Artifacts and Artifice
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Designing Artifacts (For Players)
The Five-Dot Scale
N/A: World-Shaking Wonders
Some artifacts are so potent that they transcend the five-dot rating system. This actually means that they cannot be purchased at character generation and that only Storytellers can introduce them into a game. They have vast powers, such as granting wishes wholesale or allowing unhindered travel and spying across all Creation. They also inevitably come with associated (and grandiose) drawbacks, like granting wishes in perverse and malicious ways that loosen the bindings on the Yozis.
Example: The Eye of Autochthon is Creation's most notorious N/A artifact. In each of its three appearances since the Great Contagion, this indestructible relic of the Great Maker sparked wars that shook Creation. The sorcerer Bagrash Köl conquered an empire in the North that eclipsed the fledgling Realm, until it all vanished. The Empress' grandson Manosque Viridian used the Eye to usurp control of the Realm's war manses. He was three days from the Imperial City when his army fell into the sky. The prophetess Ikerre led her Cult of the Great Maker in a rampage across the Southern Wyld that left a thousand miles of barren crystal behind her. When the Realm's top agents caught up to Ikerre, they found her entire caravan transformed to quartz, but the Eye was gone.
Games revolve around N/A artifacts. That's not to say you can't run a game where the Eye of Autochthon is just part of the background, but it would throw some people off. N/A artifacts have no standard Essence commitment or expenditures.
As a game where nearly all traits are rated on a 1-5 scale, Exalted cannot help being imprecise at times. The difference between a two-dot and a three-dot artifact is often little more than a gut feeling to the people involved. Of course, it often matters only at character generation, when players distribute Background dots and bonus points for their characters. Once the game starts, it only matters what an artifacts can do—not its point value to a starting character.
That said, this section makes an effort to clarify what each dot of the Artifact Background means. Each dot has a description of the power scale, including a list of the maximum benefits an artifact of that level can bestow. Just as the description is a guideline, so are the “hard caps.” If it's clear to you that an artifact should be rated Artifact X, go for it. Each level of artifact also lists standard Essence costs. The number before the slash is standard commitment; the number after is the standard expenditure for instant effects.
Hard caps disappear after artifacts rated at three dots. Four- and five-dot artifacts are extremely potent, and their powers should be difficult to quantify. A five-dot artifact could add 10 dice to every Athletics roll, but it would be an exceptionally boring use of a five-dot artifact. Artifacts should probably not exceed the bonus limits for three-dot artifacts, displaying their power in more interesting ways instead.
Required commitments and expenditures of Essence can vary both up and down. This flexibility helps to balance artifacts; when you disagree on the relative usefulness of two artifacts of the same rating, adjusting their relative commitment or instant costs is an easy way to readjust on your own.
Hearthstone sockets are another way to fine-tune artifacts. Having a hearthstone socket is a power for lower-level artifacts (see the hearthstone amulet), but after Artifact 2 or so, the sockets become secondary. Most arms and armor have at least one, and some have two or more. Adding one or taking one away is an easy way to slightly increase or decrease an artifact's power. In the end, assigning a dot value to an artifact requires understanding and compromise between players and Storyteller.
• Toys and Minor Tools: One-dot artifacts have minor effects with limited influence on the game. One-dot artifacts are weak. They might amaze a mortal, but a one-dot artifact should not much impress an Exalt; they do cooler things themselves. Such artifacts are often tools of convenience: writing brushes that take dictation, or cups that create limited amounts of water or ale. The least of the artifact weapons and armors are one-dot artifacts because they improve only slightly on the mundane weapon.
Most magical toys are one-dot artifacts; some of these may have an incidental ability to aid a very limited set of tasks. Very large toys may have greater artifact values to represent their grand scale and that they required more effort to craft. Artifacts with minor benefits may require less committed or spent Essence. One value of toys (versus the more effective minor tools at this level) is that they are more easily sold. Rich lords may spend money for an animate soldier; fewer care to own an aid to surviving the wilderness.
