Ancient Artifact Ideas

[CyberGarp]

How about a red herring

In a fantasy world Tekumel, there was an item that was a great red herring for players. They were these intelligent gems. They appeared as other gems, but had high alien intelligence, with motivations that were so utterly alien as to be incomprehensible to humans. They can psionically command their owners, and mind wipe.

So one member of the group, slips out at a star port and hops a bus for the outskirts of a city. The other party members follow in pursuit. He gets outside the city, meets a random stranger--exchanges some gems. Then wanders about with no memory of how he got here, what he just did, or why.

Or random items begin disappearing on a ship. The crew search for the thief. The items are found arranged in a strange configuration in a locker. They are glowing blue and emitting unusual psionic pulses. Exposure leads to a resist roll, failure results in temporary insanity.

The gems have a wonderful ability to have the owner do a most inappropriate thing at the worst moment.

In the end, the gems just need to find a new owner. The trick is convincing the gems that they want a new owner.

 

[robject]

I like that! Essentially a sneaky, psionic crystalline alien lifeform.

 

[DangerousThing]

Another might be a variant of Jack Chalker's Well World. Say, a braclet that when worn alters the DNA (or equivalent) of the wearer to make them something else. Or, some variant of that. This is particularly fun in games where the players have been allowed to make their own characters without restriction. Your impossibly vicious character just turned into a newt.....

If this was inspired by Jack Chalker, then it should end up turning the character (either directly or gradually with multiple changes) into a rather over endowed woman (so much in front that it gives her back problems) with extremely long hair (so much it makes moving the head difficult for people with previously short to normal length hair).

I read a lot of Chalker when I was younger until I realized that this was the way the vast majority of changes seemed to be going.

 

[Carlobrand]

The ancients were psionic - play on that a bit:

Psionic "book": a plug that fits in your ear like a small hearing aid. When you put it in, you "daydream" a realistic tale complete with visual and auditory imagery; the dream-like imagery dominates your attention, though you don't entirely lose sight of the real world and can focus on reality if you concentrate or take the device out. You even feel the emotions of the main character. Unfortunately, it's a realistic tale about Droyne who speak in an ancient Droyne dialect as far removed from modern Droyne as spoken Sumerian is from Galanglic, so it's only really useful to scientists or archaeo-sociologists. Some "books" seem to be training courses trying to teach something, with a lecturer explaining something in ancient Droyne while graphs and images highlight his explanation, but it's impossible to tell what he's trying to teach.

Psionic calculator: a small amulet strung from a simple necklace. Think of a mathematical problem, and a solution occurs to you. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you how you arrived at the solution, just what the answer is. A master mathematician might be able to pry some world-shaking secrets out of it by "reverse-engineering" from the answers it gives to his questions, but it's simply a useful tool for the average person.

Psionic ... encyclopedia? Similar in appearance to the calculator. In response to mental questions, you receive a kaleidoscope of disturbing, confusing, barely recognizeable images and ideas, and words accompanying the images are in ancient Droyne. There's a feel here that it's trying to answer your question, but it's mostly giving you a spinning headache.

Sensy: a golf-ball-sized clear glass sphere that makes you feel good. When you hold it in your hand, you feel a mildly dreamy, pleasant state, as if your cares no longer mattered; the state fades over a few seconds when you put the ball down. Mildly addictive, and somewhat distracting when used.

Sleep inducer: a circlet, you wear it on your head, and it makes you sleepy. You can of course resist the urge, just as you might if it were bedtime but you were studying for an important test - your concentration will just suffer a bit. The feeling persists for several minutes after removing the circlet. Great for insomnia, not much else.

The typical Imperial may feel a bit jittery about handling tech that feeds sensations and images into his mind. After all, what else might it be doing in there?

 

[The Pakkrat]

Jump ReVector Crystal

If you are tuning in late, we are standing at the Serue (Knoellighz 1221) A-Rated Starport. Serue is the highest, publicly known Technology Level rated world in the heart of Knoellighz. Today we are about to examine what scientists here are labeling an Ancient Artifact.

