Upon the Importance of Magical Materials

    Not only the highest end of the scale but also the lowest needs to be revised in terms of artefacts. In case I didn't say it earlier, in order to correct the contradictions in the artefact scale and the N/A category of artefacts I created a new Background called Wonders. Sources openly admit the disparity between artefacts as mighty as a Warstrider sharing the same artefact rating as a Grand Daiklave for example. The Wonder Background was made to counteract this. Essentially Wonders are a continuation of the scale of lesser artefacts. Simply put they represent the artefact level that would be expressed as 6-10. Since I haven't used this rule myself it's up to Storytellers to decide whether the artefact 4-5 cost for bonus points, or experience if it's used for Backgrounds, is enough or whether they require something more. The importance of Wonders is they go all the way to the top of the Artefact scale including things such as the Eye of Autochthon, the Five Metal Shrike, and other such legendary creations.
    Back to the subject, at the lower end the importance of artefacts needs to be recognised. Even the lowest, level 1, artefact is an object of such power that it deserves a Background in it's own right. Even though it is the least of objects made from magical materials it exceeds the power of any similar item that could be made through conventional craft. This should go further in that the power of such objects is not measured in the same way as conventional items but intrinsically possess unusual powers that are their defining feature. A Short Daiklave or Artefact 1 martial arts weapon would easily outstrip anything made by mundane craft. Thaumaturgy is a slightly contentious issue since it involves magic without necessarily creating artefacts. The powerful items it creates (far more powerful than anything listed in the rules so far which do not give justice to the vast amounts of money and effort needed to make them) are covered by the Resources used in the construction. So people with Resources 4 and 5 could purchase master level thaumaturgical services. However in terms of power they do overlap with artefacts since thaumaturgy can be a powerful supernatural force as well.
    One issue that bears consideration is whether artefacts possess powers relevant to the Background level as an intrinsic characteristic or whether such powers would increase their Background score. Personally, having a grander idea of the scope of the game, I favour the former. As such the characteristics of weapons listed in the back of the rulebook are an indication of the supernatural powers they would possess. If the latter idea was used, in combination with the idea that all artefacts possess such powers, it would cause a universal increase in their Background ratings, categorisation of artefact 4 and 5 items as Wonders, and quicker approach to the sky limit for artefacts. This would mean people would have to chose between an immediately physical powerful artefact such as a Warstrider that gave the character much greater strength, and an artefact with more mystical powers. Storytellers who favour the former approach could use it to emphasise how rare and how powerful artefacts really are. Wonders would be truly astronomical as befits their status and difficulty to create.

Aethyr Assault Armour

    Each movement costs a certain number of motes. The wearer can change location with a physical object they use as a location marker to teleport themselves. Or the armour could be hearthstone powered.

    Revision: The wearer can transport themselves through Elsewhere to instantaneously reappear next to anyone they can precisely locate.

    Less powerful artefacts are not made from a compound of a conventional material alloyed with a magical one but are a combination of the two with the magical material instilling it's power in the conventional one. Such 'conventional' artefacts follow my rules (for weapons) of a superior mundane item with a magical material bonus and powers according to it's artefact rating. Artefacts made from a solid magical material are much more rare though they were more common during the First Age, and far more powerful. With such artefacts anything seems possible.
   The scale of powers for an artefact made from a solid magical material are far greater than those made from a combination of a magical and a mortal substance. Use the characteristics in the end of Exalted for weapons and armour, but their individual powers dwarf these enhanced properties.
   Making these artefacts is considerably more difficult. They require far higher skill and a more sophisticated workshop. The ingredients they require are far more powerful and harder to obtain. Also magical materials themselves are rare and gathering enough to make an artefact entirely out of one is an impressive feat.
   Only the huge scale of Creation, abilities of the Celestial Exalted and the infrastructure they made allowed Wonders such as Warstriders (superior to Common Warstriders in the way pure artefacts are to common ones) to be made as anything by exclusive rarities.
   Noble Warstriders were so called because they were the first class of Warstriders to be made entirely from magical materials. Even then they were usually reserved for Celestial Exalted. Starmetal Noble Warstriders were unheard of.
    In lesser artefacts the magical material may be a piece of carefully cut jade in the guard of pommel of a sword or a talisman in a suit of armour. A hearthstone amulet should be just that, an amulet with special powers like Tullaris' Black Amulet. Only the most basic ones would just house a hearthstone and slightly increase the rate of Essence recovery.
   The description of making the Fellblade in the Skaven army book is a good example of artefact construction.

    Only solid material artefacts can contain the energy that the creation powers of a greater magical ingredient gives. No one would waste precious magical material on making a solid artefact just to use the powers of lesser esoteric ingredients. It's the ingredients themselves that give the artefact it's unique powers. The magical material can contain their energy and provide a bonus.

    What if disciplines like physics and chemistry didn't exist. All 'science' was based on an understanding of Essence. In most Crafts it wouldn't be recognisable and as formal as Lore but would involve practical application of the same rules. This element is what makes magitech technological. Actual artefacts work purely on the way they channel Essence which requires knowledge of Occult.

