Ironwood Surveyors Lever Spade 916

From:
Lineage 684 of the Gem Crested Karthian of Archaic

    * Equipment Classification: Two-Handed Held Melee Polearm and Heavy Architectural Lever, requiring both hand slots during combat maneuvers.     * Tier and Rarity: Tier 1, Common quality.     * Attunement and Action Economy: Bonds through instantaneous handheld attunement the moment both scaled hands take a two-handed grip on the shaft. The item remains attuned throughout physical transit and combat without counting against the ten-item attunement limit for worn gear. Striking with the lever-spade consumes a full action, including unslinging the six-foot staff from rear retention hooks, executing the thrust or sweep, and recovering to a defensive guard. If deployed as the second combat action of a turn, its total damage output is divided by two. If an opposing combatant targets and hits the shaft with a designated strike exceeding its defensive threshold, the lever-spade is unattuned and disabled, requiring a ten-minute ritual attunement before it can be wielded as an active weapon again.     * Attack and Damage Mechanics: Attack rolls are calculated by rolling a d20 plus the avatar's Tier 1 tier die (1d4) plus the avatar's Strength modifier (+3). The resulting score must strictly exceed the target's total Armor Check to inflict damage. On a successful strike, the tier die result passes through directly to form the damage pool, dealing a base physical damage of 1d10 bludgeoning damage (when striking with the reinforced iron-capped butt or flat spade face) or 1d10 slashing damage (when using the honed lateral spade edges) plus the 1d4 tier die plus the +3 Strength modifier. The damage type of the tier die adopts the damage type of the primary weapon strike.     * Durability and Health Points: Possesses a base resilience rating of 10, granting 33 Item Health Points (23 avatar base maximum health points plus 10 resilience points). If structural damage reduces the polearm to 16 hit points or lower, the shaft splinters and the spade socket loosens, inflicting the broken condition and eliminating its offensive combat capabilities until mended by a woodworker or blacksmith. Total reduction to zero hit points snaps the ironwood core beyond recovery.     * Material Composition and Forging: The foundation of the weapon is a six-and-a-half-foot cylindrical shaft of seasoned black ironwood, harvested from the ancient groves surrounding Rootspire and treated with protective alchemical resins to prevent moisture rot and warping. The shaft is banded at six-inch increments with flush-mounted bronze ferrules, each engraved with precise measurement gradations in Syl-Trace script for measuring architectural dimensions, water depths, and ruin wall thickness. The terminal business end features a heavy, flared spade head forged from heat-treated carbon steel, ground with a reinforced chisel point at the tip and beveled, axe-sharp edges along both flanks. The butt end is capped with a heavy, solid bronze counter-weight shaped like a faceted octagonal prism, designed to balance the broad spade head and serve as an effective bludgeon.     * Archaeological and Tactical Utility: Serves as an indispensable multi-purpose excavation crowbar, vault prybar, and reach weapon. When navigating ancient collapsed complexes beneath Archaic, the hardened steel spade head can be wedged beneath multi-ton fallen stone lintels or sealed crypt doors, utilizing the dense ironwood shaft and the avatar's massive physical leverage to pry open transit corridors that would otherwise halt an expedition. In martial engagements, the exceptional length and mass of the polearm allow the Karthian avatar to keep aggressive feral beasts, swarming cave fauna, and hostile scavengers at a safe distance, executing wide sweeping strikes that stagger oncoming foes or delivering heavy downward cleaves capable of crushing reinforced doors and fortified barricades.

During
the rapid subterranean expansion of the Second Consolidation, the
architectural corps of Lineage 684 frequently pushed past mapped
transit arteries into the drowned silt basins and cyclopean stone
ruins beneath Archaic. In these unstable, waterlogged sectors,
exploration detachments repeatedly found their advance halted by
fallen granite ceiling slabs, jammed floodgates, and calcified mud
dams weighing tens of thousands of pounds. Standard iron crowbars and
forged mining wedges routinely buckled under the immense physical
torque generated by a 365-pound Karthian surveyor, while standard
combat glaives and halberds were ruined when forced into heavy prying
service. Furthermore, digging through wet clay and mineral silt while
fending off subterranean vermin forced teams to carry cumbersome tool
bundles that slowed reconnaissance.

To resolve these logistical bottlenecks, Lineage 684 secured harvested timber allotments from the alchemically stabilized groves surrounding Rootspire, partnering with the heavy tool-foundries of Syl-Kar to engineer Batch 916. The design unified an architectural measuring rod, a heavy-duty ditching spade, a multi-ton structural lever, and an elongated defensive polearm into a single seamless implement. The seasoned black ironwood core absorbed extreme flex without taking a permanent bend, while the calibrated bronze rings allowed epigraphers to survey room geometry and water depths on the fly. In the catastrophic silt-breach of Sluice Vault 14, an isolated survey squad famously used their 916 lever-spades to wedge open an eighty-ton hydraulic sluice gate, levering a three-foot drainage gap that saved thirty miners from drowning while using the sweeping edges of the spade heads to slaughter a pursuing pack of blind mire-wolves.

