Vanya's Artifact


The most visible power of the Heldannic artifact, The Star of Vanya, is the immense telekinetic force that drives the knights' fleet of skyships. There is, however, more to know about the artifact itself.

The Star of Vanya looks like a foot-wide, four-pointed star made of some clear crystal. Vanya was not the original maker of the artifact, and to this day she still believes it was built by the Old Ones, entities that are as far beyond Immortals as Immortals are to the common mortals of Mystara. She did nevertheless discover its whereabouts and seize it for herself. Later on, when Hattian warriors decided to create their order of knights, she left the artifact at the site of her mortal remains in Davania. She then provided dreams and omens to Heldannic priests about her grave, leading the knights to mount an important expedition to southeastern Davania.

The knights acquired the artifact as they discovered Vanya's grave and began changing their Order around the power of the artifact itself. The artifact provided a crucial military advantage to the Knights in that it enabled them to build fairly cheaply an entire fleet of skyships that only Greater Alphatia could rival. Following the relocation of Greater Alphatia into the Hollow World, the Heldannic Knights have largely remained uncontested masters of Mystara's skies.

What is known to a select few among the Order's upper crust is that the artifact has other powers. The knights have remained unable so far to fully identify or understand them all, much less to use them. One of the verifiable effects is that all living organisms standing within a 30' radius of the Star do not require food, water, air to breathe, or sleep even. Organic life forms don't age in its presence either - for example, if someone were killed and left near the artifact, the body would not decay. Vanya picked up on this effect. She rebuilt her original mortal remains to look as if she were a twenty year old warrior princess. Her body lying near the artifact, it has remained untouched since then, as if she were merely sleeping.

The artifact apparently has a mind of its own, with which neither Vanya nor the knights have managed to communicate. It would seem that telepathic prayers of some sort can be heard, although uttered in a foreign language. Magic was unable to translate the language. Those in its presence, whether mortal or immortal, need to make a Wisdom check after spending a full day within 30' (a score of "1" is an automatic failure). Those who merely succeed the Wisdom Check simply begin to hear the strange prayers. Those who succeed their ability roll by at least 5 points also see some images and understand certain concepts, however, they are unable to copy them down using simple words. Furthermore, these images and concepts seem to fade from one's mind after leaving the artifact, like a wonderful dream that one becomes increasingly unable to recall. When succeeding by 5 points or more, a mortal recipient becomes unwilling to leave and desires to listen to more. While in this state, a mortal will feel the burning desire to defend the artifact against anyone trying to touch it or take it away; fighting and casting spells as if five experience levels (or HD) higher than their current experience level. Mortals and immortals who fail the Wisdom check, suffer unbearable pain from the incomprehensible telepathic prayers. The pain causes blindness, halves all six ability score, adds a 5 point penalty to all saving throws, and prevents spell-casting of any sort. Those in pain feel the need to leave the artifact immediately and never return (the effects cease an hour later).

In fact, the artifact does broadcast telepathic prayers to Immortals and mortals alike. It also acts as a beacon for Old Ones to locate Mystara's dimension (as far-flung as it is from the Old Ones) and assess the spiritual progress of sentient beings dwelling there. The artifact explains various truths about the universe, however, the concepts involved require the perception of dimensions beyond the 5th, which neither mortal nor immortal thought processes can handle. The prayers do elevate one's state
of comprehension temporarily, but it is too soon, even for immortals, to process further use what is taught by the Star.

Vanya knows some of what is going on and a few of the artifact's functions. She suspects that the artifact could reveal more about the Immortal's own spiritual progress to the Old Ones than she truly feels secure about. She believes that the wrong kind of spiritual development (which she has failed to identify) could spark direct retribution from the Old Ones, a thought that sends
chills down her Immortal spine. This is one of the reasons why she entrusted the artifact to mere mortals, following the logic that
mortals are behind Immortals in this regards. She also hopes this would keep the artifact away from other Immortals (none of whom know about Vanya's little secret) until she can find out more about it.

What Vanya does not know is that the artifact is both monitoring the general state of consciousness in the Mystara universe and
nearby planes, and also setting up a crisis situation for either mortals or immortals to deal with. If the situation is successfully addressed, then mortals and immortals go on until the next time the Old Ones feel a test is needed. If the situation is not addressed, the Old Ones may either change this universe to fit their purposes, or cleanse it altogether to start anew.

There are two artifacts - one weighted to promote concepts of Law and the other Chaos ideals. So far, the latter has not manifested itself on Mystara. The Star of Vanya fosters events and new thoughts supporting Law, as can be expected. The Star allowed Vanya to find it and skilfully implanted a suggestion into her mind that she leave it in the hands of her new Heldannic order. At this point, it began to discreetly influence the thinking of the knights to favour Law as much as possible, causing reforms there. It also began to provide Heldannic priests with spells related to the Law, which Vanya could never do, and various other powers such as the telekinetic fields supporting their skyships. The artifact made the Heldannic Order truly formidable. Effectively, the Star is slowly taking Vanya's place, positioning itself as the object of the knights' worship and the true source of their power. A time may come when the knights derive all their power from the artifact and devote their faith to it
entirely rather than Vanya.