Maximum benefits: Attributes +1, Abilities +2, Soak +2 and Hardness 2, Damage +2, Rate +0
Standard Essence (C/E): 2m/2m
Examples: A brush that paints as its owner mentally directs, enabling it to include details smaller than most humans can manage. This decreases the difficulty of appropriate rolls by one and works while the character performs other actions. A drum that slowly beats through the night without a player, keeping wild animals away. Toys: A toy soldier that animates and moves as directed. A Gateway board that plays out its own games. The first might aid in increasing the War skill if used in numbers, decreasing the untutored training time by one day. The second might similarly reduce training for a Gateway specialty under War or Lore.
•• Effective Tools: Two-dot artifacts are quite useful in specific circumstances or moderately useful in a broader range of situations. An artifact falls at this level if it has significant effects on the game by eliminating certain worries or strongly aiding a range of actions. These artifacts allow a character to surpass certain obstacles with relative ease. A two-dot weapon might make beating a mortal opponent easy but only provide a small advantage against other Exalted. Two-dot artifacts are common enough (especially as daiklaves) that their advantages generally balance out when they go up against each other. Two-dot artifacts may mimic the powers of Charms with Essence minimums of one or two.
Maximum benefits: Attributes +2, Abilities +4, Soak +4 and Hardness 4, Damage +4, Rate +1
Standard Essence (C/E): 5m/3m
Examples: A pair of sandals that increases the character's foot speed is somewhat useful in combat, in competition and when every second of dashing counts, making it generally useful and a two-dot artifact. A chair that makes the person seated in it aware of all who approach is a two-dot artifact, because it doesn't automatically defeat Stealth Charms and is conditional. A lantern whose glow illuminates the undead is handy only when such creatures are concealed. A whip that gives those struck by it a -1 MDV penalty toward the wielder is not tremendously potent, but useful no matter what sort of order the character wishes to give. ••• Wonders: Three-dot artifacts confer a great advantage in a single discipline or a significant advantage in a broad range of circumstances. These powerful items give their owners significant abilities denied to people who lack such artifacts. A character with a grand daiklave, facing a character with no artifact weapon whatsoever, gets all the bets. Although truly clever or powerful characters may be able to best the effects of a three-dot artifact in its area of focus, it's rarely a sure thing. Three-dot artifacts may change the way certain aspects of the game are played. Artifact weapons are common enough that possessing one, even a three-dot artifact weapon, only escalates combat rather than changing it. But a knot that captures sorcery and paper that becomes any contract, written and signed, provide entirely new solutions to the game's conflicts. Three-dot artifacts can be equated with Essence 3 or 4 Solar Charms, but it's a rough balance.
Maximum benefits: Attributes +3, Abilities +6, Soak +6 and Hardness 6, Damage +6, Rate +2 Standard Essence (C/E): 8m/5m
Examples: Anyone would fear, and rightly so, the warrior who wields a grand goremaul in battle. A belt of bat wings that grants the ability to walk as a shadow confers a matchless power. An enchanted mirror that allows a character to speak through other mirrors is extremely useful, especially in Exalted's world of limited travel and communication. A staff that places objects (not people) it strikes Elsewhere, and can call them back just as quickly, has a myriad uses in a clever character's hands.
•••• Greater Wonders: Four-dot artifacts provide overwhelming advantages in their spheres of influence, or great advantages in many situations. These wonders perform feats that are flat-out impossible to most inhabitants of Creation, letting the character travel miles in the blink of an eye or shape the earth with a melody. A character equipped with a four-dot artifact has an advantage over anyone else in the artifact's realm of effect—even four-dot weapons rarely cancel each other out, as their unique powers are not easily predicted or countered.
Four-dot artifacts almost inevitably change some aspect of the game. Characters who wield them have very attractive options open to them that are closed to nearly everyone else, which can avail them with a variety of problems. A character with a singing staff can use it to shape the course of a battle, provide irrigation or break into a vault just as easily. This broad usefulness suggests a diminished focused power, and it's true: the singing staff is hardly insurmountable by opponents—but it opens possibilities a character might not imagine otherwise. Four-dot artifacts are roughly on par with high-end Essence 4 and Essence 5 Charms, or Celestial-circle sorcery.