• Specific Slot:
  • Two-Handed Held Slot (occupies both primary hand and off-hand slots during combat, prying, and excavation; stows across twin bronze retention hooks on a dorsal harness across the avatar’s back when not held).
• Tier One Stats:
  • Equipment Classification: Two-Handed Held Melee Polearm and Heavy Architectural Lever.
  • Tier and Rarity: Tier 1, Common Quality.
  • Base Resilience: 10 resilience points.
  • Item Health Points: 33 Item HP (Avatar base maximum HP of 23 plus 10 resilience points). Reaching 16 HP or lower inflicts the broken condition (the shaft splinters and the socket loosens, negating all offensive combat and prying traits until repaired by a woodworker or blacksmith); destroyed completely into kindling and scrap metal at 0 HP.
  • Attunement Dynamics: Instantaneous handheld attunement upon establishing a two-handed grip on the black ironwood shaft; does not consume an attunement slot against the avatar’s ten-item attunement ceiling. If targeted and disarmed in combat, the weapon powers down immediately, requiring a 10-minute uninterrupted ritual attunement before it can be wielded in combat again.
  • Action Economy: Consumes 1 complete combat action (unslinging from dorsal retention hooks, executing a thrust or sweep, and recovering to a balanced defensive guard).
  • Multi-Attack Diminishing Returns: If wielded as a second combat action within the same 6-second turn, total damage output (base dice, tier die, and strength bonus) is reduced to one-half.
  • Reach and Profile: Melee Reach Weapon (allows melee engagement at standard 5-foot spacing and extended 10-foot reach across chasms or over barricades).
  • Attack Roll Calculation: 1d20 + 1d4 (Tier 1 Tier Die) + 3 (Strength Modifier) + Melee Weapon Proficiency. The total sum must strictly exceed the target’s Armor Check to hit. A natural 1 triggers an automatic miss and a Failure card draw; a natural 20 triggers a critical hit and a Crit card draw.
  • Damage Output: 1d10 bludgeoning damage (striking with the faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight or flat spade face) OR 1d10 slashing damage (striking with the honed lateral axe-edges) + 1d4 (Tier Die matching the strike’s chosen damage type) + 3 (Strength Modifier).
  • Physical Mass: 10.5 lbs.
• Skills Gained While Openly Worn or Held:
  • +1 Temporary Skill Point to Structural Excavation & Architectural Prying (enhances checks to force open jammed stone vault doors, dislodge fallen ceiling lintels, and calculate mechanical fulcrum advantages).
  • +1 Temporary Skill Point to Defensive Polearm Guard & Space Denial (improves balance and defensive positioning when keeping swarming beasts, vermin, and multiple melee attackers at a distance).
• Multiple Passives Magic:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: The black ironwood shaft and bronze socket absorb and redistribute mechanical stress along geomantic ley-lines. The shaft cannot splinter, warp, or suffer structural failure when used as a prybar under mechanical loads up to 15,000 pounds, transferring the wielder’s full physical mass into the lever action without rebounding shock.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: The bronze measurement ferrules ringed along the shaft interface directly with the avatar’s Mind’s Eye. Touching the shaft to walls, ceiling arches, or standing water instantly projects exact architectural metrics—including wall thickness, structural load distribution, water depth, and cavity voids behind plaster—directly into the surveyor’s visual telemetry.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: The carbon-steel spade head maintains an alchemical micro-vibration that prevents mud, sticky clay, quick-lime, and blood from adhering to the metal, ensuring every excavation thrust or cutting sweep glides cleanly through media without binding.
• Multiple Activatable Magics:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave (Tectonic Pry): The wielder wedges the chisel point of the spade beneath a fallen stone slab, sealed door, or the feet of an opponent and expends 1 action. The head discharges a localized kinetic pulse, tripling the wielder’s effective lifting capacity to hoist up to 20,000 pounds for 1 round, or forcing an adjacent Large or smaller creature to make a physical resilience check or be thrown 10 feet backward and knocked prone. Possesses 2 charges per day; regains all expended charges daily at dawn.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep: The wielder slams the faceted bronze counter-weight into the stone floor and sweeps the spade head in a wide arc, expending 1 action. A directional seismic wave travels outward in a 15-foot cone, breaking up loose flagstones, staggering oncoming foes (forcing a balance check or suffering the staggered condition for 1 round), and turning the affected ground into difficult terrain. Possesses 2 charges per day; regains all expended charges daily at dawn.

Tags: Two-Handed Polearm, Black Ironwood Shaft, Rootspire Forestry, Architectural Lever, Syl-Trace Gradations, Lineage 684, Second Consolidation, Faceted Bronze Counterweight, Carbon Steel Spade Head, Earth-Shifting Heave, Instant Handheld Attunement, Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion, Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration, Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish, Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep, Sluice Vault 14, Subterranean Excavation, Reach Weapon, Flared Chisel Point, Bronze Measurement Ferrules, Heavy Vault Prybar, Space Denial Guard