The goal of the Star is to take over as much as possible of Vanya's worshipers in order to breed. The artifact can reproduce, which would cause another such Law-oriented artifact to appear somewhere in the universe, seeking yet more of Vanya's followers. Should these artifacts manage to acquire more than two thirds of Vanya's worshipers at any time, her essence, memories, and powers would all be absorbed into the Mother Artifact (Vanya's Star). She and her progeny would then turn on
another immortal and resume their quiet eradication process. Although this is a very slow process at first, taking possibly decades or centuries, it will inevitably accelerate as the two Mother Artifacts breed growing numbers of offspring and start pulling in Immortals even faster.

The Chaos artifact(s) would be starting the process elsewhere, fostering Chaos and becoming the parasites of other immortals. Theoretically, we'd end up with two gigantic blocks of worshipers in the universe, and very few or no Immortals at all. At this point, mortals would be pitched against each other in universe- and planar-spanning conflicts. Should one side gain the upper hand and threaten to win, all mortal population would then be absorbed as well, eradicating the entire universe's sentient population all at once. The Old Ones would then start anew, repopulating the unclaimed Mystaran expanse with other, newer sentient beings.

What can be done? The Immortals need to pool together their thoughts and understand what the artifacts are truly about. So far, the first reaction of Immortals finding new magic is to keep quiet and use it to augment their own power. If they realise soon
enough what is going on, they may be able to destroy the two Mother Artifacts, starting with any offspring. They can disintegrate one artifact by pooling their powers (PP's). This requires more power than any single immortal has, and in the end, there may not be enough of them left to destroy all of the artifacts. Not to mention that the two Mother Artifacts also possess the powers and knowledge of those hapless Immortals who were absorbed, which must also be defeated. More than one of the remaining Immortals may have to sacrifice themselves in the war against these artifacts, which is the key what Old Ones are looking for.

On the humans' side, worshipers of the Immortals must be able to discover where their power is truly coming from. They must be willing to give it up in order to save themselves. The number of offspring a Mother Artifact can maintain depends directly on the number of worshipers it possesses. The Mother Artifact will have to dismiss offspring as its pool of worship dwindles. In so doing, a Mother Artifact would also be forced to release some of the Immortals it absorbed. With no surviving offspring, a Mother Artifact cannot hold any Immortal at all. With no source of worship at all, the Mother Artifact can easily be destroyed with Immortal Magic; mortals could otherwise cause a helpless Mother Artifact to go dormant by taking it into the Hollow World, and encasing it inside a tomb of solid lead. (Better ideas anyone?)

All mortals who have heard the artifact's haunting prayers remain changed people, even though they cannot clearly recall the contents of its holy messages. They sense it is something totally beyond them, and that great events are about to change the universe. Some feel that an extraordinary visitation will soon occur, usually attributing it to their own Immortal Patron (Heldannic priests would think Vanya is about to descend among them). Others are convinced it is the end of the universe and everyone must repent before meeting their ultimate fate. The Star has the ability to call out to these people, wherever they may be, and make them travel back to the Star, should the artifact need their services.

End of the universe in a couple of centuries...it'll make Wrath look like a picnic :)

Umm... yes.

Now, don't jump to conclusions here. First off, not all Old Ones necessarily agree with "Plan A". Perhaps they have a "Plan B",
or at least, some may give a little secret help to whom may deserve it to make sure our favourite setting doesn't go kablooey altogether! :)

I'm picturing this as essentially background stuff for the clerics who discover/get involved with this plotline. It's something to keep in mind and scare those in the know.

I'm not sure I explained this very clearly in my updated description -- what is the final purpose of the Old Ones in all this? Here are my thoughts. The Old Ones want to teach the Immortals something about humility and especially, *self-sacrifice*. In so doing, some of those who deliberately sacrifice themselves to the cause of the Immortals may learn a few valuable things about the Old Ones as a result -- which is fine by the Old Ones, by all means.

For the mortals, Old Ones just want to teach them a lesson of Wisdom. The Old Ones want to get the point across that mortals
should recognise when to walk away from temporal power in order not to forsake their true destiny -- becoming Immortals, or in the eyes of the Old Ones, reaching beyond their normal selves rather than simply taking what is too easily given (the artifact's many powers). The Old Ones want the mortals to acquire the kind of spiritual discernment that makes them perceive what is true and what is not.

The Old Ones certainly don't want to wipe out the Mystaran universe, but they will if BOTH the Immortals and the mortals fail to learn their lessons. The least of the failures is that of the Immortals, because as long as there are mortals, there can be new Immortals, eventually. It's just a question of time, which Old Ones have plenty of. Actually, a premature success on the part of the Immortals remains highly undesirable from the point of view of the Old Ones, because it would not allow enough time for mortals to get the point addressed to them.

Total failure of the mortals is more of a problem, especially if they need to be wiped out in the end. A few surviving Immortals could conceivably create new races to replace the previous ones, but it would not be enough to make up for the overall failure of the Old Ones experiment, and they may ultimately just come over and personally finish off the last Immortals before giving the Mystaran universe a new purpose.