Wednesday 8 May 2019

008 - Platonium

Artifact: Platonium

Power: Major.

Description: Rare as hen’s teeth, no one is sure where Platonium comes from and they certainly don’t seem to be making any more of it. Neo- and Narco-alchemists have both tried to claim credit but it doesn’t exactly fit either pedigree. There are three known to be in the hands of occult underground collectors, the consensus is that at least one of them is real.

Platonium comes in a misshapen lead bottle about the size of a pill container, the stopper sealed with wax and marked with the seal of the demon Valac from the Lesser Key of Solomon. Inside is a rusty, oily and viscous fluid which spreads easily over any surface and is faintly luminous in pitch darkness. There is never more than a few drops, but a few drops is enough to cover an average sized person or about 20 square feet with a few minutes work.

Platonium cuts things off from the collective unconscious, temporarily making them solid against the ephemeral backdrop of the cosmos. Secret wars have been waged over less.

Effect: Platonium is a statospheric insulator. Anything or anyone coated in it is temporarily beyond the reach of the statosphere and n
o action performed by or with the object effects the collective unconscious. This grants isolation from gutter magick effects and avatar powers, conceals from the sight of the Invisible Clergy and prevents travel to and from otherspaces for some reason. Rituals, adept magick, guns, steel pipes and harsh language all still work just fine both ways.

Depending on their level it stymies avatars who try to interact with something under the effects:

  • 01-40%, their connection to the statosphere is mild enough that touching the object is merely unpleasant.
  • 41-70%, the object is untouchable to the avatar, any attempt to grasp it rendered frictionless and any attempt to apply force rendered motionless.
  • 71-99%, the object is both untouchable and undetectable to the avatar.
If you manage to coat (properly, not just splash it on them) an avatar in Platonium that’s really bad news for them, in addition to being cut off from their powers it counts as taboo. In this case the no touch/no see effects do not apply.

The effects last 33 minutes from cracking the seal, by then the important parts have evaporated into the cosmic substrate.

Platonium is also radioactive enough to make any Geiger counter’s needle dance a merry jig. It’s not 100% certain that you’ll get the big C from rubbing it all over yourself, but the Invisible Clergy have a strong enough hand in the stochastic that I don’t fancy your chances once it wears off.

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