Acquisition,
Commerce, and Valuation of the Ironwood Surveyor's Lever-Spade 916

• Methods of Obtaining the Item:
  • Excavation of Second Consolidation Silt Vaults and Collapsed Drainage Corridors:
    • Avatars exploring the flooded silt basins, collapsed hydraulic shafts, and cyclopean ruins beneath Archaic—such as the breached drainage locks of Sluice Vault 14—can discover intact Model 916 lever-spades inside sealed bronze-banded tool chests, emergency maintenance lockers, or pinned beneath calcified fallen masonry where former survey crews were overrun.
    • Securing a functional specimen requires clearing petrified mud and lime scale with stone-eating solvents, checking the black ironwood core for stress splinters, and utilizing the Mind’s Eye to ensure the bronze measurement ferrules and the weld-joint of the carbon-steel spade head retain their full structural resilience without hidden shear fatigue.
  • Municipal Requisition and Department of Public Works Logistics:
    • Certified architectural surveyors, deep-aqueduct repair foremen, and contracted expeditionary scouts under charter with Syl-Kar’s Department of Public Works or the Guild of Masons, Stonecutters, and Antiquarians can requisition a 916 lever-spade prior to subterranean deployment.
    • The avatar presents an authorized municipal exploration charter and locks an equipment surety bond through their personal World Bank digital ledger account, drawing the polearm directly from central stores with newly honed lateral cutting edges and an oiled shaft.
  • Lineage Workshop Inheritance and Apprenticeship Consecration:
    • Within Lineage 684 and affiliated civil engineering clans, the lever-spade is conferred as a masterwork milestone implement from an elder surveyor-mechanic to an apprentice upon their first successful excavation of a sealed cyclopean ruin or vault barrier.
    • The transfer is recorded upon the clan’s logistical rolls and stamped into the bronze counter-weight, transferring title without a monetary exchange while legally binding the recipient to maintain the spade bevels and oil the black ironwood shaft after each deployment.
  • Artisanal Fabrication and Transmutation Forging:
    • An avatar possessing trained competencies in woodworking, weaponsmithing, and geomantic epigraphy can construct the implement at an outfitter’s forge.
    • Assembly requires turning and oil-curing a six-and-a-half-foot cylindrical billet of seasoned black ironwood harvested from the managed groves around Rootspire, casting and sweating the flush-mounted bronze Syl-Trace measurement ferrules, forging the flared carbon-steel spade head with dual axe-ground edges, casting the faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight butt, and ritually sacrificing a mundane Tier 1 two-handed polearm or bludgeon alongside a charged Tier 1 magic crystal to anchor the Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion and Earth-Shifting Heave matrices.
  • Field Salvage and Avatar De-Manifestation:
    • When a hostile cavern marauder, rogue municipal engineer, or opposing Karthian avatar wielding the lever-spade reaches zero health points in combat, their physical vessel dissolves into ambient mana motes, dropping all equipped weapons, armor, and attuned gear onto the ground.
    • Scavengers can claim the polearm immediately. If recovered from non-avatar skeletal remains or drowned laborers in deep silt sumps, the shaft must be scrubbed of grease and checked for rot before combat deployment.

