Nothing makes Artifacts like a tragedy witnessed…
When the shuttle Columbia broke up on February 1st 2003, pieces of the craft and its crew were scattered like rain from heaven across Texas and Louisiana. Trapped in those fragments is the dispair, fear, and sadness not only of the seven crew members, but of all of America. Unlike the greif-stricken but vengeful 911 Dust, though, it has another feature on its face: distrust of technology, knowledge, and a perverse love/hate with danger.
Machines near a Fragment will not function properly, malfunctioning for apparently logical, but improbable reasons. People within a few meters of the Fragment will lose interest in learning anything that might prove them wrong. Its final effect is that those nearby will coax others to engage in risky behavior as long as it doesn’t threaten the coaxer, who will see no contradiction in hir own unwillingness to take even a minor risk without assurances from those around hir that sHe will be unharmed, or at least gain recompense for any harm that may come to hir.
Not bad, Niko. But I would add some sort of required trigger to activate the artifact. Otherwise anyone who buys or picks up a piece will be able to use the power (and then it becomes an episode of the Twilight Zone or Tales of the Darkside).
I would suggest: The piece must be placed on top of a VCR/DVD player while the movie “Titanic” is played 7 times for it to work. After all, the symbolism in Titanic is man’s technical arrogance (in the form of a vehicle) brought low by an act of god in the form of a piercing blow to a hull. Fire and Ice equilibrium.
Oh and I forgot to mention: Mike Kostelnik, a deputy associate NASA administrator, just made an announcement. “We do have a large piece of one of the wings”. He then said “this is a *significant* recovery”. His exact words.
Hmmm….
Wow, the original idea of this Artifact was “Fragment of the Left Wing” and the idea was that NASA was collecting them for their own purposes. Maybe I was righter than I wanted to be…
That’s not a bad ritual, and maybe that’s a good way to use it, but the thing about this artifact is that it’s uncontrollable. It just breeds dispair and intellectual lethargy in those near it.
I think the difference between the Shuttle program and the Titanic is that everyone knows that space travel is dangerous. To some extent, we’ve grown past the days of the Titanic, I think.
This Artifact is actually designed for a story where it’s more of a McGuffin than a useful item, so it will taint the rest of the story, not form a major plot. The PCs won’t actually get their hands on it; they’ll just see a duke grabbing a chunk and his creepy little demihuman familiar trying to scare them off. It’s their trigger event, so it’s set up a bit like a Twilight Zone episode, yeah.
More, I can’t say. They’re watching…
My players, that is.
Maybe the artifact only affects people who’ve seen the footage of the break-up seven times… and thanks ot CNN, et al, pretty much everyone with a TV set has… many before the first day was over.
No, see, the idea is that it effects the Spirit of America (named, significantly, Columbia. Interesting, eh?) as a whole. It effects anyone who identifies as an American: citizens, residents, and even expatriates. Ah, here’s a hook, though: the more you know about spaceflight, machines, politics, and mythology, the less it effects you and your machines.
I’ve been thinking about Columbia as an archetype, too. Avatars of Columbia and her male counterpart Uncle Sam, will fight to the death for freedom, democracy, and giving the little guy a chance. They are in direct conflict with the spirit of National Security, the name of whom, of course, you do not have clearance to know.
More about that later, though…
Niko,
Interesting that you mention potential Avatars of Uncle Sam. My new modern occult game has an Avatar of Uncle Sam playing a rather important role.
If you want to do some investigation into the legend of Columbia and Sam “The Butcher” Wilson as seen by occultists try this link: http://www.witchvox.com/words/words_2001/e_americasguardians.html
There’s also mention on how the British Pagans defeated thier Nazi counterparts during WWII.
Here’s more Sam: http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/U_S__History/People/Uncle_Sam___Wilson__Sam__1766_1854_/
Nice. May I suggest something else? Maybe the Columbia disaster was the Ascension of one of the crew- maybe as the Scientist or the Traveller or even as the Martyr- witnessed by all of the World.
Once the person ascended (the capt perhaps) the shuttle became unstable (maybe because of a major charge letting loose) and the end result was what we all witnessed.
Nah, it was shot down by the beast awakened in Branch Davic, returned 10 years after the fact in order to take revenge on America. The U.S. gov. knew about it and sent the Columbia up as a decoy; a giant proxy, if you will. As it crossed over Waco on the first day of the month in which it was destroyed, it tried to kill America, but instead killed Columbia.
It’s a good thing there’s a small cabal out to tell the truth of the matter!
Ooh. That’s good.