Item Seed: Emblem of the Burning Foal.

Emblem of the Burning Foal

Description: Mundanely, a golden 7th century BC Scythian shield emblem.  The esoteric version gives heightened endurance, strength, and reflexes to the wearer, but only if she is female and has performed various rituals in veneration of the Scythian goddess Tabiti.  The esoteric version is also hot to the touch, but not painfully so.

The Emblem of the Burning Foal straddles ‘regular’ magic and theurgy; apparently, the only ones who could make these items were mages who were also metalworkers and Enaree, or priests of the Scythian religion (these kinds of elaborate enchantment requirements happen a lot with magical items with more power than average, particularly in the historical period).  There are maybe forty, forty-five esoterically active Emblems of the Burning Foal out there, and thirty-two of them are in possession of underground magical groups who are willing to perform the necessary rituals to Tabiti (which, to be fair, are straightforward and non-pernicious).  The remainder are either in museums, or being carefully studied by occult researchers, or simply possessed by mundane owners unaware of what they have.

That last may seem a bit odd — occultists try to keep active magical items out of the hands of normal people, for reasons that should hopefully be obvious — but it seems that Tabiti is one of the rare deities that still remains functional, long after the rest of her pantheon went wherever it is that lost gods go.  She’s not omnipotent, but Tabiti does retain enough power to be worth a certain amount of caution. Fortunately, she’s reasonable to work with, but the goddess does claim any woman bearing or owning Tabiti’s empowered Emblem as being under her protection. Which, yes, absolutely includes taking steps whenever one of them is robbed of Tabiti’s Emblem.

And thus, this little job.  Somebody stole an Emblem from a private mundane owner, and Tabiti’s had a quiet word with our higher-ups about getting it back.  Why us? Well, it turns out we’re one of those groups who are actively supporting the goddess! It’s very handy to have an Emblem-wearer for, ah, direct action work. So I can’t say that I blame Tabiti for reaching out for us, all in all.  Makes sense, really.

What?  Oh, yes, our current Emblem-wearer will be temporarily added to the team.  Well, actually, she’ll be ‘advising’ the team. And Tabiti might be of the opinion that the Emblem-wearer will be running the team, so keep it in mind.  It honestly shouldn’t be too much of a problem, though.  It was a mundane robbery; how hard could it be to get the stolen Emblem back?

…Oh, dear.  I am so terribly sorry.  Yes, of course I’ll just sign off on that extra equipment requisition form for you.  It’s the least I can do for putting you in the soup like that.

2 thoughts on “Item Seed: Emblem of the Burning Foal.”

  1. … I can see possibilities in this one. Devious, evil (to the players) possibilities. Can I afford to indulge in a maniacal laugh?

Comments are closed.