• Types of Commercial Shops, Transaction Procedures, and Operational Costs:
  • Guild Logistics Depots and Municipal Arsenals:
    • Storefront Character and Location:
      • Positioned within the fortified administrative compounds of the Guild of Masons and Antiquarians in central Syl-Kar, or at major Department of Public Works waystations controlling access to the Lower Aqueduct and Archaic transit tubes.
      • Characterized by high granite barrel-vaults, vertical tool-racks storing polearms and prybars under felt wraps, appraisal desks manned by guild logistics factors, and testing stations featuring hydraulic stress-jaws.
    • Purchasing Mechanics and Discounts:
      • Requisitions are restricted to enfranchised guild members, municipal engineers, and chartered exploration companies.
      • Enfranchised guild members receive an institutional discount equal to 10% multiplied by their tier level (a 10% discount for Tier 1 personnel).
      • Transactions are settled via automated ledger deductions from the buyer’s World Bank account to the municipal depot treasury, exempt from civilian municipal sales taxes when intended for public infrastructure or chartered survey duty.
    • Purchasing Price:
      • Standard civilian/contractor price is fixed at 175 silver coins (17.5 gold coins).
      • For an enfranchised Tier 1 guild surveyor, the price is reduced to 157 silver and 5 bronze coins (15 gold, 7 silver, 5 bronze coins).
    • Selling Mechanics and Payout:
      • Guild factors inspect the spade socket under stress, verify the legibility of the Syl-Trace measurement ferrules, and check municipal registries to confirm the tool was not reported stolen from public works lockers.
      • An intact lever-spade yields a direct ledger credit of 105 to 115 silver coins. Units reduced to the broken condition (16 Item HP or lower) are bought for 25 to 30 silver coins to reclaim the carbon steel head and bronze counter-weight.
  • Heavy Tool-Smiths and Polearm Ateliers:
    • Storefront Character and Location:
      • Located in the heavy forge districts of upper Syl-Kar, the terrace workshops bordering the Iron Sump, or the tool-making terraces of Stonefall.
      • Open-fronted workshops ringing with trip-hammers, featuring timber-steaming troughs, lathe turnings of black ironwood, and display racks of quarry bars, heavy picks, and architectural polearms.
    • Purchasing Mechanics and Taxes:
      • The smith fits the six-and-a-half-foot shaft to the buyer’s reach, checking balance points against scaled palms.
      • Purchases are settled in physical coinage or authorized World Bank bank-drafts, subject to the standard 3% municipal sales tax.
    • Purchasing Price:
      • A custom-finished, shop-tested lever-spade sells for 165 to 195 silver coins (16.5 to 19.5 gold coins), plus the 3% municipal sales tax (an additional 5 to 6 silver coins).
    • Selling Mechanics and Payout:
      • The bladesmith examines the steel socket for cracks, tests the alignment of the chisel point, and sights down the ironwood shaft to ensure it has not taken a permanent warp.
      • Applying standard commercial retail margins, the smith deducts 10% multiplied by the seller’s tier level.
      • An intact implement yields a cash payout of 80 to 95 silver coins. If the shaft is splintered or the socket loose, the workshop offers 18 to 22 silver coins for the salvageable raw metal fittings.
  • Frontier Waystations and River Caravan Trading Posts:
    • Storefront Character and Location:
      • Positioned at major overland expeditionary hubs, such as the fortified roadhouse at Wayrest, the barge wharves of Gladeport, or timber outposts bordering the Rootspire forest perimeter.
      • Rugged, crowded general stores catering to long-range prospectors, heavy-timber haulers, and canal pioneers operating beyond municipal maintenance grids.
    • Purchasing Mechanics and Tariffs:
      • Multi-purpose implements combining heavy-tonnage prying capacity with martial reach are highly sought after by wilderness pioneers; transporting long black-ironwood shafts across regional roads incurs significant shipping costs.
      • Goods crossing provincial borders are subject to a mandatory 5% regional security tariff collected by local road-wardens and added directly to the purchase total.
      • Merchants accept mixed regional scrip, trade ingots, or standard coin, applying a 1% currency conversion fee on uncertified monies.
    • Purchasing Price:
      • Frontier retail prices range from 220 to 260 silver coins (22 to 26 gold coins), plus the 5% border tariff (11 to 13 silver coins).
    • Selling Mechanics and Payout:
      • Frontier merchants maintain limited physical specie and prioritize trade barter in rations, grain sacks, and ammunition.
      • Selling a lever-spade yields 70 to 85 silver coins in trade barter or cash. However, if a deep-quarry syndicate or canal-dredging company is actively outfitting at the post, the factor will pay up to 110 silver coins for immediate resale.
  • Clandestine Subterranean Scavenger Dens and Illicit Bazaars:
    • Storefront Character and Location:
      • Tucked away inside unpoliced transit corridors of the Third Burrow, drainage flues beneath the ore-crushers, or dry cavern sumps near Stonefall.
      • Makeshift stalls constructed from rotting mine timbers and rusted iron plates, lit by guttering tallow dips and operated by unlicensed scrap-diggers, deserters, and black-market fences.
    • Purchasing Mechanics and Anonymity:
      • Sales are conducted entirely off-ledger in physical specie, unrefined ore nuggets, or untraceable barter chits.
      • No municipal records or sales taxes exist, but buyers receive no guarantees regarding micro-fractures in the ironwood shaft or compromised geomantic matrices.
    • Purchasing Price:
      • Prices vary widely based on immediate circumstances. If a scavenger needs to liquidate plunder rapidly to evade a municipal watch sweep, the lever-spade can be bought for 95 to 125 silver coins.
      • If an outlaw crew or tunnel raider requires a heavy vault-breaching lever capable of cracking bank gates and forcing prison grates, the fence will inflate the price to 230 to 290 silver coins.
    • Selling Mechanics and Payout:
      • Fences purchase the weapon with no questions asked regarding filed-off lineage cartouches or ground-away public works serial marks.
      • Sellers receive untraced cash payouts typically ranging from 40 to 55 silver coins, depending on the fence’s immediate connections to underground mining gangs or vault-breakers.

Tactical
Environmental Roleplay: Defensive and Offensive Applications of the
Ironwood Surveyor's Lever-Spade 916

