Domnica’s Mantle (Legendary Artifact)

Scroll of Exalts (Pg. 85), Classified as N/A Artifact

This gauzy, iridescent cloak flutters without regard for wind and bears an ornate silver clasp emblazoned with emeralds and arcane glyphs. Upon its wearer’s death, he may reflexively spend one Willpower point as his last action to fray the garment into an abstract paradox that snarls itself into the weave of existence.  The cloak then reforms at a new location determined by unknowable principles. If the wearer’s next life looks hard and long enough, circumstances inevitably arrange for him to find Domnica’s Mantle again, though it is up to him to do what is necessary to reclaim it.

The death of a Celestial Exalt releases her Exaltation, but it ignores the pull of Lytek’s cabinet (or Monstrance or Lillun’s womb) to seek out a suitable host on its own in accordance with Autochthon’s design. Upon the Second Breath of a new Celestial, the personality and memories of the Mantle’s wearer utterly subsume the new incarnation, bypassing the unnecessary formality of Lytek sanctifying the union of Exaltation and soul. The new Celestial fully remembers her last life, restoring her Motivation and Intimacies, but otherwise possesses the traits of her newly Exalted body in addition to a permanent Mentor 5 reflecting the core of her memory. She can draw upon this memory to teach herself any traits she used to possess in any prior incarnation given to Domnica’s Mantle.  The Storyteller may waive experience costs to allow a character who dies mid-series to restore herself and catch up to other protagonists. She still remembers her new body’s life prior to Exaltation and retains that life’s Intimacies, but the experiences seem hazy, like a vivid dream.

For a wearer lacking a Celestial Exaltation, the mantle carries her soul through Lethe to be reborn into a new life that fits whatever criteria the wearer desires, subject to Storyteller approval. This can include location, gender, social status and even supernatural heritage, such as divine blood or an infant destined to be a Dragon-Blood. It is not possible to pick a life that will receive Celestial Exaltation. The new life begins no sooner than a year from the death of the wearer.  At some point in the reincarnation’s adolescence, the personality of the former life reasserts itself with the same mechanical effects as possession by a Celestial Exaltation explained above.