windows, doors, and similar alterations into structures you created with this Effect.
  • Wall: Create a straight wall made of Static up to 40 feet long, 10 feet high, and 12 inches thick. This wall can also be used to create a bridge, ramp, or similar. It must be free-standing.

The alteration begins to form when you activate this Effect and finishes forming on your initiative in the next Round. Until it finishes forming, it is not guaranteed to function.

This alteration lasts three hours but may be prematurely destroyed or altered. Your alterations may be broken through with appropriate tools. Anyone attempting to break through must roll Brawn + a relevant Ability. A cumulative Outcome of 6 across all attempts breaks a hole large enough to move through. See the extended system text for GM guidance on various tools.

  • Attempting to break any alterations with inappropriate tools may damage or destroy the tools at the GM's discretion.
  • Any structures you create leave precise gaps for obstacles in their path or push them out of the way. You cannot directly destroy objects or structures or damage beings by creating walls or domes.
  • Tool guidance for GMs:
    • Difficulty 9: Brawn 5, no tools.
    • Difficulty 7-8: One-handed tools or makeshift tools (like a sword). Mythic Brawn without tools.
    • Difficulty 6: Appropriate manual tools. Crowbar, sledgehammer, armor-shredding attacks.
    • Difficulty 4-5: Power tools, vehicles, explosives.
  • This Effect produces the substance you are controlling unless it is drawn from the environment via “Required Environment” Drawbacks.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.
  • Your target must be within line of sight, or within range of another sense if more fitting for the Gift's flavor.

The Magpie radio lets out a loud static as it begins to offload the overloaded information.

You gain the following benefits as long as you are wearing this Artifact.

You get +2 dice to any Mind resistance rolls you make. You also gain the following effects:

  • Been There, Done That: If you succeed a Mind resistance roll, subsequent attempts to use that same Gift or supernatural ability on you for the next day will fail.
  • Force of Will: You may Exert your Mind to increase the Outcome of a Mind resistance roll by 2.

  • These bonuses apply only to Mind rolls made to resist Effects and other supernatural phenomena. They do not apply to Trauma rolls or self-control rolls.

Dell Series U-23x

Created and held by Delphyrion Arcanis.
A phone-shaped brick of uranium glass. There's a sticker on it, mimicking the appearance of a phone's screen and typing interface.

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.

  • Receiving a message does not force a target to pay attention to you, and they can feel free to ignore your message if they choose. Depending on the flavor of your Gift, they may or may not be able to return to it and read it later on.
  • Generally you cannot communicate with Contractors who are not in a Contract with you.
  • You can target yourself if you qualify as a valid target by the other requirements.

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 move more than 150 feet from you or 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.

  • Initiative: Minions act directly after you in Combat starting the Round after they are summoned.
  • Combat: Minions roll 4 dice to dodge, Grapple, or make Cheestring Punch Attacks. Their unarmed Attacks have 50 feet of range and deal +2 Damage.
  • Body/Mind: Minions have 5 Body. Your minions roll 3 Mind resistance dice.
  • Armor: Minions have 1 Armor.
  • Movement: Minions can move 15 feet per Round as Free Movement and double that when performing an all-out Sprint.
  • Intelligence: Minions have human-level intelligence and can speak your language. They can use equipment, Artifacts, and Consumables. However, they cannot Exert their Mind.
  • Actions: Any Perception checks they make are rolled with 3 dice. Any other roll is made with 3 dice. They can lift and haul as though they have 2 Brawn.
  • Unusual: Minions are obviously Alien to any observer.

  • Minions die if targeted with Energy Transfer (before the Effect resolves) or if an Artifact or Consumable they use would Injure them or cause them to roll Trauma.
  • Your minions may count as additional targeting types based on their flavor. For example: Living, Computer, Creature, etc.

Healers Halo

Created and held by Jimmy Rockman.
A gold ring with feathers carved into it

A floating ring of light hovers over the target Bathing them in divine light, It sears attackers with divine retribution.

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.

You may transfer your Armor to another target within 30 feet once per Round as a Free Action. You may transfer it back to yourself at any range.

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.

Your Armor’s rating is increased by 2. If you do something that Damages, restricts, or otherwise directly, negatively affects another being, your Armor’s rating is decreased by 3 for one minute. This penalty does not stack with itself.

When you take Damage from a source which is within 5 feet, deal back as much Damage as your Armor prevented.

Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their mind and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Trauma: Saint, if you see a individual getting attacked by a stronger entity you must roll self control to not step in and defend the weaker of the two.. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.

  • This Effect’s Armor rating cannot be increased by any other Effects.

Stock Legendary Artifacts

Personal Shield Generator

The device itself is a metal hexagon that is worn on the belt and glows when active.

