Deathcorn
Oh, those wacky guys in the OSS and SOE. The things that they could come up with, once they were in a place and time where nobody asked them inconvenient questions, like “Is that a practical idea?” or “How much is that going to cost the government?” or even “Did they ever happen to call you ‘mad’ at university?” Amazing how much leeway people get when it comes to punching Hitler.
Blame this.
Squid-Helmets (TL1+2) [10/12 pt]
Squid-Helmets are what you get when somebody figures out during the Bronze Age how to successfully train a tree octopus so that it can be usefully worn on somebody’s head, then the species gets selectively bred accordingly over the next few thousand years. By the time you hit a medieval-equivalent Tech Level you’ll have something that’s simultaneously useful, and not a little bizarre. But not creepy — or at least no creepier than a domestic goat or pig. Squid-Helmets live about thirty years, if properly fed; the species is almost extinct in the wild*.
I’m not sure what to use this one for, actually. I guess mostly local flavor? It’d work for that.
the-lost-mace-of-columbia-google-docs
The Lost Mace of Columbia
Very few people really pay attention to the fact that there is in fact a ceremonial weapon for the United States of America: it’s called the Mace of the House of Representatives, and it’s (theoretically) wielded by the House Sergeant at Arms. The current incarnation of the Mace is a reasonably hefty silver-and-ebony ceremonial item, so-called because it’d probably fall apart if somebody tried to use it as an actual mace for too long. A magical or esoteric scan of this particular Mace would reveal that it’s got a reasonable amount of power; but precisely the power that you’d expect from a normal item used in mundane rituals for a couple of centuries. Nothing really esoteric, in other words.
Blame this.
haw-river-vampires-google-docs
Haw River Vampires
Haw River, for those wondering, is located in North Carolina, and is one of the tributaries that feed into the Cape Fear River; it is also the site of the one of the most vicious and relentless clandestine cryptozoological eradication campaigns in American history. To give you an idea of how long the fight’s taken place… it started under the aegis of the Confederate Secret Service, got transferred to the Pinkertons when that group quietly brought in the remnants of the CSS in 1871, and was only taken over by the FBI in 1938. The Feds officially closed the books on the fight in 1970, but the entire operation is still deeply classified and the documentation for it has been thoroughly and deliberately lost in the archives. Preferably until everybody involved is safely dead of old age.
the-book-of-incipient-words-google-docs
The Book of Incipient Words
This artifact superficially manifests as a standard child’s black-and-white composition book. It appears to be about twenty years old, bound with aged rubber bands, and about to fall apart — but it never quite does. In fact, the Book is functionally invulnerable. To give one example: it has stopped a fifty caliber machine gun round on at least one occasion (the force of the bullet still killed the person trying to use it as a shield, though). Needless to say, The Book of Incipient Words will register as magical in standard identification spells. With that particular tint of esoteric color that denotes “Here Be Dragons.”
Blame this.
the-twelve-inscrutable-masks-of-the-dark-zodiac-google-docs
The Twelve Inscrutable Masks of the Dark Zodiac
By definition, we know very little about what happened prior to the invention of writing and the keeping of records. Ever wonder that this may be deliberate? That writing itself might have been a desperate weapon, wielded by people who needed to learn a new way of thinking before they were eaten by the all too seen, and the dangerously definable?
Continue reading Item Seed: The Twelve Inscrutable Masks of the Dark Zodiac.
Caf? [TL 12] [0 points]
It’s not a typo and it’s not a transcription error. Caf? is the morning drink of choice in the Age of Miracles: the ‘?’ is there to establish that the stuff does not precisely fully exist in our dimensions. It tastes marvelous, and not in a mysterious way, either. Imagine a rich, but not overpowering chocolate-vanilla contrast with an aftertaste of banana that somehow is enjoyable whether or not you like those flavors and you’re not too far off. Caf? has clearly been designed with human taste buds in mind.
The Shazaam Gun
There are certain items that are so alarming that they get suppressed by the Conspiracy. Sometimes the very name of the thing being suppressed gets hidden, in order to hide it from people. And then you have things like the Shazaam Gun, the broad details of which are included in every Man in Black’s new hire orientation packet. The Conspiracy wants its agents to be proactive in hunting down new versions of this profoundly dangerous headache.
the-anti-saxophone-google-docs
The Anti-Saxophone
If there is a single magical device that is more universally hated by magicians, the name of said device has been lost to the forces of entropy. And many magic users would love to do the same to the Anti-Saxophone (usually shortened to Anti-Sax, and invariably with a curse word serving for an adjective). Unfortunately, the Anti-Sax is far too useful to toss away.
Superficially, an Anti-Sax resembles a regular tenor saxophone, and in fact can be used (mediocrely) as one. However, once activated the Anti-Sax acts as a powerful magical booster to anyone within earshot. The wielder can choose to: quadruple all bonuses to cast spells in the area of effect; cut all costs to cast magic to one-quarter of the usual; or double bonuses and cut cost to cast in half. Continue reading Item Seed: The Anti-Saxophone.