The researchers are calling it an "aa Nantu Y", a poor translation based on the barely-decipherable symbols found along the metal frame of this octahedral talisman. Viewers can see the clear, colorless and irregular shape of an orthorhombic crystal inside the coppery-gold frame. At each end, or 'pole' as delineated by the long crystal held in the center by Runetha-Knows-What, is what seems to be a power or connection point.

Preliminary analysis seems to point that this device may be some form of navigation, or even better, an astrogation tool. We will be right back as we approach 100 diameters from above Serue....

.....and we're back. Coming to you from Jump Point #2 high above Serue planet, this is Net-7 News. Astrogators have connected the strange now-named "aa Nantu Y", an Ancient Artifact to the Astrogation boards on the bridge of the Detailed Cartographer, a converted and reformed 400 dT former-Corsair. This science vessel will soon make a jump to nearby Souo (Knoellighz 1020). During our trip through jumpspace, we will see what me may learn about this shiny Artifact. Speculations are showing the now-suspect Artifact may be some form of device.

Connected by universal coupling cables at each pole, the strange, octahedral frame, no more than 15cm to an edge, sits rather dumbly on the dash, connected to the Astrogation board. The captain has given the word. All hands, preparing for jump...

....and we are in crossover. Viewers, we at Net-7 News apologize for the approximate 149-hour delay as we will transmit our findings on the far side of jumpspace. It is amazing to see the immediate reaction the "aa Nantu Y" device, or Ancient Artifact, is giving off to us on the bridge. The Astrogation board is giving a text-only request that only now the ship's computer was able to translate from the gibberish on the screen.....just a moment.

The scientists and Astrogation team onboard the Detailed Cartographer want to fill in the request. They are inputting the just-computed coordinates for Dhonaegvaro (Knoellighz 1019), chosen for its Gas Giant presence in case the ship needs to refuel by skimming. The coordinates are in and the Astrogation board is confirming the calculations from the ship's computer...

Viewers, I don't believe this. The ship now has the option to Re-Vector its jump route while in jumpspace with no more than projected use of fuel! This reporter is beside himself. How this piece of framed crystal can re-route an entire ship is beyond me or Runetha Saetedz for that matter. Yet, the Astrogators are about to press the <confirm> command. And we are just a couple of hours from emerging jumpspace to Souo. Waitaminute....we are seeing some wild readings from the lanthanum jump field....

Sensors are showing a second field is erupting from the jump field's lanthanum net embedded in the hull. We will know what solar system we end up shortly.

Whew! We are back. This is Net-7 News coming to you from - confirming with Sensors and Astrogation - yes, it is Dhonaegvaro (Knoellighz 1019) instead of Souo, our original destination. We have done it and done it safely. I don't know how or have the gonads to question such, but we are at Dhonaegvaro, just outside 100-diameters, give a few hundred-thousand kilometers.

Viewers, the so-called "aa Nantu Y" has taken us out of a locked jump to re-vector our trip through jumpspace to a different, calculated destination. Engineering says that the same amount of fuel was used despite the change in vector. Currently the device on the dash is dormant. Just after the <confirm> button was pressed, a brilliant flash of white light erupted from the orthorhombic crystal. When we could again see the bridge, the Astrogation board reported a new vector. Sensors, recording the event, reported telemetry of a second field enveloping our ship and re-routing our vector to the second system. This is truly amazing . What a find!

Viewers, a device of Ancient origin, when connected to an Astrogation computer, allows a ship in jumpspace to calculate new jump vector and distance - within jumpdrive limits of course - to a different vector. The technology of this crystal must indeed be stored at the quanta level to be this powerful to bend the very laws of jump science in this matter.

Such a find is already being registered with Serue (Knoellighz 1221) government and science university. We can only hope that such wondrous find is never abused by current sophonts of our time.

On location and for Net-7 News, this is the Pakkrat.

 

[Nick H]

Some of these items would make good items for Lothario Lochinvar Finger's "Goodies", if you remember the JTAS casual encounter from issue #8.

 

[Scratches]

Some of these items would make good items for Lothario Lochinvar Finger's "Goodies", if you remember the JTAS casual encounter from issue #8.