Standard Essence (C/E): 10m/6m
Examples: A clockwork bird that can lead its owner to any named person or object in Creation. A shield that protects its wielder completely from all physical harm as long as the owner harms no one. A seed that grows a forest overnight. A needle that, when used to pierce the eardrum, allows a character to eavesdrop on anything he can imagine.
••••• True Marvels: Five-dot artifacts offer unbeatable advantages in their areas of focus, or overwhelming advantages in many situations or in a few potentially vital conflicts. Whatever powers an artifact of this level possesses, they are usually unique and often impossible to counter. A daiklave of conquest makes a character a supernal general who will nearly always rout her enemies. Memories cut from victims of the Forgotten Edge can never be regained. A Dragon-Blooded warrior with the Eye of the Fire Dragon should be a true nightmare to the Solar Exalted.
It is hard to quantify a five-dot artifact's range of power more precisely than above, but they may be likened to higher-Essence Charms (6+) or Celestial or Solar Circle sorcery.
Standard Essence (C/E): 10m/8m
Examples: A key that opens any door and allows the owner to step out through any other doorway he wishes. A great orichalcum staff that can deflect any attack toward another target, including overtly magical attacks. A knife that severs committed Essence and ends lasting enchantments permanently. A prayer strip that ensures that a single object will never again be found by anyone.
Drawbacks
Design Note: Drawbacks as Flaws
Drawbacks that are reparable flaws do not help balance an artifact's power because, somewhere, someone would use drawbacks to lower the artifact rating and then quickly eliminate the flaw. Yes, he ruined it for all of us.
Dedicated Hearthstones and Essence
This text assumes a dedicated hearthstone is one set in the artifact, which then draws in all the gem's Essence. The same Exalt must be attuned to both the artifact and the manse, and she gains no benefit from the hearthstone.
There are other sources of Essence for artifacts. Most don't need it, being completely self-contained, or they take it from the Exalt when necessary. Greater wonders of the First Age had Essence accumulators, which drew in ambient Essence so the attuned Exalt never had to spend her own. One First Age artifact drew its power from a cult specifically devoted to the artifact.
Drawbacks are restrictions to a wonder's use or penalties commensurate with its power. They scale from one to five dots as a measure of how much they hinder a character who owns or wields the artifact. Drawbacks can justify decreased commitment or Essence cost for an otherwise expensive-to-use artifact. A drawback of an equal or greater level than the artifact that possesses it reduces the artifact's rating by one.
Examples: The four-dot clockwork bird above can lead its owner to any person, place or thing the owner names, regardless of sorceries used to conceal it. This might be an overwhelming power… except that anyone who seeks the character attuned to the artifact immediately knows exactly how to find him. The two-dot sandals that increase speed may only function if the owner has slain a woman and trodden in the blood in the past day. This drawback far outstrips the artifact's two-dot rating, reducing the sandals to Artifact 1 and perhaps reducing commitment.
Drawbacks come in many forms. They may limit the artifact's power so it only functions in certain situations, on certain targets or once certain conditions are met in advance. The artifact may malfunction in predetermined or essentially random ways. It may also have unwanted side effects that occur with regular activation of the artifact, causing trouble after the fact.
In a player's design process, drawbacks are generally optional. Players should choose drawbacks that they think are exciting or will be fun to play out. In these cases, applying drawbacks may reduce the artifact's rating or somewhat improve its powers. The player and Storyteller should both be satisfied with the balance of an artifact's powers and drawbacks.
After a drawback is decided, that's just the way the artifact is (or will be). The drawback is not a flaw in the design; it's a natural part of this artifact. Such drawbacks cannot be corrected later. If it is a flaw, it may be a flaw the artifact had since the First Age or a flaw the player wants the character to let slip into the design. Either one is a story hook eager to land a story fish.
The character's design process (see p. 18) is an attempt to realize the player's ideas in-game. Drawbacks arise from this process when a research roll botches. These drawbacks are flaws in the design that manifest in the final product. Unlike intentional flaws, they can be corrected, though the process is equivalent to creating an artifact equal in rating to the drawback being fixed. Drawbacks that can be repaired, whether caused by the dice or the player's design, do not affect the rating or power of the artifact.