• Subterranean Vaults, Silt Adits, and Catacombs beneath Archaic and Syl-Kar:
  • Defensive Applications:
    • In cramped mining shafts and unmapped catacomb adits, the six-and-a-half-foot reach allows the Karthian avatar to establish a formidable space-denial perimeter. The wielder plants the faceted bronze counter-weight into the floor and presents the flared chisel tip forward, holding off swarming cave vermin, blind mire-wolves, and feral troglobites outside their natural lunging range.
    • When exploring seismic fault lines or navigating unstable hydraulic drainage tubes, sudden ceiling shifts can threaten total collapse. Leveraging Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion, the avatar jams the carbon-steel head beneath cracking granite lintels or buckled timber shoring; the black ironwood absorbs up to 15,000 pounds of descending deadweight without splintering, granting expedition members time to scramble clear.
    • Confronted by charging subterranean beasts in narrow corridors, the wielder executes Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep, slamming the octagonal bronze butt into the stone floor to rupture the flagstones in a 15-foot cone, breaking the charge and turning the approach into impassable jagged rubble.
  • Offensive Applications:
    • The dual-damage profile allows the scholar to adapt instantly to subterranean anatomies: sweeping lateral axe-edges slice through soft, unarmored burrowing horrors, while heavy descending overhead strikes with the flat spade face or bronze counter-weight deliver 1d10 bludgeoning force that pulverizes mineralized crustacean carapaces and petrified shale armor.
    • To penetrate sealed crypts or collapsed transit bulkheads, the avatar wedges the chisel point into masonry joints and activates Earth-Shifting Heave. The localized kinetic pulse heaves multi-ton stone slabs aside or rips ancient bronze vault doors entirely off their corroded pivots.
    • Thanks to Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish, repeated strikes through sticky subterranean marl, calcified river bone, and wet mud never foul the cutting edges, allowing the surveyor to alternate seamlessly between trenching excavation and combat cleaves without wiping the blade.
• Mist-Veil Mountains, Scree Slopes, and Glacial Chasms of the Boreal Reach:
  • Defensive Applications:
    • Navigating narrow, crumbling scree ledges along mountain switchbacks requires continuous physical balance. The avatar utilizes the six-and-a-half-foot ironwood shaft as a third leg and heavy traverse staff, driving the chisel point into fractured granite bedrock to arrest slips when shale gives way under their 365-pound mass.
    • When diving crag-drakes, harpies, or alpine raptors stoop from overhead mists, the polearm’s reach keeps aerial talons away from the avatar’s vulnerable neck plates, using wide sweeps of the bronze butt to deflect incoming dive paths.
    • In deep glacial fissures, the wielder bridges narrow crevasse gaps with the black ironwood shaft, creating an unbending handrail or strut that safely supports the crossing of heavily laden pack-beasts and expedition members.
  • Offensive Applications:
    • Exploiting high-ground leverage on switchbacks, the wielder delivers sweeping lateral cleaves with the axe-ground flanks, striking descending alpine marauders before they can close within sword distance and pitching them off cliff edges.
    • Against entrenched enemies sheltered beneath hanging ice cornices or balancing rock slabs, the surveyor drives the chisel head into mountain fissures and unleashes Earth-Shifting Heave, dislodging thousands of pounds of scree and ice to sweep enemy encampments down the mountainside.
    • Confronted by heavy frost-trolls or mountain drakes on ice shelves, the avatar triggers Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep, splintering the frozen shelf into floating plates and sending heavy adversaries tumbling into glacial chasms.
• Primordial Rootwood Forests and Canopy Settlements:
  • Defensive Applications:
    • In dense arboreal jungles, predatory strangler-vines, canopy constrictors, and giant wood-panthers stalk explorers from overhead branches. The extended length of the lever-spade allows the avatar to parry striking coils and probe thick leaf canopies, maintaining a safe buffer zone without exposing their limbs to venomous thorns.
    • When traversing rotted suspension bridges or decaying boardwalks between ancient ironwood trunks, the wielder lays the polearm flat across failing planks, distributing their physical weight across sound boughs.
    • The Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration allows the avatar to tap rotted canopy limbs with the bronze measurement ferrules, instantly transmitting the branch’s internal density and load-bearing limits to their Mind’s Eye to prevent fatal structural collapses.
  • Offensive Applications:
    • The axe-beveled lateral edges of the carbon-steel spade head act as a heavy brush-hook and felling axe, chopping through dense, iron-hard roots, briar thickets, and wood-plated forest horrors that would notch ordinary swords.
    • When assaulting fortified tree platforms or palisades built into living root networks, the avatar wedges the chisel point beneath the anchor roots and activates Earth-Shifting Heave, uprooting foundational trees and collapsing defensive catwalks.
    • Against swarming canopy raiders, the wielder sweeps the six-and-a-half-foot staff in wide horizontal arcs, staggering multiple lightly armored combatants and driving them off elevated platforms.
• Sunken Glades, Silt Basins, and Delta Swamps:
  • Defensive Applications:
    • Wading through chest-deep mangrove channels and brackish peat bogs presents constant drowning and quick-mud hazards. The avatar uses the calibrated bronze ferrules to sound the bottom, measuring water depth, silt density, and hidden drop-offs in real time through the Mind’s Eye.
    • When submerged predators—such as giant gar, snapping basilisks, and swamp leeches—strike from murky delta water, the wielder plants the bronze counter-weight into the riverbed to brace against current flow, using the flared spade tip to fend off underwater lunges before the beasts can bite scaled flesh.
    • The alchemically treated Rootwood ironwood core and carbon-steel head are completely impervious to the acidic tannins and sulfurous rot of the Glade Coast, preventing the haft from swelling, weakening, or softening during prolonged marsh immersion.
  • Offensive Applications:
    • In deep delta mud where movement is severely restricted, the Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish ensures the flared blade slices effortlessly through thick clay and waterlogged weeds, delivering clean, unhindered slashing attacks against aquatic predators.
    • When engaging river-pirate pirogues or raider rafts along narrow mangrove flues, the surveyor drives the chisel point into the hulls of enemy skiffs and leverages their 365-pound mass over the long ironwood shaft, capsizing the vessels or punching drainage holes through their floor timbers.
    • To disrupt enemy amphibious ambushes, the avatar strikes the waterbed with Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep, transmitting a concussive hydraulic shockwave through the water that stuns nearby swarms and exposes camouflaged mud-burrowers.
• Urban Industrial Districts, Stone Rail Corridors, and Vault Bastions of Syl-Kar:
  • Defensive Applications:
    • Within the cramped granite corridors, tenement halls, and steam-tram terminals of Syl-Kar, the lever-spade acts as an immovable barricade. The avatar anchors the faceted bronze counterweight against a doorframe, using the implement as a manual door-bar capable of holding back rioting crowds, charging security automatons, or escaping pressurized steam surges.
    • When heavy freight trams derail or industrial boiler supports collapse, the surveyor uses the lever function to wedge open crushed passenger doors or hoist fallen iron machinery off pinned civilian workers.
    • In close-quarters defensive skirmishes against armed street gangs, the avatar uses the non-lethal flat of the spade and the blunt bronze butt to parry weapon blows, trip advancing fighters, and shove assailants backward without drawing municipal murder charges.
  • Offensive Applications:
    • Against heavily armored municipal enforcers, clockwork sentries, or barricaded strike-breakers, the avatar utilizes the leverage of the long shaft to breach heavy oak doors and iron security gates, engaging Earth-Shifting Heave to blast locked barriers off their hinges.
    • When confronting armored formations holding a cobblestone avenue, the wielder slams the bronze butt into the street to trigger Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep, shattering the paved thoroughfare, rupturing underlying steam conduits, and knocking riot formations prone.
    • The long reach and heavy mass allow the surveyor to outreach short-bladed industrial combatants, sweeping past shields to strike exposed joints with the honed lateral edges or crushing helmet plates with the octagonal counter-weight.