Good call, though I think Finger is in #14

 

[robject]

...The researchers are calling it an "aa Nantu Y", a poor translation based on the barely-decipherable symbols found along the metal frame of this octahedral talisman.

[...]

Viewers, a device of Ancient origin, when connected to an Astrogation computer, allows a ship in jumpspace to calculate new jump vector and distance - within jumpdrive limits of course - to a different vector. The technology of this crystal must indeed be stored at the quanta level to be this powerful to bend the very laws of jump science in this matter.

Thanks for this breaking news, Pakkrat. I'll be tuning in often to hear more about happenings in that too-neglected sector.

Could it be a Reality Manipulation (RM) device? One that 'changes' the original destination of the jump drive (i.e. flips to a reality where the destination is other than that originally planned)?

 

[The Pakkrat]

Soul Cage

Seized by local law enforcement is an unidentified object the likes no expert can seem to identify. This is Net-7 News with your Anchor-rat, the Pakkrat. Tonight we take a closer look at what archaeologists are calling another Ancients artifact.

This triclinic crystal of an unknown mineral has been declared non-silicon based and yet somehow yields piezoelectric conductivity. The crystal's facet lines are bordered in - yes again - an orange-gold metal alloy that metallurgists are labeling 'orichalcum'. After much translations a designation of "aa Mahkur Y" for this newly-discovered and suspected device.

After molecular, atomic and sub-atomic analysis was conducted did the scientists conclude that whatever controlling coding the 'aa' uses must be stored on the quanta level, truly being Ancients in the writing.

A week later, it was published that the "aa Makhur Y" is some form of data storage of immesurable capacity. The scientists have also reported that the device seems to me near maximum capacity with stored information. A truly valuable find, a virtual Library of Alexandria so to speak, sent from the distant past.

Wait. Viewers, we are also being told that the stored information is dated as recently as the Long Night. It appears that the data in the 'aa' is not Ancients but from that era of Humaniti. If there was any other data of Ancient origin, it is impossible to tell.

Update: This Anchor-rat has been warned by local censors that there is pressure to cease reporting on this find. But with some clandestine field reporting with the scientists, Net-7 News has learned that the "aa Makhur Y" has recorded and stored personalities of up to 500 Vilani and Solomani beings. Scientists are struggling to find a compatible, Model/9 computer to fully interface with this strange data store. More to come as we rig the computer for starship transport to avoid local authorities and anyone else who might come to shut down this research in to the strange, Ancients device...

...and we're back and recording live from an un-disclosed location in the Spinward Marches and on the move. Viewers, this reporter is aghast at the breaking-news results of interfacing with the "aa Makhur Y", the newest find in Ancient artifacts. It seems the five-hundred or so individual personalities that have been stored on the crystal prism of this metal-framed device, were 'saved' with no hope of deletion or erasure. The quantum-level storage is beyond anything we have, even at our current Tech Level G world, (which we cannot divulge for our safety). We are soon to move again, viewers. Net-7 News has learned that these stored human personalities are at least TL 16 in accuracy and preservation and each can be readily queried - that is, if we can get the other 499 personality engrams to stop protesting.

It seems that the minds stored in the 'aa' were saved back in the Long Night period and they have no means to keep track of time. Having been updated to the current date, the collection have protested their en-techtment by....they blame Makhidkarun megacorporation which also predates the Third Imperium. What the goal of the minds' storage was has not been revealed by the protesting and uncooperative minds.

Viewers, the applications of having around 500 minds available and stored in such a device is staggering. The minds not only have crystallized memories, experiences and personalities, but too each features a skill-set that can be utilized by successful query through the medium of a Model/9 computer and a proficient user. But we are seeing that each mind has also individual agenda and impetus suggesting that it is unsafe to connect this device to any planetary communications or computer network. Analysts tell Net-7 News that the so-called "aa Makhur Y" is too dangerous to let so many minds access to any computer network. With the wide variety of skills and capabilities we are seeing listed, this device and the minds inside are adept at a wide variety of tasks as advisors, computer interfacing (including hacking), foremen, project managers.

Analysts are now coming up with a source subsector and world. The minds in the Ancients artifact report that they last remember residing in Snogsta subsector, on a world named Gannvair (Fornast 3206). According to them, only 500 or so sophonts were present at such a Hi-Tech world and all were subject to en-techtment at some year with in the Long Night.