• Minor: The artifact has a restriction that rarely comes up or isn't difficult to meet, an annoying quirk or a side effect that causes little trouble.
Examples: The artifact is unusable if the character hasn't prayed to the Unconquered Sun within a day. The artifact doesn't function without enough light to read. The artifact targets the wrong individual when there are at least four redheads in the wielders vision. The artifact makes the wielder dizzy (-1 internal penalty for two actions).
•• Moderate: The artifact has a restriction that comes up regularly or isn't easy to meet, a moderate glitch in the way it functions or a side effect that causes problems.
Examples: The artifact only works if the character utters an audible prayer (miscellaneous action) to the Unconquered Sun before activating it. The artifact requires a dedicated hearthstone to function. The artifact only func- tions during the daytime. The artifact affects the wielder if she targets a redhead. The artifact harms the wielder (one level of bashing damage).
••• Significant: The artifact has conditions that require significant effort to meet before it can be used, a very troublesome malfunction or a consternating side effect.
Examples: The artifact does not function unless the character has converted someone to the worship of the Unconquered Sun within the past week. The artifact only functions if the character has sacrificed a living creature to it within the last month. The artifact requires three dedicated hearthstones. The artifact only functions at the sun's zenith. The color red defends against or can banish the artifact's effects. The artifact drains the wielder's life (one level of aggravated damage).
•••• Massive: The artifact's conditions may present great obstacles to its use, and its side effects can be devastating.
Examples: The artifact does not work unless the character has sacrificed a human to it within the last week. Only by sacrificing a family in the Unconquered Sun's name can a character activate the artifact. One mote attuned to the artifact must instead be attuned to a simple, fragile object, like an egg; destroying this object deactivates the artifact until it can be replaced. The artifact drains Essence of those around it for several hours after activation. The artifact causes widespread floods or droughts nearby.
••••• Overwhelming: The artifact cannot be used unless severely onerous conditions are met, and the side effects it causes can trigger entire adventures.
Examples: The artifact must bathe in fresh human blood before each use. The artifact must consume an orichalcum prayer strip to the Unconquered Sun (essentially Artifact 1) to be used. Activating the artifact opens a door elsewhere in Creation for a Second Circle demon. The artifact invents archrivals for the wielder out of whole cloth when used. The artifact rips Essence from its surroundings, draining demesnes for months or leaving plant and animal life for miles around to slowly die.
Other Side Effects
Nothing exists in a vacuum, especially in the very full world of Exalted. Every character worth playing has an enemy or six; likewise, any artifact worth having is coveted and makes people think that you, because you have it, are one bad mother.
Enemies: Two- and three-dot artifacts may have people following them. Some come without strings, especially forgotten ones, but many of them have people coming to steal them… or steal them back. It's just more interesting that way, and Exalted lead interesting lives. It might be an heirloom daiklave, or maybe your hero snatched it from the wrong tomb.
Four- and five-dot artifacts have reputations all their own, and there's nothing an owner can do about it. Unless these mighty wonders are kept secret (and that's hard to do), even the suggestion that they're out there will bring out the treasure-hunters, hopeful merchants and thieves.
Reputation: Having and using artifacts marks your character as one of the Exalted. Even the most average daiklave is a condemnation, proving a character more than mortal. There's no certainty that your character is Anathema (though orichalcum does tend to make the educated suspect), but there's no guarantee she's not, either. And that's just for the small fries.
Four- and five-dot artifacts give their owners reputations, just like they provide ready-made enemies. Even if the character wielding Soul Mirror means well, people will fear him and his blade that consumes souls. Some artifacts are just that scary. As the character becomes associated with the artifact, he may experience bonuses or penalties on certain social rolls (for Soul Mirror, bonuses on intimidation and with a foul sort of people, penalties with goodly folk) and people simply treat him differently. By this point, even getting rid of the artifact may not be enough to shake the stigma without real effort.
