[RPM] Gem Lore, Lapidaries and Precious Stones as Traditional Trappings

[Agemegos]

Someone needs to have a mummified monkey's paw.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Someone needs to have a mummified monkey's paw.

On a scale of 1-10, how racist is it for the ethnic Chinese occultist to have one?

Wait, don't answer that.

I've got it, Nando Acevedo can have a mummified monkey's paw!

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Looking at some images of ivory, I realize it likely wouldn't work as a stand-in for white enamel, being more of a yellowish off-white. It's still undoubtedly useful for the "Path of Loss/Despair" subset of the Path of Nonexistence your cultists use.

Yes, indeed. I'm quite taken with the idea of ivory for various cult paraphernalia.

It's classy and also has the bonus of being regulated and restricted, which gives analysts something to track in order to find clues of nasty-bad cult or occult activity. I bet the worldwide ivory smuggling underground is just all amoral (or worse) ritual magicians and occultists by the 2010s.

Originally Posted by Varyon

If any of your cultists make use of the Path of Chance, there are a variety of places that manufacture dice made from semi-precious gemstones, which may be of use. I'd imagine getting blanks from them would also be possible, to have a jeweler or similar under the employ of (or himself part of) the cult engrave each face with appropriate runes or what-have-you. Indeed, sufficiently-large precious gems may be possible to give similar treatment.

If you want something to retain as much magical resonance as possible (or even increase it over its natural shape), it's important to avoid subjecting it to any 'soulless' manufacturing processes. If it's shaped by intelligent beings, you want it done by the personal attention of an artist or craftsman. So factory-made things are rarely worth much as esoteric components, Charm objects, energy sources or enchanted tools, but handmade things crafted with love and pride can be even better than naturally shaped objects.

Which is to say, you want dice handmade by gemcutters or jewelers, not novelty dice made on CNC machines.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Another material to consider is ancient kauri wood. This stuff is over 50,000 years old, preserved in a peat bog in New Zealand (similar to the various other bog woods one can find, but much older). It doesn't have a direct link to the Path of Loss/Despair, seeing as the species of tree it comes from is still around (and not even endangered), but being ancient, rare, and made from organic material is likely to count for something for general magic use. Oh, and you can find dice made from the stuff as well.

Yes, I imagine that would have many magical applications.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Also, while looking up ancient kauri, I came across this, a ring made from crushed dinosaur bone (well, fossil), metal from the Gibeon meteorite, and an inner sleeve made of ancient kauri. The Gibeon metal likely being high in iron, and the strips of titanium, may not be ideal, but something like this strikes me as an appropriate piece of jewelry for a sorceror of some flavor. It also makes me wonder if one could make a similar ring using the crushed bones of a (ideally innocent) victim of execution, as well as metal from the blade and wood from the haft of the executioner's axe that did the deed.

Awesome.

Not the sort of thing I'd like to try to bring through Customs, at least not if the innocent victim was murdered within recent enough memory to be treated as a murder victim rather than archeological remains.

Iron is slightly anti-magical, it is true, but it's not impossihle to work with. And meteorites are symbolically resonant enough so that for some kinds of magic the bonus they grant probably more than makes up for the -1 to -3 for the iron.

In general, metals that humans only started to work after the start of recorded history give a penalty of some kind to magic, correlating roughly to the technological sophistication needed to work with it. Lead is something of an exception, in that it is completely magically inert. It doesn't interfere with magic, but it doesn't conduct it either.

Gold would probably be preferable to the titanium for the ring if we're going by magical affinity. Very useful metal, good for many different kinds of magic, very good thaumic conductor and can store a decent amount of supernatural energy. Silver also has many magical uses, a bit more specialized and not in itself capable of storing much raw magical energy, but a solid material for enchanted trinkets and charms nonetheless, in especially for effects metaphysically associated with the moon.

Copper is useful because it's a fairly cheap metal that doesn't give any kind of penalty to magic use, so you can make nearly any kind of magical object from copper. For example, the PCs generally use .45 caliber copper bullets with a huge hollow cavity, which allows them to use them as Charms and also to more easily deliver esoteric substances that monsters might have weaknesses against. Quick enchantments are also possible in a way they wouldn't be with lead bullets. Plus, it's environmentally-conscious not to pollute with toxic metals.

