[✓][CArt] [26] Vharcanrul

[Zarsies 6795]

 

“Usstan orn harventh ummo natha elggor ul'nusst ulu gulu'da Drazhana mal'rak.“

“I will cleave loose a dying squeal to haunt Drazhana forever.”

 

Name of the Artefact:

Ilharnorrs: Vharcanrul d’Sbattana

Common: Revenger of Sbattana

 

Effects of the Artefact:

Vharcanrul is a blade haunted by its namesake, Sbattana the Stinger, who informs its powers and cause. She is a graven of vengeance obsessed with slaying the zentherak Draz-Kulzattar, the Biting Bat, her betrayer and murderer an era ago. Her potent spirit fuels those desperate or foolish enough to wield her revenger blade. Soon they learn the cost: she must feed. Whose misery will she drink?

Sbattana as glimpsed by a haunted wielder: claw-crowned and veiled in a pall.

 

Soul-Stinger
By brandishing Vharcanrul  and invoking Sbattana in [2] emotes the wielder will feel her cold presence as the blade wreathes in diaphanous teal ectoplasm.

 

Emote example:
Valor the Red brings his greatsword black as wrought iron to his sternum, both hands tight with strain and worry. He hoists the blade on high and bellows through the grates of his helm, “Arise, Sbattana!”
Valor the Red’s blade drips with a glassy aquamarine glow until it envelops it whole. The subtle silhouette of a grim, spike-crowned figure hidden behind a translucent shroud looms behind him.

 

Until disarmed or dismissed by the wielder, it interacts with the ethereal as if physical as well as plunging the blade into a victim jolts them with the hexed sting of her grief and deepens the longer it remains embedded:

 

[1] emote: The victim feels constrainably nauseous and tingles with a sense of jarring betrayal and tears begin to well. Their movement speed is reduced by [1] block and their vision is blurred.
[2] emotes: The victim begins to weep as they are taken with seething sorrow and can no longer speak coherently, only scream or cry. 
[3] emotes: The victim is overcome with crescendoing woe and crumples, becoming stunned for as long as Vharcanrul remains embedded in their wound. Acquire [1] Misery unit.

 

Once Vharcanrul is embedded in a wound, the victim experiences fragmentary flashes of Sbattana’s tale. First they sense their heart racing as they see themself fleeing through a subterranean tunnel or may catch glimpses of crimson fire erupting as they look behind themself mid-run. The vision cuts to the victim wielding Vharcanrul and cutting through freshly-raised zombies they recognize as mangled friends while reeking brimstone smolders. Finally the vision has the victim kneeling in ashamed defeat before an amorphous horned figure silhouetted in red flame, wracked with the pain of betrayal that leaves them in stunned silence as long as Vharcanrul remains in them.

 

Should a victim survive an encounter after being stabbed for [3] emotes they will come to be haunted by Sbattana, the graven appearing in their sleep and daydreams. This is left to the creative freedom of the ST who may use such a line of contact for associated events. This mark on the soul can be broken like any curse by a farseer shaman as well as erased by a mystic.

 

Red lines:
-Activating Soul-Stinger cannot be hidden, it is an obvious magical effect. In the 2 emotes to activate it the wielder cannot also attack, block, or dodge but may move.
-While holding Vharcanrul in a victim’s wound the wielder cannot dodge, only block as feasible or attack by digging deeper and holding it in place; the victim, if not restrained or sufficiently challenged, can withdraw Vharcanrul in [1] emote. If the sword is dislodged from the wound its emote count is reset; if withdrawn after [2] emotes and then the victim is stabbed again, the counter begins at [1] rather than [2].
-The wielder cannot change the vision experienced by those they stab. It is also their responsibility to inform ST when a victim has been harvested for Misery as to alert them to who is haunted by the blade. Those haunted may only break away via farseer or mystic intervention.

-Harvesting a unit of Misery must be screenshotted and sent to the handling ST for record keeping as well as to inform them who the victim player is so they may be haunted.