Not everything incidental to owning an artifact is terrible.
Allies: There are people who aren't thieves in Creation, believe it or not. Some of them may respect a character who can wield such-and-such artifact, while others will want to manipulate that character. Either one manifests in the form of temporary allies, connected to the artifact rather than the character. Four-dot artifacts usually produce no more than twodot allies, while five-dot artifacts can go as high as four dots. Whether or not the character can leverage them into true allies is up to her.
Followers: This is the watered-down version of allies and usually only kicks in for four- and five-dot artifacts. When the artifact has an expansive reputation, it can attract people who'd rather follow it than steal it. They may be cultists, worshiping the soul-drinking power of the blade, or musicians who wish to study the singing staff. Sure, they're following the artifact, but the wielder gets to use them. Four-dot artifacts may produce as much as two dots of Followers, and five-dot artifacts can go as high as three.
Influence: This goes hand-in-hand with reputation. The more people have heard of a given wonder, the more they expect the person carrying it to act this way and deserve yea-much respect. And so they give it: A character with a four- or five-dot artifact gains the equivalent of one or two dots in Influence, anywhere the artifact is recognized. In areas where the character already has Influence, this Influence increases by a dot. People listen to someone with the fabled veil that holds back time (for example).
All these qualities are at the Storyteller's discretion. An artifact lost before the First Age won't have much reputation and won't attract enmity or hangers-on, at least until word spreads. The nature of some artifacts (such as the Forgotten Blade) prevents them from becoming well-known.
Designing Artifacts (For Characters)
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Design
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Collecting the Ingredients
Design Note: Artifact Design
Roll intervals for artifact design are set to make choosing high adventure over research and dice rolls reasonable. If they were too short, even the travel time to distant locations would be prohibitive, let alone the exploration and research. Creation is huge, and many places to visit may not be right next door.
Finding or possessing a complete artifact design is a huge benefit, especially for greater wonders. Storytellers should make them commensurately difficult to acquire—but highly rewarding. If finding partial information for a handful of successes is a month's work, cutting the crafting time by half should definitely take longer.
Before the character can turn her complete design into a fully functioning wonder, she must obtain the proper materials. This usually includes one of the magical materials. These substances channel and store Essence much better than anything else in Creation, so they tend to appear even in artifacts principally made of other things. For instance, a wooden artifact might hold a sliver of moonsilver or jade in its core. Still, some designs call for very specific constructions and cannot incorporate one of the magical materials. In other cases, artisans simply cannot obtain the magical materials and must make do with substances of lesser potency.
The sheer power of the magical materials can make them difficult to craft, though. If a character works with magical materials not natural to him (a Solar working jade, or a mortal working any material), his player suffer a -2 internal penalty on each roll. First Age artisans circumvented this limitation by working together, a practice that would work just as well today. Having a single qualified Exalted assistant of the ideal type eliminates the penalty.
Jade
Yellow Jade
Yellow jade is a mistake. It doesn't appear naturally, and no one knows how to create it. Dragon-Blooded alchemists try to create it with different mixtures of regular jade, but none of their experiments ever succeed more than once. Yellow jade only appears when a thaumaturge makes an unrepeatable error when following an intended formula, such as spilling in unknown exotic ingredients or leaving a mixture to simmer a day too long. If any intelligent force decides when and where yellow jade appears, it certainly isn't the Dragon-Blooded.
This is a shame, because yellow jade has a wide variety of uses. Artifacts made with this rare material often require less committed Essence or none at all. It is a primary component of many artifacts that mortals can use.
Jade Material Bonuses
The standard bonuses for a Dragon-Blooded hero who attunes a jade artifact reflect the Terrestrial qualities of preparedness and strength. Jade is a superior magical material for reducing the Speed of a character's attacks. However, some Dragon-Blooded artificers treat jade to bring out other latent aspects of its elemental nature. Each color of jade offers its own suite of advantages to artifact weapons.
White jade adds +2 to damage and +1 to the difficulty of rolls to resist knockdown and stunning caused by the weapon.
