Ancestor Fetishes are fetishes from the Stargazers that requires binding oneself to it.
Overview[]
Ancestor fetishes are above and beyond "simple" fetishes. These items are not hastily-created items, but items that once were held in the hands of the greatest of forebears; they are rare and wondrous treasures, the sort gained after great trials. Once cannot simply pick up a fetish item and expect to use it, not even in its mundane state. Picking up an ancestor fetish to use it requires binding oneself to it, a feat that requires the expenditure of a permanent Gnosis point. Not doing so will cause the item to burn the wielder with an unsoakable level of aggravated damage. These fetishes are unique items. Binding oneself to any of them grants an additional two dice to Ancestors rolls.
List of Ancestor Fetishes[]
- Fanruo Jushu, the Archer's Madness - Level 6, Gnosis 7 - This ancestor fetish is actually an ancient bow and quiver set that predates recorded history. Few Stargazers have actually been able to discern any truth at all about this item, save that it's exceptionally old and the spirits don't wish to discuss it. Rumor has it that it is a legitimate relic from an old Stargazer myth. The myth goes like this: The Stargazer called Seven-Eclipses was called to court one day to be told that the sun was angry. It was twice as hot as usual, and seemed somehow furious. Seven-Eclipses went out, and felt the heat and saw the sun as a gigantic orb in the sky. Before his very eyes, the orb separated, and suddenly there were two suns. This replication continued to occur until there were ten suns in the sky. Plants caught fire from the heat, men's hair singed down to the scalp, and regular earth was burned into black sand. But Seven-Eclipses would have none of this, so he brought out his bow and fired his magical arrows into each sun, extinguishing them one after the other. He destroyed nine of the ten suns, but the remaining original sun began to swell and grow again. But then Seven-Eclipses saw it - a brief flash of black behind the fire of the sun, and he fired an arrow at the fleeting black spot. Coughed up out of the sun-flares was a cloud of black feathers, and a jun-raven, an evil Wyrm spirit, erupted from the womb of the sun. The raven's feathers turned to cooling rain and returned Gaia from her burning agony - but the jun-raven wasn't finished. It flew into Seven-Eclipses' magical bow and poisoned it. Seven-Eclipses went mad. Legend suggests that this ancestral fetish was his bow. Upon activation, Fanruo Jushu's quiver fills with arrows and is never depleted. Any attack roll with the activated bow automatically has one success attributed to the roll (though this success can be removed with subsequent botches). Damage from one of the arrows is seven dice, aggravated. The "archer madness" comes in from the fact that, upon activation, the bow temporarily poisons the mind of the user (said to be the influence of the still-bound jun-raven). The Storyteller must pick a derangement, one that doesn't inhibit the attack, and for the remainder of the activation (one scene) the Stargazer suffers from the effects of this derangement.
- The Yellow Veil of Karapatri - Level 6, Gnosis 7 - The figure of Karapatri is something of a cautionary one among Stargazer legends. Karapatri (also called the Lady of the Endless Dark) was an apparent luminary of the Jade Emperor's own spiritual Ministers. Some say that her blood lineage actually includes the spirit matter of the Emperor's own mystic judges. Karapatri apparently grew so sad and so angry at the way the world had become, that she decided to do something about it. She decided first to tackle the corruption within her own tribe. Those who Karapatri deemed "off the path" in some fashion or another received a visit from her. She never gauged one visitation the same as the next. One Stargazer may have committed so grave a crime as to have endangered a sacred caern, whereas another tribe member may have simply had too much to drink the night before. Karapatri would show up at night, and she would appear as a doppelganger of the punished. They would see themselves reflected back at them through her body, but the vision they saw of themselves would be laved with decay and rot, and their own sins could be read in Karapatri's mimicking eyes. Karapatri would achieve this effect using a gift from the Jade Emperor himself, which is this Yellow Veil. It's said that the Yellow Veil is never found by a Stargazer, but that the Veil itself does the finding, seeking out a worthy soul who is capable of being the punishing angel that the tribe needs at any given moment. Others suggest that the Veil works its way into the hands of a Stargazer who unknowingly has Karaparti as his own ancestor. The truth remains unclear. Activating this fetish causes its wearer to be seen by the viewer as being a distorted mirror image of the viewer herself. Being confronted by one's own corrupted twin has several effects. First is a terrible feeling of depression and self-loathing, which results in the removal of two temporary Willpower points. (In the case of Garou, this is also mirrored by a removal of two temporary Rage points on top of the Willpower loss.) Also, the viewer must answer all of the Veil-wearer's questions, and she must answer them truthfully (though "truth" is relative to the teller). It's important to remember that the viewer falls into a dreamlike trance and not herself when under the effects of his fetish. When the Veil-wearer is gone (or has deactivated the Veil's effects), the target is left with an unbearable desire to "do right," though again that urge is somewhat relative to the individual. Any rolls the target makes over the following lunar cycle toward the act of "doing right" are done with an extra die.
- Gan Jiang, the Knotted Thunderbolt - Level 6, Gnosis 8 - Gan Jiang was an ancient swordmaker of the Stargazers. His famous techniques of coaxing the spirits of his metal to obey him allowed him to fold the steel over and over again, creating a strong, sharp blade. He provided many of these weapons to his tribe, often creating fetish weapon for them to carry into battle. He had a way with the spirits, a natural ability to charm them, and entice them into his weapons. One day, however, Gan Jiang's rapport with the spirits got the best of him. Gan Jiang had a metis son by another Stargazer, and one day a Jaggling of Chimera came and told Gan Jiang a disturbing prophecy: His metis son held great resentment toward his father for siring a disfigured beast, and this resentment was strong even in his current infancy. Gan Jiang didn't know that this Jaggling was really a spirit of Kung-Kung, and that the Great Corrupter sought to poison the swordmaker's mind. Gan Jian went that night and murdered his own child, fearful that he had helped to sire a monster. His tribe discovered his transgression and punished him with a curse. From then on, the metals wouldn't give into his manipulations, and any forge he used would barely even warm the metals, much less make them malleable for forming. So he retired to the countryside to live a life in Harano. Before he did, however, he created one last sword that didn't require use of the forge or of his metalsmith gifts. He called that sword after his own name, and left it in the hands of other Stargazers as recompense for his crime. That sword if a Tai-Ji sword. The blade is made of bound-together imperial coins in a staggered pattern (somewhat like a thunderbolt). The grip is a simple wooden core wrapped in leather cording. It is a humble sword without even the slightest edge to it. Bound within it is an avatar of Chi-Rin, an Incarna similar to Unicorn. When activated, the sword develops a sudden edge. It directs the hand of the wielder in sudden tugs and pushes, and allows the Stargazer to strike at the most vulnerable chakra points of the opponent. Every attack roll made with the activated weapon is at -1 difficulty; the damage is Strength +5 aggravated. The activation of this weapon also confers one more benefit. When holding Gan Jiang, the Stargazer feels that her own chakras are vibrant and alive, and this helps protect her from damage. She gains +2 to every soak roll.
References[]
- WTA: Tribebook: Stargazers, p. 83-84
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