Many a treasure hunter has perished hunting after the Legend of Atlantis as some speculate that pieces of the continent survived the catastrophe. Artifacts with bird motifs that can only come from Atlantis do occasionally surface in the black markets of the West, sending yet another wave of starry eyed scavengers into the Wyld.
The Songbirds of Atlantis is one such artifact. These can come in any form of Birds, from humming birds to Seagulls to even more exotic breeds that has long since became extinct. All are beautifully crafted clockwork simulacrums of their living counterparts. Though they are classified as one type of artifact they range wildly both in construction material and levels of sophistication, but are all designed as children’s toys and companions and not implements of subterfuge or intrigue.
When attuned by committing 6 motes these automatons comes to life and functions as a loyal pet with no real intelligence. They can follow some basic commands but has little use beyond being sentries or companions. Regardless of the owner’s requests or situation these constructs will never take any aggressive action – even in self-defense.
These automatons learn any song by hearing it once and can repeat it perfectly with a lovely female voice. They however can only remember up to 7 songs (regardless of length) and newly learned songs will replace old ones. This perfect recall only works on songs and not other verbal communications. They however can carry messages in song form quite readily.
Their most useful ability is that they can find anyone whom the attuned user can picture in her mind - as long as the user can concentrate and keep the image of the target in her mind. This ability will not function if the target is magically concealed, but there is no way for the automaton or attuned user to learn of this fact. So the owner can be concentrating in vain for hours before she gives up. This makes the birds a great tool of communication as they can ferry messages back and forth with their incredibly speed.
These birds, regardless of size of type, are so agile that while in flight they are considered to have a Dodge DV of 12 + attuned user’s Essence. This makes them all but impossible to hit by mundane means. They can fly up to a speed of 200 mph in any weather and does not tire.
They however are incredibly fragile and only takes 3 heath level of damage to destroy. These automatons have a soak of 3L, hardness value of 5L, and immune to bash damage. However the attuned user automatically knows when his songbird is about to be hit, regardless of distance that separates them, and can reflexively spent 5 motes of Essence to negate 1 health level worth of damage (after the attack rolls damage).
These are children's toys. So keep that in mind. The ability to find people was to allow lost children to find their parents. Therefore, it was not designed for long range use.
ReplyDeleteFor Aata to communicate to people across Creation it will take about 8-20 hours of minor concentration to do so. While this will not incapacitate him it will have an -1 or -2 external penalty for being distracting. Once the message is delivered the construct can fly back on its own without futher concentration.
This is a fair drawback. While this allows Aata ability to communicate, it has large enough drawback that getting it is not unbalancing to the Player Balance. E.g. I have to give Balan something correspondingly powerful to balance things out. Since Aata (I assume) want this item ASAP and without much effort.
If Aata wishes the items drawback lessened or eliminated, then I would make it correspondingly more difficult to gain. I do not wish to go the route of giving other players more items to balance things out, so the effort Aata will be putting into it will be correspondingly severe. Like for Aata to use Exp to pick up the skill to repair the magitech item himself or sacrificing some stats or abilitie does, etc.
What I read sounds good, I assume that if I lose concentration along the way that the song bird automatically returns to me or is lost to me?
ReplyDeleteIt will continue on its course to the last known location of the person. It will continue to do so until you regain concentration or sent a mental image of yourself (misc. 5 tick reflexive action) to recall it.
ReplyDelete