Book of Bone and Ebony

were first created to help ghosts remember the simple cycle
of life and death and life again.
Artifact Traits:
Power ••, Usefulness •••, Game Impact ••, Script
Immunity ••;
Drawback •• (Component •, Notoriety •)
DRUM OF THE LIVING HEART (ARTIFACT •)
For those ghosts who wish to keep watch over those
mortals who are dear to them — or, alternatively, over
their bitterest enemies — this artifact is a useful one. It is
a small drum, surfaced and bound with human skin and
strung with human sinews, barely a handspan across. To
make it function, it must be anointed with a drop of the
target’s blood. Once this is done, it will beat in time with
the target’s heartbeat, speeding and slowing with the
target’s pulse, and will cease to beat entirely when the
target dies. Some of the family groups in the Underworld
have whole rooms where the shelves are lined with these
drums, and the whispering beats echo through the room
constantly.
Artifact Traits:
Power ••, Usefulness ••, Game Impact ••, Script
Immunity ••;
Drawback •• (Component •, Notoriety •)
FORMS OF HARMONY (ARTIFACT •,
•• FOR A SET OF FIVE OR MORE)
These musical stringed instruments are crafted from
black ash, inlaid with nacre and silver and soulfire crystal
dust and strung with soulsteel. When commanded by its
master, the instruments will play separately or together in
harmony. They can also be played like normal instruments
but always have a strange, uncanny undertone. Many
wealthy nobles and lords of the dead have one or more of
these instruments, setting them to play during social
gatherings or when receiving petitioners. Few of them
have been created in recent times. They are antiques and
status symbols, as far as most of the inhabitants of the
Underworld are concerned.
What is less well known about these instruments is
that if five or more of them are gathered together, they can
soothe the emotions and lower the suspicions of those
within hearing range. When they are set to play in harmony,
their owner gains a bonus dice to all her player’s
Social rolls against everyone within 50 yards of the instruments.
(They are not created to be particularly noisy.) The
instruments can continue to play for a scene but then
require a day’s rest, though they can stop and start several
times within that scene if their owner wishes to gesture
them to silence. It is considered rude to use the powers of
a set of forms of harmony against someone who knows
about them. The problem, of course, is finding out whether
the prospective victim knows. Deathlords and old, power-
59
CHAPTER THREE • THE WONDERS OF THE DEAD
ful ghosts will certainly be aware, while newly made ghosts,
however powerful, may well have no idea.
Artifact Traits:
Power ••, Usefulness ••, Game Impact •••, Script
Immunity ••;
Drawback ••• (Component ••, Notoriety •)
GRAPES OF TORMENT (ARTIFACT •)
Grown from the very essence of pain and suffering
through horrible commixtures of necromancy and
fleshworking, these dark globes are swollen to bursting with
an evil juice. When someone ingests one of them, she is
filled with a sudden surge of energy and strength, but is
tormented by agonizing pain that echoes through her ghostly
body. She gains a bonus of two dice to all Strength-related
rolls for the duration of the scene, but at the cost of a penalty
of one die to all Perception-related rolls due to the pain.
Some of the dead have become psychologically addicted to
these grapes, despite — or, rather, because of — the pain
that they bring. The grapes are found in bunches of five or
less and are extremely fragile, being as easy to squash as any
natural grapes. They come from vines tended by spectres
deep in the Labyrinth, and few would care to know what
those vines are rooted in or what nourishes them.
Artifact Traits:
Power •, Usefulness ••••, Game Impact •, Script
Immunity •;
Drawback •• (Notoriety ••)
IVORY BUTTERFLY (ARTIFACT •)
Carved from ivory and studded with garnets and with
a wingspan two feet across, this fragile butterfly can travel
across the storm-driven wastes of the Underworld, carrying
small items or messages. A single butterfly can carry up
to three scrolls or scroll cases or items of similar weight and
size. Up to four butterflies can cooperate to carry a larger
object, if necessary. Ivory butterflies move unnaturally fast
(with the speed of a raiton), but they require neither food
nor rest and will continue to fly until they reach their
target. They have no methods of self-defense but are
capable of recognizing threats and dodging or taking cover,
such as by hiding in a forest.
An ivory butterfly’s owner must give it the item or
items that it is to carry and tell the butterfly where to go
and who to give the item to once it reaches that destination.
She must impress a visual image of the target on the
butterfly and name the location. If the target is not present
when the butterfly arrives, then it will flutter around the
place for three days and nights, before attempting to return
to its mistress, bringing back any item that it was carrying
with it.
Artifact Traits:
Power •, Usefulness •••, Game Impact ••, Script
Immunity ••;
Drawback • (Component •, Notoriety •)