Green jade adds +1 to damage and steals one mote of Essence from living creatures that take damage from the attack, transferring it to the wielder.
Red jade adds +3 to damage due to intense heat. Black jade adds +1 to damage and adds +2 to defense.
Blue jade adds +1 to damage and +2 to Rate.
Each bonus is available to any Terrestrial Exalt who attunes the artifact (or other Exalted who make the effort), not just Dragon-Bloods of the appropriate element. Only one bonus applies, even when a weapon incorporates multiple types of jade. Bonuses apply equally to hand-to-hand and ranged artifact weapons.
The most common magical material is jade. Each of its five varieties forms in a place most suited to its elemental association and works especially well for certain kinds of artifacts, though they see use in all manner of wonders. An artifact whose power can be associated with a particular Ability requires jade of the element associated with the Dragon-Blooded caste that favors that Ability. Stealth artifacts demand blue jade, for example, and Survival artifacts need green jade.
White jade occurs beneath mountains and near large deposits of dense stone. It is incredibly plentiful beneath the Imperial Mountain, directly over the Elemental Pole of Earth. The Realm uses white jade for its official currency because it resists wear and is so readily available. White jade is ideal for artifacts that manipulate earth and stone or restrain another being's mind.
Green jade looks as if it grew like a plant. It develops in regions of plentiful vegetation, such as thick forests or jungles, often entangled among the roots of the greatest trees. Wood elementals and forest gods often become protective of the jade that forms naturally in their domains. Green jade is best for controlling plants, affecting animals and drawing ambient Essence into an artifact.
Red jade deposits appear in the hottest regions of the world—beneath active volcanoes and in the center of scorching deserts. Its location makes it difficult to harvest, sometimes requiring Fire Aspects, artifact-equipped mortals or summoned elementals to retrieve it. Red jade is warm to the touch and often flickers in the light. It is perfect for controlling fire or making people immune to it, as well as causing harm or heightening reflexes.
Black jade' forms in deep lakes where water pools for a long time and in large seas. The floor of the Western Ocean holds astoundingly quantities, but most of it is so many miles beneath the surface that even Water Aspects cannot easily obtain it. Even a thin shaving of black jade seems to hold infinite depth, making it highly prized as a meditation aid. Apart from controlling water, this variety of jade works well for affecting or communicating with gods, elementals and demons.
Blue jade looks almost translucent with misty shapes that appear and vanish. Occultists and soothsayers sometimes use these shapes as an alternative to reading entrails or the constellations. This jade appears in areas of rarified air or great cold, such as the heights of the Imperial Mountain or the glacial wastes of the North. Artifacts that control the weather or sense or affect thought are usually best made with blue jade.
Acquiring jade is sometimes very, very difficult and sometimes surprisingly easy. Most significant jade deposits are under the direct control of Realm troops led by a good number of competent Dragon-Blooded. For an outcaste or Anathema to access these sources of jade would require significant skill, luck and daring. On the other hand, the Realm uses jade for money. Someone with enough financial backing could visit a few banks and come away with a good deal of white jade. Removing currency from circulation is an offense punishable by heavy fines that the Imperial Treasury treats quite seriously, especially in this time of dwindling taxes.
One pound of jade is a Resources 3 expense, up to nine pounds is Resources 4, and a Resources 5 expenditure can procure up to 25 pounds at a go. Even if the final artifact does not require 25 pounds of jade, the creation process often requires more than one would expect—jade can be ground, melted, distilled and alchemically treated in a dozen ways that reduces the quantity while refining the quality.
There are also many tons of jade extant in Creation, already part of artifacts. Although few mortals would conceive of assaulting a Dragon-Blood for her panoply, other folk are less scrupulous (or scared). Jade in weapons and armor has been alloyed with steel, but that just means a would-be artificer must acquire more of it—after the reduction and extraction process, a character has about one-tenth the weight of jade as the alloy she had to start.
A workshop capable of working jade is a Resources 3 expense.
