[UA] Dipso Artifacts

[Benjamin Lee]

Wow- NICE stuff.  I'll be swiping it, oh yes I will.

I'd enforce the time limits on artafact creation prety
strictly myself just to keep street value on mojo from
plunging.  

Here is an artifact I have used in play:

Brown Paper Sack (sig/multi):  If you put a bottle of
booze you pay no more than 3 dollars for into the
Brown Paper Sack and sip from it at least once a
minute you operate as if protected by the Just a
Harmless Drunk spell.  Any alcohol consumed this way
is tied up into the ritual use of the Brown Paper Sack
and is worthless for charging purposes however. 
Anyone who knows what to do can use a Brown Paper
Sack.  A 40 of malt liquor is good for about 15 to 20
minutes of sipping.

 

--- Alex Duncan <rednaxel at speakeasy.org> wrote:
> 
> I've been thinking about dipsomancers and artifacts.
> 
> Given the way dipsos gain and lose charges, it seems
> like they would
> want to make lots and lots of minor, one-shot or
> limited-use artifacts
> as backups for when they got caught sober.  Whenever
> they end a night's
> activities with charges left over, I see them
> cranking out a bunch of
> talismans with shots of Li'l Whammy and Moment of
> Truth just before they
> crash.
> 
> Of course, it can't really be that easy.  For one
> thing, it would throw
> the game balance way off. For another thing, you'd
> read about Dirk Allen
> doing it, which you don't.  I figure there's either
> something about
> Dipsomancy that makes it hard or impossible to
> create artifacts with it,
> or else creating even minor artifacts requires
> sitting around for a
> whole day doing nothing else, so no "pour all your
> spare charges into
> mojo bags just before you sober up" stunt.  And if
> you try to make too
> many artifacts in that one day, the accumulated
> drunk penalty means
> you're very likely to blow your skill roll for some
> necessary ritual
> action.
> 
> Has anyone run up against these kinds of
> considerations in play?
> 
> Anyway, here's a handful of Dipsomantic artifacts I
> came up with.
> 
> -- Charmed Pub Darts (minor, one use) --
> These are ordinary pub darts with sharp steel
> points, wooden shafts and
> feather flights; the flights have eyes drawn on them
> in magic marker.
> Each is enchanted with a single targeted shot of
> Li'l Whammy:  kiss it
> just before you throw it, and it's guaranteed to hit
> your target square
> in the eye, assuming it has an eye.  Good for
> self-defense or for a
> guaranteed score of 50!  The guy who makes these is
> trying to come up
> with a different version that will hit either the
> triple-twenty spot on
> a dartboard or a numerologically equivalent
> sensitive spot on a person's
> anatomy, but so far, the mojo hasn't been
> cooperating.
> 
> -- Pull-tab of fate (minor, one use) --
> Pull-tab games are basically privately run
> lotteries; you buy a little
> cardboard ticket and pull off perforated tabs to
> reveal slot-machine
> symbols which dictate your winnings.  They're
> popular in bars in
> Washington state.  (Apparently, in some other
> states, they're
> practically unheard of, hence the explanation.) 
> This artifact is a
> stolen pull-tab card, ritually defaced with
> cabbalistic-looking figures.
> When you open the tabs, the slot-machine combination
> revealed gives you
> a reading on the current state of your luck (and
> therefore a Hunch).
> 
> -- Loteria del Borracho (significant, multi-use) --
> This enchanted deck of Spanish Lotto cards can be
> used for divinatory
> purposes by anyone.  Lay out the cards according to
> any system, or no
> system-- as long as you approach them with an
> important personal
> question in mind, the iconic images on the card will
> suggest the correct
> answer to you.  This is an effect similar to, but a
> bit different than,
> Now I See.  The cards cannot predict the future, but
> can reveal hidden
> aspects of the present and point out likely
> consequences of future
> actions.  While the deck still has charges, the
> first card drawn in any
> serious inquiry will be El Borracho as a sign that
> the magick is
> working.  Once the magick has been exhausted, there
> is only a one in
> fifty-four chance of drawing El Borracho first... 
> Scans of the cards
> are at http://www.lachicamanga.net/loteria/
> (Standard deck is 108 cards
> with 2 of each image).
> 
> -- The Flagon with the Dragon and the Vessel with
> the Pestle (major,
> permanent) --
> These are the actual goblets used in the Danny Kaye
> film
> _The_Court_Jester_.  In addition to being
> significant vessels for
> Dipsomantic purposes, they have been enchanted as
> artifacts with the
> following properties.
> 
> The Flagon with the Dragon can be made to imbue its
> contents with a
> magical poison, by swirling it counterclockwise
> while saying "The pellet
> with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon." 
> Swirling more or less
> vigorously can yield a weak poison (make a body roll
> or suffer a -20%
> shift to everything for 3 hours, and take the lower
> die as damage in
> either case), a moderately strong poison (make a
> body roll or be
> delerious and incapacitated for 12 hours, and take
> the sum of the dice
> in damage in either case), or a deadly poison (take
> d100 damage, and
> stay in a coma for 48 hours even if you survive). 
> No ordinary means can
> detect the poison either in the drink or in the
> victim, though the
> damage is real and can be medically treated.  The
> poison can be
> countered or detected by magick, and anyone who
> suspiciously sniffs at
> or tastes the drink will notice something vaguely
> "funny" if they can
> make a Soul roll over 30%.  If decanted from the
> Flagon, the drink will
> remain poisonous for up to an hour.  Only alcoholic
> beverages can be
> poisoned with this effect.
> 
> The Vessel with the Pestle can purge all poisons,
> disease-bearing
> agents, curses, hostile spiritual entities, and
> drugs (_other_ than
> alcohol, naturally) from its contents, if you swirl
> it three times
> clockwise while saying "The vessel with the pestle
> holds the brew that
> is true."  This can be used on a non-alcoholic
> drink; it will end up
> weakly alcoholic.  It will only work on a bona-fide
> beverage; you can't
> use this to make turpentine potable.
> 
> The word is that these two cups are still in the
> possession of the two
> dukes who stole them from Paramount back in the
> 70's.  They used to be a
> couple of mostly harmless rogues and lifelong best
> pals, but after
> stealing and enchanting the goblets, they had a
> falling out and went
> their separate ways.  Twenty years later, they found
> themselves living
> in the same town, and constantly at odds with one
> another in all their
> various schemes, seemingly by blind chance. 
> Weirdest, though, is that
> their personalities seem to have totally changed: 
> the guy with the
> Vessel has become almost the stereotype of the weird
> but kindly old
> storybook wizard, while the guy with the Flagon has
> become the
> archetypal sneeringly arrogant and powermad
> sorcerer.  The word is that
> they're both hiring...
> 
> --
> 
> 
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