[dcarson]

Given that magic was around in the far enough past living things that were around since then might be worth something as ritual components. With many of your cultists from South America maybe the 9th oldest tree in the world.

9. Gran Abuelo

Age: 3,646 years
Species: Patagonian Cypress (Fitzroya cupressoides)
Location: Alerce Costero National Park, Chile
Still Alive: Yes

or

2. Jurupa Oak

Age: over 13,000 years
Species: Palmer’s Oak (Quercus palmeri)
Location: Jurupa Mountains, Crestmore Heights, California, USA
Still Alive: Yes

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Given that magic was around in the far enough past living things that were around since then might be worth something as ritual components. With many of your cultists from South America maybe the 9th oldest tree in the world.


or

Ooh, any cultist who killed the Gran Abuelo to use the wood and/or ashes for various ritual trappings would have a potent symbolic representation of the End of Everything!

I wonder how good the security at National Parks in Chile is...

After all, in the real world, the almost as old Senator tree in Florida actually was burnt to ash by a tourist in 2012. And the ashes used to make all sorts of artwork, which I'm sure had nothing to do with any occult groups in my campaign...

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Regarding famous cursed stone, there are a few others than the Hope and Koh-i-noor :

The Black Orlov. broken in three to break the curse, unfortunately, but that could be ... repaired.

The Cursed Opal of Spain Royal family.

The cursed Amethist, already coming with an mounting engraved with symbols and 2 stone shaped like egyptian scarabs ...

But those and others may be 'too famous'.

Thanks!

Even if they aren't used for this particular adventure, given that extremely expensive items of mystical significance provide a way to carry with you quickly accessible magical power of some sort in a setting where magic is ordinarily almost impossible to cast on the fly... well, it means that a lot of nefarious schemes by cults or rogue magicians look something like this:

1) Acquire jealously guarded and extremely valuable object of some sort.
2) Use 1) in ritual of some sort that we would have no chance of performing without some such object.
3) ....
4) PROFIT!

Originally Posted by Celjabba

For modern tradditionnal trappings, I would look into the 'cremation crystal', with companies offering to make glass crystal infused with cremation ashes and colored/cut to look like a precious stone...

In all cases, handmade objects or at least objects made with personal attention from a craftsman are far superior to anything worked with CNC or other machines for magical purposes. Important detail to keep in mind.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

For the worshipper of the Cold Ones, meteoric iron or lunar rock sample could be associated with cold and dark.
And meteoric iron have a long history of magical use.

Very true.

Lunar rock is pretty difficult to acquire, I imagine, but how hard is meteoric iron to source?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

... how hard is meteoric iron to source?

Not very, from a bit of searching. It costs something like $5/gram.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Lunar rock is pretty difficult to acquire, I imagine, but how hard is meteoric iron to source?

Apparently easy, a quick google found many auction site, mostly collectors, jeweller and homeopathic supplies websites.
Price ranging from a few € to a few thousands, depending on size and tracability/authenticity...

Getting a museum piece (knife, druidic torc, ...) with I assume more mystical weight is another story, obviously.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Not very, from a bit of searching. It costs something like $5/gram.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Apparently easy, a quick google found many auction site, mostly collectors, jeweller and homeopathic supplies websites.
Price ranging from a few € to a few thousands, depending on size and tracability/authenticity...

Getting a museum piece (knife, druidic torc, ...) with I assume more mystical weight is another story, obviously.

Excellent, thank you both.

I should have Googled it myself, but I was traveling and on the phone telling a newspaper editor to remove the name and picture of my client from the front page of his website instantly and not to think about publishing them in his paper version.

I hate working weekends, but there are some simple pleasures involved.

What might be a particularly evocative and interesting way to work meteoric iron into jewelry or ritual paraphernalia that is mystically significant to a magical tradition of loss and endings?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Lunar rock is pretty difficult to acquire, I imagine

The US government distributed 270 samples as goodwill gifts about 1970, 180 of which are unaccounted for, and some of which seem now to be simulants. If you told me Kessler had acquired one I wouldn't refuse to suspend disbelief.

Besides that, some meteorites consist of material of lunar origin.