Perception
of Activation:

• User’s Perspective:
  • Somatic and Tactile Sensations: The moment both scaled hands establish a firm two-handed grip along the cylindrical black ironwood shaft, instantaneous handheld attunement takes hold. A deep, anchoring weight drops through the avatar’s limbs, rooting the center of gravity downward into the pelvic girdle, thighs, and tail. The six-and-a-half-foot polearm ceases to feel like a separate wooden tool and becomes a seamless mechanical extension of the skeletal frame. The faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight rests as an effortless counter-pivot in the lower palm, eliminating forward tip-heaviness and turning the broad carbon-steel spade into an agile, balanced lever.
  • Auditory and Vibrational Sensations: A low, bone-deep resonance hums upward through the grain of the wood—an acoustic pitch reminiscent of a heavy bronze bell chiming deep within a stone quarry. As the bond locks, each of the bronze measurement ferrules gives off a faint, sequential harmonic ping, like metal rings sliding into calibrated locking detents.
  • Olfactory and Gustatory Sensations: The snout fills with the rich, dry scent of seasoned ironwood and linseed oil, backed by the sharp, bitter tang of alchemical waterproofing resins and the cold, metallic ozone of heat-treated carbon steel. An earthy, mineral dryness coats the palate, resembling the taste of limestone dust after a rock-burst.
  • Extra-Sensory Perception — Epigraphic Cadastral Telemetry: Through the Mind’s Eye, touching the shaft or spade head to any solid surface projects an immediate architectural overlay across the surveyor’s vision. Wall thicknesses, rock density gradients, subterranean void pockets, and hydraulic load vectors appear as glowing amber schematics in Syl-Trace notation. Tapping standing water projects exact depth soundings and sediment layers directly into the surveyor’s spatial awareness.
  • Extra-Sensory Perception — Tectonic Strain Telemetry: The wielder intuitively senses the structural threshold of the shaft and head. Telemetry confirms a full pool of 33 out of 33 Item Health Points, locks base resilience at 10, and actively displays mechanical stress curves in real time. When prying against fallen lintels or vault bulkheads, the Mind’s Eye projects exact mechanical leverage ratios, reassuring the wielder that loads up to 15,000 pounds will disperse harmlessly along geomantic vectors without splintering the ironwood core.
  • Extra-Sensory Perception — Hydrophobic Repulsion Monitoring: A faint tactile hum informs the wielder that the Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish is energized. The avatar perceives a microscopic, high-frequency kinetic boundary layer across the carbon-steel bevels, confirming that sticky marsh mud, wet clay, calcified river marl, and viscous fluids will slide off without adhering.
  • Extra-Sensory Perception — Kinetic Reservoir Monitoring: The wielder perceives the tool’s primed activatable matrices: 2 charges of Earth-Shifting Heave pulsing within the spade head like compressed subterranean fault lines, and 2 charges of Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep resting within the faceted bronze butt as coiled, explosive kinetic springs.

• Observer’s Perspective:
  • Visual Manifestations: As the wielder closes their grip around the shaft, the flush-mounted bronze ferrules flare with a warm, amber-bronze glow. Fine, luminous geometric lines trace outward from the metal bands, traveling through the black ironwood grain to bathe the flared spade head in a muted, shimmering aura. Droplets of water, loose dust, and wet grit on the blade face skitter away and fall clear, repelled by the blade’s micro-vibrations.
  • Auditory Manifestations: Bystanders hear a muffled, subterranean rumble—like a heavy stone slab sliding into an oiled recess—followed by a clean, ringing tone that emanates from the faceted bronze pommel and dissipates into the floor.
  • Kinetic and Atmospheric Shifts: A subtle downward pressure rolls outward across a five-foot radius around the wielder. Fine pebbles and loose dust on the flagstones settle and align slightly along the room’s seismic axes, while the wielder’s stance visibly locks into an immovable, anchored posture.

