Coldheart
6 pt Talisman
Arete 4
A shard of a twisted devilish mirror that was once owned by a powerful faery troll who sought to challenge the heavens, Coldheart demonstrates the creativity and cruelty of humanity when applied to war. And the Ascension War is the war to end all wars, the war for humanity and its future. When House Janissary acquired the mirror frame from a Chorister soon after the formal formation of the Council of Nine Traditions, they immediately realized that the shards of the mirror were valuable, and spent decades gathering them from the ones who had been stung when the troll had failed and his mirror shattered. Not out of mercy, no-for those were the times when the Traditions were still callous wizard masters seeking a return to their towers and kingdoms, and the Order of Reason still knights in shining armor who had not yet become so like what they had sought to overthrow. Those were not the times where the Traditions had gained the mercy of youth and the Order of Reason hardened with the cruelty of age and become the Technocratic shadows who set the world spinning to their desires.
But because the shards could be changed, improved, applied as a tool. A tool to regain what the knights and cannons of the Order of Reason had taken from them. For what does someone who can see all the cruelty of the world care about mercy? Why would one such as that hesitate to maim or kill or torture? And with a minor change to the nature of the shards, they could give their victims knowledge all the cruelties that could be inflicted, provide them with preternatural viciousness and lethality.
The Order of Hermes still makes limited use of these human weapons today, even after the fall of House Janissary. However, most of the time Coldheart is used by the Nephandi, whose worldviews are often nihilistic enough that they see the altered perceptions it provides as a benefit, not a curse.
System:
Coldheart is a needle-shard of black glass which burrows into the heart of a human being. This talisman is implanted by stabbing a willing character above the heart with this mirror shard (doing 1 lethal level of damage that heals normally and removing a dot of permanent Willpower as the character adapts to the shattering of the facade over the unspeakable cruelty of the world)-although the original shards of the mirror would work even upon the unsuspecting, the changes which transformed Coldheart into a weapon have limited its use only to those willing to accept the sacrifice of all beauty in the world. Typically, these shards are temporarily implanted into a young adult who has been taught for years in the belief system of House Janissary, loyalty indoctrinated until it is a matter of instinct rather than conscious thought-for the implantation of Coldheart rapidly degrades lesser forms of loyalty.
A character who has accepted a Coldheart is immune to love, empathy, or other appeals to their better nature as a Mind 3 effect. Appeals to mercy against the character automatically fail, and the character never has to roll or spend Willpower to steel their nerve before inflicting any cruelty. Similarly, the character is immune to Delirium, because they have already seen the horrors of the world and are no longer fazed by a mere wolf-man with delusions of grandeur. Finally, a character whose heart has been pierced by this black-glass thorn may not regain Willpower-their dreams are no respite from the cruelty of the world, and any accomplishments they make are meaningless to them.
In exchange for these sacrifices, Coldheart whispers into the character's ear about what ugliness and evil they could inflict on others, and guides the character's eyes to see the cruelties that others might suffer. A character whose heart has been impaled by this faery shard reduces the difficulties of all combat rolls-both attack and damage-by 3 as a Mind/Entropy 1 effect, and suffers no wound penalties whatsoever. Their mere existence is already agony, with nothing redeeming. What care do they have for pain?
Characters may have Coldheart removed via surgery. This surgery requires the character to be sedated or restrained and demands 5 cumulative successes on an Int + Medicine roll, with the surgery inflicting a level of Lethal damage per roll. Coldheart may also be exorcised from a character via a conjunctional Life 2/Spirit 2 effect. Technocrats must use Mind 3/Dsci 2 instead, as they see the world in materialistic terms and see this as an EDE malady disturbing the mind of an individual, not a thorn of faery glass piercing a human heart.