Monstrance of Reclaimed Glories

From Exaltedcursejar

[edit] The Monstrance of Reclaimed Glories

Artifact N/A

Once there was a little girl named Lillun. An over-curious progeny of the greatest of the Dragon-blooded Host, she was perfect for the Ebon Dragon's purposes. After consulting with She Who Lives in Her Name and consulting his own vast library of the occult, the Ebon Dragon found a way to taint the Solar shard.

Today, a leather cabinet named Lillun and called Refractive Soul Harvest, or sometimes the Monstrance of Reclaimed Glories, is the sole occupant of Brightly Burning Tower. Demons come and go to clean and dust the cabinet, but even they feel an uncomfortable reverence in its presence. Brightly Burning Tower is one of the most vulnerable parts of Malfeas, and sticks a mile into the sky like a compound fracture that has erupted from his flesh. Bound with a confluence of hatred from Malfeas, the burning wind of Adorjan, and an eerie view of the demonic landscape beyond the city, the cabinet is the perfect place to keep a Solar Exalt.

• Physical Characteristics

At first the cabinet would appear absurdly small to anyone with an eye for craftsmanship, and if its intended purpose were revealed then the most common reaction would probably be shock. The cabinet stands about five feet high, which includes its seven three-foot tall legs. The cabinet itself is a perfect cube of two feet by two feet by two feet, and the inside is covered by no fewer than 823,543 reflective surfaces, though a quick peek inside only reveals seven distinct mirrors. Its outside is decorated with a crenelated border along the top and lacy, intricate designs sketched and branded into its surface. Exquisite porcelain knobs the shape of tiny human hands protrude from each cabinet door. The hands go limp while the cabinet sleeps (which is common if no one is around) and eagerly seek out any speakers that it hears enter its presence. The cabinet itself seems to breathe if one watches it closely, and and it will giggle if stroked properly (difficulty five Perception + Occult or Medicine to discern). Touched improperly, the cabinet will shriek and shriek for hours at a time with a voice that tears at the soul. The entire thing reeks of vitriol, and if it shrieks then it will vomit the substance out all over the room.

The true madness begins when someone is shut inside the cabinet, though its intended purpose is to convert the wicked Solar Exalted to the Yozi cause. Mortals are only "fed" to the cabinet when one of its mirrors breaks or scratches, which is possible under the rough desert winds that blow above the city. When a Solar is captured inside the cabinet, then his mind is captured in a vise-like grip.

• True Purpose

Maddening geometric cracks in the cabinet allow the sick green light of Ligier through, whose avatar occupies the whole of the captive's vision at every angle. The captive suffers an Illusion effect that he is bound to a greater being, fighting as its strong right arm, watching with its trinocular eyes, or as though he were a synapse in a vast expanse of thought. This effect costs four Willpower to resist for the scene, spent all at once.

Lillun takes advantage of the Solar's distraction, should he accept the Illusion, to read his intimacies, virtues, and motivation, based on how the Solar acts in the scene that she places him in. She attacks his intimacies and places the Solar in situations where his virtues are challenged until he runs out of willpower from trying to act in what are supposedly his best interets.

Should the Solar ignore the Illusion, he may try to overwhelm the cabinet with a social attack of his own (the cabinet only understands High Realm and Old Realm, Malfean dialect, though it can see perfectly clearly). The cabinet still has all of its sensory organs, after all. The cabinet is virtually immune to physical damage, though, with one of Malfeas' own Third Circle Souls sacrificed to bind the cabinet together and its bones coated in Malfean porcelain, all bound together with vitriol.

• Final Effects

Should the Solar lose all temporary willpower in the cabinet, the cabinet then drains permanent willpower at a rate of one per 25 hours while the Solar is tormented with the sensation of sand scrubbing his body from his soul. Once the Solar's permanent willpower is completely drained of willpower his body dissolves into ash, and the cabinet sings with glee as it fulfills its purpose. The cabinet then seals itself, bouncing the Solar shard off of its reflective surface until the Phylactery Womb is brought before it to receive the shard.

Thus is the fate of Lillun, misguided child of the Scarlet Empress.