[TheWanderingJewels]

This is a some what lower grade artifact that one ones in SR, but one that's creepy enough to give players pause for thought.

Feed back would be appreciated

V'Shang's Book Of Shadows

A rather unusual looking, if hefty, book with rust coloured pages and apparently written in a dark red-black ink. The Cover appears to be made of the skins as of a  yet unidentified creature with occasional in-lays of  bluish-white gems whose pattern shift on occasion and a slight breeze seemingly surrounds the book.  Metal inlays of a unidentified alloy resembling burnished copper protect the edges and the cover is rather simple in design with a etching which suggests unidentified humanoid supplicants going through a gateway of some form. Occasional mutterings in a unknown language can be heard if one listens (cannot be recorded by conventional technology).


Deciphering the book is considerably difficult without access to a magical library of at least rating 6, as the languages used in the book are currently unknown (although one resembles a dialect of Elvish) and attempting to decipher the meaning of the Symbols is difficult at best.


Bone Spirit: Summoning Ritual
This ritual summons a wandering spirit to live within a circle made of bones. The spirit cannot leave the circle, but the summoner can have multiple Bone circles equal to their Magic Rating. Destroying the bone circle does not release the spirit, it just makes it much harder to see where the circle is and avoid disturbing the spirit with. The spirit is not particularly bright, will not harm it's summoner, but otherwise cannot be controlled. The Circle lasts for Summoning Hits +3 Months

Use Guidance Spirit p97 SM, but subtract 1 from Force, and 2 from Int  when summoning as part of the force is bound into the circle.

Skin Shift (Indirect, Touch)
Type: M, Range: T, Duration S,  Drain: (F/2) +2

 This spell literally rips the skin, muscle and sinew of the Target. The mage makes a standard Spellcasting test as they grasp the target, making a quick wrenching motion, tearing the muscle skin and fat, twisting and distorting the flesh. Each round of the test, the caster will inflict at minimum one box of Physical Damage (from the shock) and one box of Stun (from the pain). This effect can be negated when the mage stops sustaining the spell.

[Makki]

The Sickle of the Fey

This always sparkling golden sickle was once a free spirit member of the Fey that for yet undiscovered reasons devoted itself to serve the Druids of Cornwall. Rumours claim it was an ally spirit of an ancient priest, other theories state celtic druids saved its habitat from devastation.
It abandoned its astral form and and bound itself to the physical world as a powerful tool protecting those who prove themselves righteous.
Game Information: The Sickle is actually a Force 6 free Spirit using its Realsitic Form and Aura Masking powers. The third and last power it retained is Fey Glamour which triggers whenever touched by a druidic aura hiding the owner from unwanted observers.

[CitizenJoe]

While not artifacts, I've got a character with a couple of sustaining foci that are similar.  One is the fedora used by Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, which sustained a shapechange (metahuman) spell.  The other was the bomber cap worn by the pilot that crashed into the Empire State Building back in WWII.  That one sustained a Use Skill (Pilot LTA) spell.

[Red]

A mage of many hats, eh?

[Mirikon]

The Hand and Eye

If one was to read the The Tome of Vile Darkness on one of its pages is a story. In the Fourth World, there was a powerful and very evil mage. Some legends say he was a dragon. Some say he was one of the immortal elves. Some say he was a Vampire. Some say he was more, that he used the blood of a powerful being of pure corruption and evil to ascend to godhood. The truth of the matter is now known only to those few who lived then.

Thus reads the story in the Tome:

Hear now the tale of the Lord of Secrets, He Who Thrice Conquered Death!

Before the terrible Scourge, there was a powerful Mage.

This mage was not content with his great power, and sought secrets none but Dragons knew. He sought the lore in the depths of the earth, and the furthest reaches of the metaplanes. He found a Hive of the eaters of souls, and fought with their Queen. A terrible battle it was, and the mage was thought dead by his allies, who found him amidst the bodies of the slain Hive. But Death could not claim him so easily.

The Secrets he learned made him a great Sorcerer, and the blood of his foes fueled his rise. But to take the throne destined to him, he first had to conquer the Undying Lord. For a day and a night they strove against one another, pitting magic against magic in a duel the likes of which few have seen in this World. The Undying Lord was vanquished, but not before he dealt to the Sorcerer a terrible blow, passing to him a powerful curse, the curse of Undeath. And a second time he denied Death.

