Artifacts

There are two types of artifact – those created by the old gods, and the imitations built by the Creator State. In the first case you’ve got the more traditional relics, objects of tremendous power that were meant to be wielded by godlike beings. These are ‘natural’ artifacts, the sort that aren’t made for mortals and which tend to drive them crazy with power, possessive paranoia, or desperate misguided intent – these were all created during the First Age. During the Second Age, the ambitious Creator State attempted to create their own artifacts, or Wonders. These included the so-called ‘miracle materials’ such as luxite, aeromet, nicrete, and condensed adamantite (to name a few), and near-miraculous technologies such as the water-doubler. Though not as powerful as true artifacts, they allowed the Creator State an almost divine mandate to conquer the world.

Natural: So-called ‘natural’ artifacts were made by the Onai and given to the lesser gods to use as tools. The Amai are the only ones who can use them safety, as their power and fundamental functions tend to drive mortal beings insane. This isn’t to say that ambitious mortals can’t find or use them, it just means that doing so will eventually lead to their doom, or worse, the doom of many others. The Amai once used artifacts like this to emphasize their god-like image, and though they didn’t always do so with perfect intentions, they were always taken seriously. Misuse of these artifacts, even by the gods, could result in their confiscation by even higher powers. Natural artifacts take many forms, but often have a fantastical appearance to accentuate their divine nature.

Artificial: The Creator State found ways of harnessing the Harmonic for their own devices, largely owing to the interference of the rogue Amai, Aethos. This Promethean gift was the most dangerous of all his deceptions, for he concealed his interference from his fellow gods, selecting a group of exceptionally-intelligent mortals to take credit for the creation of such artifacts and the mind-shattering principles which governed their ability to imitate godly relics. Artifacts of this kind can be used by mortals, but run the risk of failing or slipping out of their control. The Fourth Light is an example of such technology, a form of destructive radiance created by the State’s disastrous attempt to open a dimensional gateway.

THE SKY DOOR ARTIFACT

During the First Age, the Onai created the Sky Doors to close the distance between faraway places. There were seven of them. This one, Anichime (Any-Chime) was placed in the sky above the planet so that the Onai could get a better view from the moon, and have a line of sight on things that had to be changed. It’s an impossible shape, a Penrose Triangle that warps space between the spheres, allowing instant movement by being in two places at once – orbiting Zunat and floating in the sky above Rym. Only godly beings are capable of opening it, though anyone can see through the aperture. Without their protection, any mortal being that crosses the aperture experiences an impossible time dilation, a suspension of consciousness that destroys their mind just as surely a billion years of sensory deprivation. Even looking at the structure and the way it moves can break down sanity – it requires a phenomenal act of willpower just to see it. Anyone who doesn’t expect to see it won’t see it at all, a sort of semi-invisibility that allows it to move unseen from place to place.

It can change size instantly, becoming no larger than a grain of sand, or big enough to swallow a colossal structure, moving things from place to place or simply changing the view on the other side. It’s still controlled by the Onai, supposedly, though their dormancy makes its behavior erratic and impossible to predict. Supposedly the other six have returned to a two-dimensional form at the border of Animoi, Rym’s artificial afterlife. They interpret the information of the mortal hyphael into two-dimensional form, rendering the soul into a looped record which preserves it for later examination or even retrieval. They haven’t done this in quite some time, as the old gods haven’t resurrected or reincarnated any mortal since the Automatic War.

Details: Anichyme is the only way to reach Zunat from Rym, or the only way permitted by the gods in any case, which amounts to the same thing. It will intercept other conventional attempts by simply warping space and looping the offending party back to the surface of Rym, or causing them to become infinitely lost within Animoi. The term 'lost in the sky' was coined for all early attempts to reach orbit with mechanical devices - the rockets and balloons of the Creator State simply faded away once they reached the exosphere.

Mechanics: Anichyme emits the Harmonic, which is to say it’s responsible for empowering Rym’s arcana. The Harmonic is the music of the Universe, they say, allowing that which cannot happen under its more mundane physical laws such as physics and thermodynamics. It cheats those systems, subtly adding new energy or altering fundamental forces to create the supernatural. As long as it exists, so does magic.