• Positives of Activation:
  • Instantaneous Bond: Establishes instantaneous handheld attunement upon taking a two-handed grip, demanding no one-minute meditation and consuming none of the avatar’s ten-item worn attunement limit.
  • Real-Time Architectural Telemetry: Grants immediate sensory feedback via the Mind’s Eye, revealing concealed masonry cavities, wall thicknesses, fault lines, and water depths without destructive testing.
  • Immense Structural Leverage: The Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion absorbs up to 15,000 pounds of mechanical shear, allowing the avatar to heave multi-ton boulders, collapsed lintels, and vault doors that would snap ordinary steel crowbars.
  • Non-Fouling Blade Surface: The hydrophobic micro-vibration prevents clay, silt, and viscera from sticking to the spade head, maintaining pristine cutting and trenching efficiency in dense mud.
  • Tactical Reach and Area Denial: Provides a ten-foot engagement radius, enabling the surveyor to keep swarming beasts, feral vermin, and multiple melee skirmishers at a controlled, defensive distance.
  • Adaptive Damage Profiles: Delivers heavy 1d10 bludgeoning force with the faceted bronze butt or flat spade face against armored carapaces, or 1d10 slashing cleaves with the lateral axe-edges against unarmored targets.

• Negatives of Activation:
  • Two-Handed Operational Demand: Monopolizes both hand slots during combat and prying maneuvers, preventing the simultaneous use of shields, hand torches, survey slates, or secondary weapons.
  • Consecutive Attack Diminishing Returns: If deployed for a second combat action within the same six-second turn, the total damage output (base dice, tier die, and strength bonus) is halved due to the recovery inertia of a six-and-a-half-foot polearm.
  • Disarm Deactivation Vulnerability: If targeted and knocked from the wielder’s grip, the implement powers down instantly; its geomantic matrices and mechanical assists remain disabled until a ten-minute ritual recalibration is performed.
  • Confined Space Penalties: The six-and-a-half-foot rigid shaft is unwieldy in low-clearance crawlways, narrow chimney flues, and cramped vertical transit shafts, restricting sweeping arcs.
  • Inertial Muscle Fatigue: At 10.5 pounds, sustaining continuous heavy sweeping strikes and high-tonnage levering generates notable muscular and tail fatigue over prolonged engagements.