    I think artefacts should be defined by specific powers rather than by generic statistics. The Staff of Amarec has the characteristics of a Wrackstaff. Why? Because it's fitting for the powers it holds.

Lost Artefacts

    At their height there were nearly one million Terrestrials. Their families had heirlooms of Jade. Now there are only ten thousand so what happened to all their artefacts? Many must have been swallowed up by the Wyld during the Great Contagion. Many more must have been buried with them (albeit primitively) to placate their ghosts during that time. Who knows what happened to the others. Devices leading to places where artefacts rest must be popular. The Dragon-Blooded of the Scarlet Empire must have unearthed many when rebuilding the new Realm to establish their power. No doubt hoards and scattered artefacts remain. In lost treasure chambers or places men fear to go for reasons they may no longer remember.

22nd April

    Some artefacts dating from the Primordial Age were created by the Incarnae when they walked Creation. Some more recent ones were stolen from, or smuggled out of Heaven. What of the artefacts made by the Primordials themselves like the Eye of Autochthon? Other artefacts dare back to Exalted heroes from the Primordial War.

    Some believe that Dark Messiah Style is the key to destroying Creation and releasing the Primordials from their torment into Oblivion. Only the Abssals can learn this style, it's Charms elude even the ghostly Deathlords. Some believe the very Exalted who slew them are destined to become masters of this style.

    Their power to alter what they are the deeper they go into the Wyld means the deeper in the Wyld they are the stronger their transformative power are.
   In the Deep Wyld they can use a Knack which allows them to become unshaped like one of the Fair Folk. The ability given to them by their Lunar Essence to make their forms inconstant allows them to travel the Wyld without being permanently mutated and venture into it's dimentionless depths without going mad.
   Their moonsilver 'tattoos' are gifts from Lunar, marks of their god in Old Realm that appear on their bodies when they learn a new Knack. Learning a Knack involves meditation on Luna and a popular belief is that only those who gain her favour learn a Knack. Luna's powers like the Wyld have infinite potential. She knows every Knack and shared her knowledge with those who commune with her. Learning a new Knack is for a Lunar like learning a spell is for a Solar, learning a new way to exert their will on Creation. Solars have the power of will. Lunars have the power of transformation, power over their identity. Sidereals have the power of Destiny. Why isn't destiny an element of Sidereal Martial Arts?

26th January

    Shadow Shroud

Artefacts

    I think they misrepresented artefacts in Exalted (there's much of the game I don't agree with or want to improve on which is why I write about it so much.) Magical weapons are a case in point. It's easy to use them as an example because they are all variants of normal 'mundane' weapons and have a long string of stats so they have a family of normal objects they can be compared to and their performance can be expressed statistically.
   The thing I think they should change about artefacts, in this case weapons, is the way they differ from ordinary objects and their basic statistical superiority. In essence the problem is they are designed (from a rules point of view) based on the fact that their superiority is a result of the fact they are constructed of magical materials (bloody badly written sentence, someone coughed and broke my concentration.) The two elements of artefact construction are they are made from the magical materials and esoteric ingredients. But because of their aesthetic form and their blatant superiority the esoteric ingredient element of their design is more of an afterthought to making something out of a slab of jade.
   At the real root of the problem is the very existence of rules for magical weapons. Specifically a set of rules that gives specific stats for each one. The artefacts are truly generic with any optional special powers added onto their already potent capabilities. To compare this to the magic items of Warhammer this stands out because in Warhammer there was no such thing as an equivalent to a daiklave. There were a host of magic swords but each one was made by a mastercraftsman, the esoteric ingredients in it's construction were desscribed and each one was unique. True some weapons were made to a common design such as the Runefangs but the unique element of the ingredients used in their construction such as metal heated in the fire of dragon breath were more important than the materials they were made of.
   Before I discovered the artefact weapon section at the back of the book I was giddy with excitement at how such weapons would be superior to their normal counterparts. I'd heard of the bonuses that apply from using the magical materials before reading about the rules for artefact weapons. Now I think artefact construction should be viewed more from that perspective. My idea on how artefacts should be designed follows:
   Use the statistics for mundane weapons as a base.
   Artefacts are invariably made as superior equipment. How superior you can decide when you make them, exceptional and especially perfect artefacts would take appropriately longer. I want to address the rules for making superior equipment as they're a bit fuzzy or incorrect to me.
   The apply the appropriate magical material bonus to the artefact.
   The essential point of creating an artefact weapon isn't that it simply has higher accuracy, defense, rate, does appalling damage etc. but the original powers the maker choses to invest it with. You could simply make it easier to hit an enemy with or much larger and capable of doing more damage but it's real value is in the powers that result from the esoteric ingredients used in it's construction.

   When I was creating Gilius' Staff Ryuk I hit on the idea of using the manse power Sentient as a model for creating him as an entity. Since then I've thought of using a similar system of points and power ranking schemes for creating different levels of artefacts. More will follow once I've given some thought to it.