 

 

Batbane
Embodying the plain threat of the Revenger blade to Draz-Kulzattar, the first strike it lands upon a Drazhana-pacted naztherak or batlike inferis victim brings their own sin to the surface and triggers the Dread malice effect; the victim is seized by overwhelming fight-or-flight causing them to flee or seek safety, erupt into hurried violence, or even freeze in place. This lasts for [2] emotes after being hit during which the victim naztherak or inferis can only: sprint away, attack inaccurately, or block, decided by the victim’s player as to what is most appropriate for their character. This effect applies to any eligible character once per encounter

 

By spending [3] Misery the wielder may summon Sbattana to bring hellbats low and in [2] emotes of raising the sword high and wreathing it in glassy ectoplasm they may send the graven flying like a banshee to spear and ground any flying Drazhana-pacted naztherak or batlike inferis, forcing them to crash like a meteorite.

 

Red lines:
-The batbane effect cannot be used as a detection method to identify disguised naztherak or zar’ei, only affecting their revealed forms, and attempting to use Vharcanrul as a testing method will be denied.
-The dread malice effect only lasts for [2] emotes, never longer, and only triggers on the very first successful attack per legal victim per encounter.
-The anti-flight feature of this spell requires ST permission to utilize as it would only be relevant in events.

 

 

Fade Into Antiquity
By spending [1] Misery the wielder of Vharcanrul may invite death with total stillness across [3] emotes to cloak themself in the invisible shroud of Sbattana’s battle-pall. While cloaked they are silent but movement yields a noticeable light distortion. This effect can be maintained for up to [10] emotes during which the wielder cannot attack, cast, dodge, block, or sprint; the invisibility may be ended when desired with [1] emote of transition in which they cannot prepare an attack, cast, dodge, or block.

 

Red lines:
-Activating Fade Into Antiquity cannot be performed alongside attacking, dodging, blocking, moving, or speaking and requires total stillness. Any such interruption, including if forced, breaks the activation and requires restarting. A point of Misery is only spent if successfully activated. Exiting invisibility incurs a [1] emote buffer in which the user cannot prepare to cast, attack, or defend, this emote serving as a stun if forcibly ended.
-Phantoms and those with True Sight see through this ability. Seer’s Spot Energy, Kani’s Third Eye, alchemy’s heat lens, and similar effects can be used to detect an invisible wielder.

-The handling ST should be contacted after using Fade Into Antiquity so the wielder’s units of Misery are accurately tracked. If a wielder is found to be hiding their use of this ability they may be punished for powergaming as well as lose ownership of the item. 

 

Artefact Redlines:

-Equipping Vharcanrul requires OOC consent from the wielder as to permit the ST portraying Sbattana to, when they see fit, overpower the wielder and possess them when appropriate; the wielder of Vharcanrul is not its master. They must always engage with Sbattana and please her - fulfill her need for Misery and Draz-Kulzattar’s blood - lest she leverage her strength against them, turn the blade inward, and find herself a new wielder. 
-For mechanical purposes Vharcanrul is equivalent to a ferrum sword albeit is physically unbreakable on account of its enchantment.

 

Explanation of the Effects:

Any witness to Mori’Quessir societies, be they native, enslaved, or foes, quickly glean the venom of brutality coursing within and the heights of power which control them: egotism and suffocating shame, inescapable fears and obsessive prudence, and their thorned master above all: hate. Every web-choked tunnel plunging into the depths of Mori che'elen, outpost or citadel or temple, is haunted by the cries of their malice. The bleak crush of slain hope, the terror of sharp darkness, the harrowing sorrow of resisted ends: no other race has not only failed to sweeten life but elevated the heights of suffering and rejoiced. Blood trails may stain their hidden roads but raw agony paints every blunt cavern wall and it is this, hatred and misery, which lures nightmares of this world and beyond.

 

It is this suffering which gave the slain swordswoman her grit to endure through death and cling to revenge.

 

Now she comes to return the favor. 

 

ET Responsible for this Artefact:
Zarsies

 

 

[squakhawk 14043]

Approved.

[PolarLoLs 993]

gimme