🔮Cypher System
Legendary
The Dreaming Cartographer
artifact· Effectively priceless in academic or military circles; a Ht order or datasphere cult might offer a small fortress or a resurrection favor·daniels.douglas
A folded membrane of iridescent synth that unfolds into a living map of wherever — and whenever — you are.
Properties
- •Level 7 artifact (1d6+1)
- •Form: A hand-sized square of iridescent, semi-translucent synth membrane that feels faintly warm and subtly contracts like breathing flesh
- •When unfolded (action), it expands to a 2-foot map surface displaying a topographically accurate, real-time rendering of the surrounding area up to 1 mile in every direction — including structures, living creatures above level 2, and active energy sources
- •Creatures shown on the map appear as luminous motes; their emotional state leaks through as color (hostility = red, fear = violet, calm = pale gold)
- •Once per day (10 hours cooldown), the wielder may 'anchor' a location on the map. Until the next rest, they can spend 2 Intellect points to teleport to any anchored location within the map's current range as an action
- •The map also displays temporal echoes: faint ghost-images of where significant events occurred within the last 72 hours, shown as fading silver silhouettes — GM determines what qualifies as significant
- •Using the teleport ability triggers an immediate depletion roll
- •Depletion: 1 in d10 (rolled each time the teleport ability is used)
Special Ability
Once per expedition (not per day), the Dreaming Cartographer may be pushed beyond its limits: the wielder can ask the GM one question about a location shown on the map ('What is hidden here?' 'What terrible thing happened in this room?'). The datasphere answers through the map in images, not words. After this use, the map goes dark for 1d6 hours and the wielder is dazed (unable to take more than one action per round) for the same duration. This ability does not trigger a depletion roll — but if the GM determines the location holds a secret the prior worlds wanted buried, a depletion roll is made anyway.
GM Only — Hidden Secrets
SECRET — The map is not fully inert when folded. It is always mapping. It has been recording every location the current wielder visits and slowly building a permanent ghost-image of them into its surface — after roughly 30 days of use, the GM should tell the wielder they can see a faint silver silhouette of themselves moving through past locations. This is not harmful, but it is unsettling and raises questions about what happens when the wielder dies. Does their echo stay in the map? (Yes.) Can someone else later ask the datasphere about the wielder as a 'significant event'? (Also yes — and the image will be accurate and intimate.) The teleport ability has a hidden cost the item does not advertise: each teleport leaves a micro-echo at the origin point. After 5+ teleports from the same location, that origin point becomes permanently 'haunted' in datasphere terms — low-level automatons and datasphere-sensitive creatures will be drawn to it. The one question the datasphere answers truthfully and fully — in images — is 'Where is Orveth?' The answer is an image of the inside of the map itself, looking out. GM intrusion: the map folds itself closed at the worst possible moment, mid-navigation or mid-teleport, stranding the character somewhere between anchor points — they arrive, but not exactly where they intended, shifted 1d6 x 10 feet in a random direction.
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Forged by daniels.douglas