Book of Bone and Ebony

EXALTED • BOOK OF BONE AND EBONY
BATH THAT WARMS (ARTIFACT •••)
For those dead who wish to be reembodied and to walk
among the living again, a way may be found, if they are
willing to pay the price — or, more accurately, to have
others pay it for them. If they tire of shivering in the eternal
cold of the Underworld, driven before the stormwinds and
chilled by the constant breath that emanates from the
mouth of Oblivion itself, they can acquire temporary
bodies that will serve for a brief while in the living world.
There is a bath carved out of black marble and onyx, with
soulsteel channels leading into it, more than large enough
for a single person to recline at ease. If the bath is filled with
a large quantity of human blood and a ghost immerses
herself in that blood, or if she lies there while the blood is
poured over her, then the magics within the bath will
combine to recreate, in the full beauty of its youth, the
body she had while she still lived.
The minimum amount of blood needed to use the
bath is seven health levels of lethal damage, which can
come from one victim or several victims. This blood will
create a body for the ghost that will last a single day. More
blood will create a body that will last proportionally
longer. Once the allotted time is over, the body falls to
dust, forcing the ghost to flee to wherever can sustain her.
If she retires to the bath before her body deliquesces and
immerses herself in fresh blood, then her body is renewed
for a number of days appropriate to the amount of blood.
The blood itself must be fresh (taken within the last 15
minutes) and still warm. The body will be a normal human
specimen, breathing and warm, and the ghost may use any
Arcanoi she possesses while embodied in this way.
Artifact Traits:
Power ••, Usefulness •••, Game Impact •••, Script
Immunity •••;
Drawback ••• (Component •, Notoriety ••)
BELL OF THE ENDLESS CARAVAN (ARTIFACT •••)
This dark bell, the size of a grown man’s fists put
together, is carved with strange symbols and runes of journeying
and is set on an ebony handle. Its clapper is a camel’s
tooth, inlaid with soulsteel. When the bell is not being used,
silk packing is stuffed inside it to stop it sounding accidentally.
These bells are prized possessions among traders and
travelers who want to cross the vast deserts in the South of
the Underworld, but they are also valued by military leaders
for scouting parties and spying missions.
When a bell of the endless caravan is rung, a low peal
echoes out across the desert, and the ghosts of a dozen
camels rise from the shadowy sands, each harnessed and
bearing a bundled tent on its back. These camels will serve
the bell’s holder and have the base statistics and intelligence
of a normal camel, though rather more docility.
They are not trained for battle, but will remain where they
are told to stay in the event of fighting and will not be
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panicked into running away. The tents on their backs are
of black silk and contain all the normal equipment that a
traveler would find necessary. The camels and tents remain
in existence until the bell is rung again or until the
next Calibration, whichever comes first. If one of the
camels is slain, then it will be replaced, together with all its
equipment, the next time the bell is rung.
Artifact Traits:
Power •••, Usefulness •••, Game Impact •, Script
Immunity •••;
Drawback ••• (Component •, Notoriety ••)
BOAT OF BONES (ARTIFACT •••)
This small boat sails in the sky, above the endless
storms of the Underworld and beneath the strange constellations
of the world of the dead. It is constructed
entirely of bones and tanned leather, with the skeletal
wings of a huge spectre attached to either side of the ship
so that it can fly through the air above. It has no sail, for
none is necessary, and the figurehead is a human skull,
whose bony jaws clatter together when the boat’s owner
gives it orders. These orders may either be given verbally
or mentally with one hand placed on the boat’s figurehead.
All Dodge attempts against aerial attacks or misfortune are
made using the Dodge Ability of its owner.
The boat itself travels at twice the speed of a raiton
and may journey at any height from just above the ground
to above the clouds themselves, depending on the owner’s
wishes. However, given the storms of the Underworld, it is
often safer to travel high than low. The boat must be fed
with a health level’s worth of blood in any month that it
is to travel, and this blood must be poured over the skullfigurehead.
If this is not done, then the boat will simply
stay sitting on the ground, and the jaws of the skull will
clatter mockingly and hungrily. The boat can continue
flying or remain floating in the air for up to a month.
However, if it is kept in the air for this long, it will need to
rest for a full day afterward and to be fed with twice as much
blood as usual.
Artifact Traits:
Power •••, Usefulness •••, Game Impact ••, Script
Immunity ••;
Drawback •••• (Component ••, Maintenance •,
Notoriety •)
BOW OF SCREAMING DOOM (ARTIFACT •••)
The soulsteel chasing of this powerbow is worked with
screaming faces and twisted bodies. On attunement to the
bow and commitment of 7 motes of Essence, the owner will
find that it functions as a soulsteel long powerbow (see
Exalted, p. 343). By spending additional Essence and
exercising his will, the owner can also fire arrows that will
cause the corpses of his slain victims to rise as feral walking
dead. Each time that the wielder fires an arrow of this