Moonsilver
Orichalcum
Starmetal
Soulsteel
Exotic Materials
Sample First Age Exotic Materials
Heaven Leaf Fallen: In the densest jungles of the East, Wood-aspected arborists grew massive, broad-leafed trees with canopies large enough to support palaces. Instead, the master gardeners planted over them, growing more than a dozen layers of trees on top of each other. When the topmost tree brushed the firmament with a single leaf, the god responsible for keeping the sky clear smote the entire series from the very top to the bottommost root. Only the highest leaf survives, charged with the pure quality of towering height and fecundity with a flavor of hubris.
Sample Second Age Exotic Materials
Smelting Procedures
The processes that smelt moonsilver, orichalcum, starmetal and soulsteel from their source materials are all Adept-level thaumaturgical rituals in the Art of Alchemy. In each case, the necessary foundry is a Resources 4 purchase (the reusable components for the ritual), while operating it long enough to produce a pound of the desired metal is a Resources 3 expense (the consumed material for the ritual)—not including the raw materials themselves. Characters may learn these rituals as Procedures. In each case, the Willpower expenditure represents the intense concentration needed to see the procedure through to a successful conclusion. To use these rituals, a character needs Craft (Fire) at 4.
Stabilize Moonsilver (2, Perception, 3, one hour): Raw moonsilver must be collected at night under the light of the moon. The raw moonsilver is still unstable with residual Wyld-energy. Through coaxing songs and careful taps and strokes with crystal hammers and probes, the artisan quiets the Wyldness remaining in the raw moonsilver so it becomes a stable metal. Pacify it too much and it freezes into silver; hit it too hard, and it shatters into drops of quicksilver.
Distill Orichalcum (2, Stamina, 3, one week): Purifying gold into orichalcum can only be done at a source of molten lava. It also requires large, high-precision mirrors to concentrate sunlight on the molten gold. Boiling the gold continuously for a week, using magma and sunfire, to drive out impurities, is not intellectually challenging... but the prolonged, constant attention to direct the mirrors and keep the lava from contaminating the gold is remarkably fatiguing.
Smelt Starmetal (2, Wits, 3, one day): Pulling starmetal from its ore should be easy. It uses the same smelter and tools used to extract mundane iron—but everything must be consecrated and purified: the clay and charcoal of the furnace, the tree from which the charcoal was made, the spade that was used to dig the clay... The small gods of the forge know the smith works on the remains of their kin, and will spoil the process if not suitably appeased. And then, the smelter engages in a frantic battle of wits to keep the furnace going and the forge uncontaminated as everything that could go wrong, does, driving the smith to his limits through sheer frazzlement.
Alloy Soulsteel (2, Manipulation, 3, one day): Hammering souls into the sooty ore from the Labyrinth involves more than strength. It is an exercise in cruelty and domination, breaking the will of the captive ghosts so they would rather accept an eternity trapped in black metal than the continued blows of the hammer, the scorching of bonefire and the bitter quenching in bile.
Doing the Work
Charms
Aides
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Repeat Business
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Artifact Repair
All but the greatest wonders can suffer damage, sometimes to the point of malfunction. Repairing a nicked daiklave, however, differs significantly from fixing an implosion bow or the other magitech described in Wonders of the Lost Age. Magitech artifacts have multiple parts and were designed with wear and tear in mind; muscle-powered artifact weapons, singing staves and other "one-piece" artifacts were not.
Repairing a damaged artifact uses the same dice pool as to create one, with a difficulty of (artifact's rating + 1). If the artifact remains functional, each success repairs one level of damage. The time each roll represents depends on the artifact—small artifacts might take only a few days to repair, large ones might take as much as a month per roll. Artifacts that suffer enough levels to count as damaged completely cease to function. These require significantly more effort. The artificer must completely realign the Essence patterns and flows to make the wonder properly channel magic again. Treat this effort as equivalent to crafting an artifact one dot lower than the artifact being repaired, complete with using exotic materials to reinvigorate the artifact's purpose. One-dot artifacts require the artisan's player to accumulate five successes to repair.
If an artifact suffers enough levels to be destroyed, it becomes highly exotic scrap. Such an artifact cannot be repaired. At most, it might be worth a few successes in the design process to craft a duplicate.