The Sorcerer King saw the coming of the first of the great Enemy, Vanguard of the Scourge. He saw there new secrets to be learned, secrets even the Dragons dared not learn. He summoned to him one of that dark host, the terrible Kas, and tried to bind him into service. But Kas proved more willful than the Sorcerer King suspected, and betrayed his master. In the great battle that followed, the Sorcerer King lost both his left hand and eye to the traitor Kas. But the Sorcerer King proved the mightier, and, striking down his foe, he used that deathblow to channel all the power of Kas's blood into himself, and ascended in a pillar of smoke and fire to the ranks of the immortal Gods, leaving behind only the hand and eye that had been taken from him, powerful relics of Vecna, Lord of Secrets.

Game Information: The Hand and Eye are the undead flesh of the Sorcerer King Vecna, a mage of considerable power. Each is a powerful artifact in its own right, granting great power to their owners, but at a terrible price. To bond with either artifact, one must replace their own flesh with that of the hand or the eye. Any living creature may bond with the Hand or the Eye, even if they are not awakened. Bonding with either artifact costs 20 karma.

The Hand of Vecna gives the wielder great strength (+4 Augmented STR with that hand), and access to powerful magic. The character may cast Death Touch as though he were a magician with Spellcasting 6 and Magic 6, using Logic+Willpower to resist drain, regardless of the character's own Spellcasting or Magic ratings. The wielder also has Immunity to Death Touch, Manabolt, and Manaball 12.

The Eye of Vecna grants the wielder great powers of sight and influence. The wielder may cast Clairvoyance, Detect Enemies, Detect Magic, Control Thoughts, and Alter Memories as  though he were a magician with Spellcasting 6 and Magic 6, using Logic+Willpower to resist drain, regardless of the character's own Spellcasting or Magic ratings. If he also is bonded with the Hand of Vecna, he gains Immunity to Spells 20.

Every time a character uses the Hand or Eye to cast spells, they risk falling prey to the terrible corrupting influence of the artifacts. They must make a Willpower+Charisma(2) test or take on 10 BP of negative qualities chosen by the game master that cannot be removed while the wielder has the artifact. Anyone with 20 BP or more of negative qualities gained in this way must make a Willpower+Charisma(2) test or have their will consumed by that of the artifacts (effectively making them an NPC). Anyone bonded to both the Hand and the Eye takes a -6 modifier on these tests.

[CitizenJoe]

I would modify those to be a cyberarm and cyber eye(s).  Rather than being magical, the arm contains a cyberdeck and the eye has something as well... probably some sort of transmission capabilities.  Anyway, they contain some of the subroutines of Deus or a Deus clone.  While they grant great power on the matrix, they also act as psychotropic black IC on the user eventually suborning him to the Deus's will.

[JustADude]

I would modify those to be a cyberarm and cyber eye(s).  Rather than being magical, the arm contains a cyberdeck and the eye has something as well... probably some sort of transmission capabilities.  Anyway, they contain some of the subroutines of Deus or a Deus clone.  While they grant great power on the matrix, they also act as psychotropic black IC on the user eventually suborning him to the Deus's will.

Or, running with the Cyber idea, perhaps something involving a Dissonance entity, and the artifacts allow Technomancers to get up to something hinky at the cost of being corrupted?

 Maybe have the Hand either boost all your CFs or reduce your Fading (thus extending your "grasp")  and the Eye allowing you to "see" the Resonance presence of tech, giving you the ability to hack any device that is powered on, no Scanning required, as long as you have LoS. Both together get you some huge shenanigans, like always having a number of (Dissonance) Sprites equal to your Cha, at a rating equal to 2x your Resonance, at your beck and call.

[Mirikon]

Well, it was my attempt to translate a couple of the classic nasty artifacts from D&D to Shadowrun, making it so they're leftover from the Fourth World.

For those of you who aren't up on your classic D&D, Vecna was an archmage turned lich who ruled a heckuva lot of the world, until he was betrayed by his lieutenant, Kas, and lost his hand and eye before ascending to become a God. The Hand and Eye of Vecna are seriously evil artifacts, given that they are the mortal remains of one of the most powerful spellcasters ever, and now of a god.

In this, I followed the same basic idea, though translated into my (admittedly shaky) understanding of Earthdawn. Vecna was a powerful mage, became a Nosferatu, tried to bind a Horror named Kas, was betrayed, naturally, and used blood magic, with the Horror's blood to become something... else. What that might be isn't clear, especially since this happened before the Scourge, so a lot of records are lost. This hand and eye are powerful magical artifacts, and the fact that their original owner decided to use blood magic on a horror means that there may be some risk of Corruption if you use them.