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One of my players is starting with an Artifact.

Characters in my games are lucky if they get fresh dirt.

How about a pair of stepping discs. For those unfamiliar with known space they are a matter transporter like star trek but with a number of limitations. You need 2 one to receive one to transmit and they have to be moving at close to the same speed to each other.

Other ideas how about a push button force field vac suit. Severely limited time wise but maybe you can have it on a key chain and it automatically deploys.
 
Ah, the zero stone. I read about in an Andre Norton book as a kid (Sargasso of Space?). Anyway, it's a psi-point reservoir so vast it can power a starship through jumpspace.

I also considered force fields, because that is something every traveller player wants, thanks to armour sucking so hard compared to modern weapons.

But right now I'm really thinking of the starmap gem leading to a grandchild in suspended animation. :)

Because I love alien horror.
 
Hi

I realize that you probably already have an idea planned out now, but another thought that crossed my mind was something along the lines of a "psionic amplifier" of sorts. The character himself/herself wouldn't need to have any psionic skills them self but basically the device would give the character some sort of die modifier for "persuasion" type task, such as when gambling, negotiating purchases or sales, or other type tasks.

The downside though, would be that if overused eventually the device might begin to connect and interact with the user on a subconscious level, making his/her subconcious thoughts and dreams start seeming to be real not only to him/her but also those around them.

I know that personnally I don't always remember alot of my dreams but sometimes parts of what I do remember seem to be related to things I had either recently read or seen on the internet or TV.

Depending on how its played out then, it could take the players awhile to understand what is going on (since the player may not be recalling his/her dreams) but eventually the players may begin to realize that some of the weird stuff happening to them or similar to other recent events that they had heard of (such as if there had been a natural disaster on one of the planets they had recently visited, the crew might be awoken one night by a similar disaster playing out on their ship, but as the player owning the relic fully awakes and fully gets to his/her senses, the apparent effects of the disaster may begin to disappear.

After the players finally figure out what is going on, they would then have to figure out how to deal with it.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Regards

Pat
 
How can I make my artifact more weird and inexplicable?

The player has decided to rent lab space on Efate (TL-13) to examine the star-map marble (he still doesn't realize it's a star-map).

He has chemistry-2 and physics-2, and must work in secret of course, so no outside help.

I've decided this is what can be determined so far:

The marble is made of slightly impure crystallized Lanthanum (the material used in jump drive coils).
The speckles and flaw, as well as the central ruby sphere, are part of the crystal.
It shows up on NAS and life sense, but very faintly.
The sphere is slowly, imperceptibly growing.
A densitometer scan is indeterminate - scans could indicate flaws.
Object reading it with psionics causes the reaction I mention a few posts ago, to whit:
Pauldon Rigel, owner of the artifact, finally convinces the party psionic (Charity) to use clairvoyance on the object.

She sends her mind deep into the ruby spot, and sees a grandchild playing with a small star-gem, in a black space full of floating star-gems. Suddenly, it looks up straight at her, and reaches toward her face with a clawed hand.

In the real world, Paul sees an ectoplasmic clawed demon-limb come out of the stone and grab Charities face. She fails a hopeless psi rolls and screams. If he tries to cut the limb, nothing happens because it's ectoplasmic. If he tries to pull the gem away, the arm just stretches out like in a nightmare.

Then Charity falls unconscious and the arm fades.
Click to expand...

Your suggestions are welcome. Just make them far-fetched.
 
stealth said:
He wants it to be a mystery, so that leaves out the ring of flight and the cloak of invisibility. I also ruled out the hand mirror of AI. Now I'm stumped as to what to give him.

I considered a small white globe (so he can have a force field in a marble), a psychotronic device like a teleport ticket, a psi-point reservoir, a multi-gun or relativity rifle, and a weather control device once worshiped by cultists.

And yet, none of these things is doing it for me. What can you suggest?
Click to expand...

A two thousand year old chip of plastic with a mysterious writings. When deciphered they say ...Five Lots Of Dried Groats Flesh Sold To Bearer Of This Certificate.
 
Ran Targas said:
Try making it a Pet Rock, except the rock is a crystal and it eventually grows into a crystalline lifeform; if fed well and given enough energy. You can decide how much and what is necessary.
Click to expand...

I second the pet rock. Have it be something that feeds on power conductors and there could be odd and random power problems here and there on the ship or in the hotel. Nobody knows why these things can happen when the player is around with his rock critter and nobody will suspect the rock is a beastie for a long time. Maybe when it matures the critter can then metamorphs into some delicately articulated and beautiful crystalline creature that is a silicon and energy-based lifeform. Operates on piezoelectricity so if you try to harm or scare it you get a nasty zap.

Once the cat is out of the bag then somebody might want the animal for some weapons or power supply research and that could provide all sorts of fun in itself. Until then the thing could maybe allow the player to tame it and then use it to help overcome locks, cameras, short bad guy lasers if close enough, or some other (maybe psi) power to make him want to fight to keep it. Maybe the charge off it when he holds and pets it is addictive like a drug.
 
Probably too late for the OP, but here's some techie/Traveller related ones that should be fun to 'figure' out as well as provide useful, unusual functionality:

* A hand sized ball with twisting upper/lower halves and a single groove running perpendicular to the bisection across half the sphere from one pole to the other. When both halves are twisted in opposing directions, it glows green till twisted back with groove lined up. => A gravitics suppressor which inhibits all artificial gravitic forces within 5 meter diameter. Aboard ship, one loses local gravitics - if ship is accelerating folks can get bruised up as bulkheads and such 'move into' them. If too close to an M-Drive, ship may stop or reduce acceleration. GRAVITIC SUPPRESSOR

* 10 cm on a side, rubix cube type device with etched features. => When features are 'matched' forming connected symbols on each face, a red glow is emitted from within, visible between the fine gaps between edge pieces - jump is inhibited till faces are moved. JUMP INHIBITOR

* 2 cm diameter, 1 cm thick, puck shaped device will cling to most any flat surface after several seconds, yet is easily pulled off. => When fully attached to a flat surface, will begin draining power from any source within 10 cm (including powered armor and weapons). Energy is released as visible light - unattached puck is black, but the discharged color is red (weakest) to purple (strongest) and brightness depends on power. Will not remove all power, but will reduce PPs by a full rating and generally disable smaller devices (including power locks). POWER SUCKER

* A shiny flashy thing... cylindrical shaped pen-sized device with a twisting top with indicator style tick marks and accompanying tiny cryptic symbols. When twisted away from a start point, the top can be pushed in. There is a small red translucent portion just below this depress-able top that emits light when the top is turned and depressed after several seconds. => May be hard to figure out when looking at the red light - as anyone looking into the red light (including reflections) loses several minutes of memory based on the turn of the dial (and are highly susceptible to suggestion). NEUTRALIZER [Re: MIB - shades not included!]

[All but the last I've, er, used in the past... got more stashed away somewhere.]

EDIT: Just saw Sabredog's power pet rock post... nice!
 
One I invented to allow a piracy attack by passengers was a mulit-dimensional box. This physically looks like a small "metallic" / "plastic" openable pad about 8" on a side and about half an inch thick.

When you open it the inside is sufficently large to allow someone to put in swords, pistols, etc., so long as they will go through the roughly 8 x 8" opening. The depth is greater than one can reach so you might have to dump the contents out which can be considerable since it also stretches out the the sides as well as in depth.

The closed box has the constant weight of the physical pad, say about a third kilo or so.
 
A hand-held supercomputer that turns out, in fact, to be a sensor-and-communication device linked to a stealthed sentient ship trying to manipulate the players for its own purposes.
 
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