Viewers, we can only assume that Makhidkarun lost the aa Makhur Y in the depths of time. Damage to the crystal lattice in this triclinic prism suggests that the device has changed hands and seen many uses through the centuries since the minds inside were stored.

Wait. We have a computer emergency. The analystic scientists have made a crucial error and now the minds inside the 'aa' device have hacked the Model/9 computer despite the Security/3 lockdown they had enacted. This ship is now compromised. There is a debate whether to pull the device or to abandon ship via the ship's shuttle.

Viewers, this Anchor-rat is opting for depature before our location is discovered. No doubt that a megacorporation like Makhidkarun will want their Ancients toy back with the captured 'souls' of the citizens of Gannvair trapped inside. A priceless find, but one so necromantic that indicates that only the destruction of the crystal inside the artifact's frame can release to what ever oblivion such recorded personalities can find egress.

Who can say whether the trapped minds (or souls, depending on who one asks) inside the "aa Makhur Y" will find being a simple shape of a crystal inside an unknown alloy frame? Will they find a way to become cooperative enough to connect to a robot and use its autonomy? Will a world fall under its sway? To be sure, no one hacker can take on so many individual minds at one time. From here, viewers, this reporter can only speculate.

Live from jumpspace, vector un-disclosed, this is the Pakkrat.

 

[robject]

My "Best Of"

My favorites so far:

1. Lecture Series
2. Psionic Calculator
3. Happiness Sensy
4. Sleep Sensy

Psionic "book" [an Ancient Droyne lecture series in ancient Oynprith]

Psionic calculator: a small amulet strung from a simple necklace. Think of a mathematical problem, and a solution occurs to you.

Sensy: a golf-ball-sized clear glass sphere that makes you feel good.

Sleep inducer: a circlet, you wear it on your head, and it makes you sleepy.

5. Jump Redirector

The researchers are calling it an "aa Nantu Y", a poor translation based on the barely-decipherable symbols found along the metal frame of this octahedral talisman. Viewers can see the clear, colorless and irregular shape of an orthorhombic crystal inside the coppery-gold frame. At each end, or 'pole' as delineated by the long crystal held in the center by Runetha-Knows-What, is what seems to be a power or connection point.

...grants a ship the option to Re-Vector its jump route while in jumpspace with no more than projected use of fuel!

6. Embedded Terraforming Engines

On any number of worlds throughout space, there are crazy combinations of statistics. Atmospheres on worlds that could not possibly retain them. Etc.

On [one or more of] these worlds are Ancients artifacts of immense proportions. Terraforming engines permeating the crusts and mantles of these worlds. They function on a type of technology that involves quantum string manipulation, and so their presence is invisible. They account for overcoming whatever geological or atmospheric impossibility is present.

7. Memory Focus

This device measures 10cm x 40cm x 90cm. If stared at long enough, an image will form just under its largest surface. This image will, at first, be blurry, monochromatic and motionless; a slightly out-of-focus "snapshot", if you will.

The image will relate to the viewer's past, and invoke a forgotten memory. Another viewing will reveal another image, this time a little clearer. Subsequent viewings will become progressively clearer.

Eventually, the viewer will be able to watch entire days from their pasts unfolding before their eyes.

After the first viewing, the viewer must roll 2D under his or her INT to avoid the urge to spend that entire day watching the images in the item. This urge will be expressed as a -1 DM to all rolls for success, as the viewer's concentration suffers. This withdrawal effect lasts for 336 hours from the most recent viewing.

8. Robotics Trainer

Broken Droid: used by the Ancients as an instructional tool in Robotics. Every day, the students were presented with a different failure, and had 24 hours to fix it or face 2 failures the next day.

Otherwise, this droid serves as a marginal Steward-0.

9. Inventory Gun
10. Skitzelbrang

"The Inventory Gun" teleports the target to a stasis warehouse (400,000 years in the past). The target vanishes, and an inventory reciept slowly settles to the ground in it's place.

The Skitzelbrang (posted here), a man portable terraforming device that is broken.

