World Affirming Melody Box

The artifact was posted to the wiki by the Myriad of Shades.

Description

This music box is made of white jade taken from the Imperial Mountain, black jade, and the vocal cords of herbivores whose family groups can't have left sight of the Imperial Mountain for five generations (as well as the normal materials needed for construction of a music box). It must be forged during daylight, never during Calibration, and on the Blessed Isle. The vocal cords form the box's musical strings-- the white jade forms the exterior and the black jade is contained in the heart of the music box, touching yet not interfering with any of the vocal cords.

The simple melody the music box plays is soothing to Earth Aspects and elementals. It stifles all manner of magics within earshot, firming the world to a specified shape and denying essence the power to reshape it. What is not natural to Creation finds itself drawn into the natural tapestry of things.

System

To activate the music box for one day, the user must commit 15 motes to it. Everyone within the user's (Essence times 10) yards of the music box is affected by the tune-- sound-stifling magics serve to cancel this effect, though being deaf does not.

Any and all expenditures of essence within the affected radius cost an extra number of motes equal to the Essence of the music box's activator. This surcharge must be paid BEFORE the essence cost for any other effects can be paid. Also, the Wyld (up to the Middlemarches) retreats back from the affected area, revealing safe, stable Creation beneath. This does not prevent beings of the Wyld from entering the affected area. Finally, any creatures outside of Fate who enter the affected area roll Essence every turn. On any turn in which they fail, they are treated as being within Fate. On a botch, they take the box's activator's Essence in dice of bashing damage that ignores armor.

Any essence spent within the radius perverts the song, throwing it temporarily off key and tempo, making essence use obvious to listeners. The box, though an artifact, is quite fragile-- any strong jolt (read: a successful attack doing any dice of any type of damage after the box's soak of 3L/6B) ruins the alignment of the vocal cords, breaking the music box. The jade remains intact-- new vocal cords can be gathered and the box thus easily repaired, though this takes a clockwork-shop and 2 hours.

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