Expend a point of Battery and spend an Action or Reaction.

You phase out of reality for up to 4 Rounds. During this time, you cannot perceive or affect the outside world or take any Actions. You cannot move. Nothing can interact with you in any way.

When you activate this Effect, you may limit its duration to a period of your choosing. If you are able, you may also end it as a Free Action on your initiative.

You leave a golden glow shaped like yourself at your location.

  • If you use this Effect to dodge as a Reaction, it succeeds without the need for a roll. Cannot be used as a Desperate Defense.
  • You may use your Free Movement on the Round you phase back in, but you cannot take an Action.

255TE "Lancer" Rife

A metallic disk that, with the press of a button, expands into a futuristic-looking rifle.

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:

  • Silencer: The report of any shots you fire may be made silent at will.

  • If there is not enough free space to expand the object, it cannot be expanded. You cannot expand this Object as an attack.
  • Reminder: additional Weapon Damage granted by this Effect does not stack with any other bonus to Weapon Damage. Instead the largest bonus is used.
  • Rifles are +1 Difficulty to use in melee range. Sniper Rifles are +3 Difficulty to use without a tripod or in melee range. Setting up a tripod takes an Action.

Selkie Skin

This Effect activates whenever you are submerged in salt water. It does not require an Action or Exertion. Your target should be intuitively based on the triggering event.

You transform into small for two hours or until you choose to end the Effect. See the Extended System text for stats.

While transformed, you cannot use any equipment (including Artifacts and Consumables), and you cannot use your Active, Targeted, or Trap Powers. However, you can use your Passive Powers. Any equipment you are wearing transforms with you.

Injuries and Wound Level are carried over between forms. However, transforming can never kill you; you merely remain Incapacitated until your Injuries are sufficiently healed.

  • When triggered, the Effect activation resolves immediately after the triggering Action. It is not Reaction speed.
  • Creature Stats
    • Medium (large house cat up to human) Body 3. Brawn 1. Dexterity 3. Fall damage reduced by 1.
    All creatures get +3 dice to any non-combat Action that they are naturally adapted for. All creatures Medium and larger may attack by rolling Body, dealing +0 Damage (+1 for “predators”). Gms and Playgroup leaders can apply other bonuses and effects to specific animals.
  • Animals that are quicker than humans (like dogs) have 50 feet of Free Movement. Animals that are very slow (like turtles) have 0 feet of Free Movement.
  • You cannot transform if there is not enough room to do so.
  • The form you take must have the same stats and abilities as a single, extant animal of the relevant size.

Umbrella Identification

This Artifact can change its appearance. When not transformed, it is roughly the same size as a passport and just as difficult to conceal.

Exert your Mind and spend an Action to activate. This Artifact changes its appearance into an Object within the category of forms of identification. This lasts until you decide to end the Effect, which may be done as a Free Action.

The new object's appearance can mimic specific items (such as a particular painting, a certain person’s ID, etc), but must be of a similar size and weight to this Artifact.

The new appearance is illusory; it will hold up to scrutiny, but its composition is not altered and it gains no new functionality. Any attempt to use it for a function which it cannot perform (for instance, making bread look like a knife and then trying to stab someone) will cause the illusion to fail or allow a Perception check to see through the illusion, at the GM's discretion.

The Bug-out Bag

No hiker would bat an eye if they saw someone wearing this 80 liter backpacking pack in the backcountry. Those who look closer find it's made of a curious mix of modern materials and what appears to be rawhide stitching.

This Artifact holds 5 times what it normally could inside of it. Objects stored inside are weightless.

Living things can be stored in this Artifact. They will have access to anything else inside and may attempt to break free, damaging or destroying the Artifact in the process.

If this Artifact is destroyed, things inside may get out, and it will cease to function until it is repaired.

When scanned or investigated without opening, the contents of this container appear normal and unremarkable.

If anyone other than you opens the container, it appears empty. Others can still destroy it to get at the contents.

  • A container of holding cannot be placed inside another created by the same Gift.
  • There is no cost to use this container.

This Artifact cannot be broken. If this Artifact is lost and in no one else’s possession, it finds its way back to its true owner during the next Downtime.

By default, the creator of this Artifact is its true owner. The true owner may formally bequeath this Artifact onto another person within arm’s reach, after which they are its true owner. If the true owner dies or is destroyed, their ownership ends. If this Artifact has no true owner, anyone may spend one day attuning to it to become its true owner.

This Artifact's true owner is always aware of the direction and distance to this Artifact.

  • "Cannot be broken" means that damage cannot render the Artifact's Effects unusable, nor can it cease to be used for its primary mundane purpose, if it has one.