11. Portable Environmental Shield Generator

a walking stick that turns into a portable forcefield (used for rainy weather)

12. The Glove
13. Living Vacc Suit

The Glove. A device that allows you to put your hand through solid barriers.

A living Vacc Suit. Resembles a dark gelatinous mass of tissue. Recycles oxygen like a rebreather.

 

[Enoki]

Ah, another rather nasty one you can use. This is from a story I read years ago and have forgotten the title to.

The object is a smallish ball that can be held in the hand. When you take it, roll it on a surface and pick it up it gives the "owner" incredibly good luck. For the player with gambling skills they can't lose each time they use the ball. That broken device you need so critically? Suddenly it's obvious how to fix it and the parts are available.
The effect is intoxicating and addicting. You have to have more good luck.

But, there's balance in the universe. At some point the ball starts giving you horrifically bad luck. Stuff breaks when it shouldn't. You place a bet and get arrested. It just gets worse and worse. Of course, no matter how good or bad your luck you don't / can't die.

But, the "owner" knows with the certainty of an addict that wants another fix that at some point his luck will return so he's willing to take all the horribly bad luck to get some more good luck.

What doesn't kill you makes you an addict for life... :devil:

"Just one more roll and things will be great!"

 

[robject]

The object is a smallish ball that can be held in the hand. When you take it, roll it on a surface and pick it up it gives the "owner" incredibly good luck. [ And it's addictive ] [...]
But, there's balance in the universe. At some point the ball starts giving you horrifically bad luck.

That was an episode of Deep Space Nine.

 

[wbyrd]

I used a burial mask from a tomb on a dead world as part of a game...started out slow, bad dreams, feeling ill, people getting grumpy flom lack of sleep..... the mask was a personal memory recorder with psionic abilities...

it was broadcasting the memories of a rather despotic ruler constantly...while awake it was too weak to be effective after all the time in the ground..but at night....yeah boy howdy...they tore the place apart looking for the source of the shadows in the corridors and several murders...

they thought it was a psionic infiltrator or thief...after the stuff they were digging up began to disappear...

 

[Enoki]

That was an episode of Deep Space Nine.

I originally read it as a short story in a sci-fi analogy. But, I can't remember the title.

 

[Rogue_Shot]

I just read your post and it is my absolute favorite one of the bunch, I'm a bit jealous that I didn't think of that one. Absolutely perfect for some of my more Greed driven players (Read as 75% of them). Just like to old greed traps in D&D.

 

[Maksim-Smelchak]

The researchers are calling it an "aa Nantu Y", a poor translation based on the barely-decipherable symbols found along the metal frame of this octahedral talisman. Viewers can see the clear, colorless and irregular shape of an orthorhombic crystal inside the coppery-gold frame. At each end, or 'pole' as delineated by the long crystal held in the center by Runetha-Knows-What, is what seems to be a power or connection point.

On location and for Net-7 News, this is the Pakkrat.

Clever. Thanks for sharing.

Shalom,
M.

 

[CaptRet]

The Travellers unearth a small, yellow, rubbery oblong object, vaguely a cross between a boat-like and avian-like form, and about the size of a humanoid fist. While washing it off in sudsy water, they find that they experience a general sense of ease and security.

 

[Cryton]

The Travellers unearth a small, yellow, rubbery oblong object, vaguely a cross between a boat-like and avian-like form, and about the size of a humanoid fist. While washing it off in sudsy water, they find that they experience a general sense of ease and security.

I really like this one. And those things seem to turn up EVERYWHERE!


"Rubber-Ducky, you're the one..."

 

[whartung]

I really like this one. And those things seem to turn up EVERYWHERE!

Oh sure, it's all warm and fuzzy and fun and games until, mysteriously, those in contact with the object start to become ruthless assassins...

 

[flykiller]

And those things seem to turn up EVERYWHERE!

you've heard of the rubber duck flotilla? some years ago a shipping container fell overboard and dumped its entire load of rubber ducks into the pacific. they've been moving in a defineable mass ever since - even got locked into the ice above alaska and transited north of canada to the u.s. east coast and drifted down into the atlantic - and have provided oceanographers a decade-long means to study ocean currents in detail.