Crafting
Recipe: Ironwood Surveyor's Lever-Spade 916

• Materials Needed:
  • Rootspire Seasoned Black Ironwood Billet: A seven-foot, straight-grained cylindrical billet of black ironwood harvested from the alchemically tended groves around Rootspire, seasoned across four subterranean cycles to ensure zero internal moisture or warp under extreme lever torque.
  • High-Carbon Forging Steel Stock: Four pounds of refined carbon tool steel for forging the flared spade blade, integrated mounting socket, and chisel-ground puncturing beak.
  • Cast Bronze Alloy Stock: Four pounds of high-copper bronze (85% copper, 15% tin) utilized to cast the faceted octagonal counter-weight pommel and the sequence of flush measurement ferrules.
  • Alchemical Preservative Resins & Linseed Oil: Eight ounces of boiled pine-resin mastic, pulverized bone flux, and mineral oil to vacuum-impregnate the ironwood grain and seal it against acidic swamp tannins, sewer slime, and moisture rot.
  • Bronze Retention Pins & Rivets: Three heavy-gauge bronze cross-pins and an internal expansion wedge to mechanically lock the head and counter-weight pommel to the tenons of the wooden shaft.
  • Sacrificial Polearm or Heavy Bludgeon (Component Ingredient): One mundane Tier 1 two-handed weapon (such as a spear, quarterstaff, billhook, or heavy club), ritually dissolved in the transmutation trough to transfer its baseline physical profile (1d10 damage base and 10 resilience) into the steel head and bronze pommel.
  • Tier 1 Magic Crystal Catalyst: One intact, charged magic crystal of the first circle (the diameter and mass of a silver coin) to anchor the Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion, Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration, Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish, Earth-Shifting Heave, and Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep matrices.
• Tools Required:
  • Heavy Forge, Anvil, and Trip-Hammer Tackle: Charcoal hearth, forging tongs, hot chisels, swage blocks, power trip-hammer or heavy sledges, and an oil-quenching trough for hardening high-carbon steel.
  • Long-Bed Wood Lathe and Woodworking Kit: Pole-lathe or treadle lathe capable of turning a seven-foot shaft, drawknives, spokeshaves, mortise gouges, scrapers, and a padded carpenter’s bench vise.
  • Bronze Foundry Tackle: Refractory graphite crucible, sand-casting flasks, sprue cutters, and jeweler’s files for dressing cast bronze fittings.
  • Lapidary Wet-Grindstone and Honing Kit: Foot-powered corundum wet-wheel, fine slate oilstones, pumice blocks, and brass layout dividers.
  • Epigraphic Graver and Syl-Trace Layout Stylus: Hardened tool-steel graver and scribing compass calibrated for micro-engraving measurement gradations and geomantic runic channels.
  • Transmutation and Quenching Basin: A shallow granite trough filled with mineralized brine for mana channeling and sacrificial dissolution.
• Skill Requirements:
  • Blacksmithing and Tool Forging: Minimum of 4 trained skill points to hot-forge the flared carbon-steel spade head, form the seamless seamless tapered socket, draw the reinforced chisel point, and grind dual axe-sharp lateral bevels.
  • Woodcraft and Lathe Turning: Minimum of 3 trained skill points to turn the six-and-a-half-foot black ironwood shaft to an exact uniform diameter, cut stepped ferrule recesses without weakening the core, and inlet the mounting tenons.
  • Bronze Casting and Finishing: Minimum of 3 trained skill points to cast the faceted octagonal prism counter-weight and sweat-fit the flush bronze measurement ferrules.
  • Syl-Rune Epigraphy and Cadastral Alignment: Minimum of 3 trained skill points to engrave the Syl-Trace measurement gradations at exact six-inch intervals and seat the magic crystal catalyst.
  • Mind’s Eye Diagnostic Proficiency: Capability to project internal stress vectors during fabrication, verifying the implement achieves 10 base resilience, an unyielding 15,000-pound fulcrum rating, and 33 Item Health Points.
• Crafting Steps:
  • Shaft Turning, Stepped Profiling, and Resin Curing:
    • Mount the seven-foot black ironwood billet onto the long-bed lathe. Turn the wood down to a uniform, finished length of six and a half feet with a comfortable two-inch gripping diameter.
    • Turn shallow, flush-mount seating grooves into the wood at exact six-inch intervals along the length of the shaft to receive the bronze measurement ferrules.
    • Cut a tapered three-inch tenon at the working end to seat inside the spade socket, and a stepped cylindrical tenon at the base for the octagonal bronze counter-weight.
    • Soak the turned shaft in a heated trough of alchemical resin and boiled linseed oil for twenty-four hours under mild pressure, sealing the internal cellular structure against rot and subterranean humidity.
  • Casting and Finishing the Bronze Fittings:
    • Charge the crucible with bronze stock, melting the alloy over hardwood charcoal.
    • Pour the molten bronze into a two-part sand mold sculpted in the form of a heavy, faceted octagonal prism counter-weight, cored through its center to receive the rear shaft tenon.
    • Cast thirteen thin bronze measurement rings (ferrules) sized to fit the pre-cut seating grooves along the shaft.
    • Allow the castings to cool in sand, clean the flashing with files, and polish the outer surfaces to a bright, low-friction finish.
  • Hot-Forging the Carbon-Steel Spade Head and Socket:
    • Heat the carbon steel stock to a bright cherry-red in the hearth.
    • Using the horn of the anvil and the trip-hammer, draw out the forward blade into a wide, flared spade face measuring eight inches wide by ten inches long.
    • Forge a reinforced, thickened diamond-profile chisel point at the tip for punching into stone cracks and mineralized marl.
    • Draw out the base of the blade into a seamless, tapered tubular socket designed to sleeve over the ironwood shaft’s forward tenon.
    • Grind axe-sharp, beveled cutting edges along both lateral flanks of the spade head.
  • Differential Hardening, Tempering, and Hydrophobic Micro-Etching:
    • Reheat the forged spade head to critical temperature, differentially quenching the chisel tip and lateral cutting edges in oil while leaving the socket ductile to withstand impact vibration.
    • Temper the steel to a dark straw hue, establishing spring-steel toughness throughout the spade face.
    • Mount the head on the water-cooled grindstone; dress the lateral bevels to a razor edge and hollow-grind the chisel point.
    • Apply an acid-resist wash and etch microscopic kinetic-dispersion channels across both faces of the blade to establish the Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish, ensuring wet clay, mud, and viscous fluids will not stick to the metal.
  • Epigraphic Scribing and Crystal Catalyst Integration:
    • Clamp the cast bronze ferrules onto the engraving bench. Using the hardened steel graver, scribe exact measurement gradations in Syl-Trace script across every ring at six-inch increments.
    • Inscribe tectonic load-bearing runes along the exterior of the forged steel socket and around the facets of the bronze counter-weight.
    • Hollow a coin-sized recess into the forward tenon of the black ironwood shaft directly beneath the socket collar.
    • Coat the recess in pine-pitch mastic and firmly seat the charged Tier 1 magic crystal into the pocket, connecting its energetic poles to the steel head and bronze socket.
  • Sacrificial Transmutation and Structural Transference:
    • Submerge the sacrificial Tier 1 polearm or heavy bludgeon into the granite transmutation basin alongside the newly forged spade head and bronze counterweight.
    • Channel mana through the Mind’s Eye to initiate the dissolution ritual, dissolving the sacrificial weapon’s physical matrix to impart its 1d10 damage baseline, 10 base resilience, and structural integrity into the lever-spade assembly.
    • Maintain the ritual flow until the bronze ferrules and steel socket absorb the released mana, glowing with a soft, uniform amber light.
  • Shaft Assembly, Ferrule Sweating, and Mechanical Pinning:
    • Slide the thirteen bronze measurement ferrules over the ironwood shaft, gently heating each ring so that it expands, seats into its assigned groove, and shrinks flush with the wood upon cooling.
    • Coat the forward tenon and interior socket of the spade head with warm mastic; drive the head home over the wood until it seats tightly against the shoulder.
    • Drill two transverse holes through the steel socket and the ironwood tenon; drive bronze retention pins through the assembly and peen both ends flush.
    • Fit the faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight over the rear tenon, bed it in mastic, and lock it in place with a transverse bronze rivet, perfectly counter-balancing the heavy forward spade.
  • Mind’s Eye Diagnostic Telemetry and Attunement Harmonization:
    • Clean the assembled polearm with linseed oil and inspect all joints for mechanical play.
    • Open the Mind’s Eye: scan the completed implement to confirm it registers at 33 out of 33 Item Health Points, locks base resilience at 10, and establishes a 15,000-pound load-bearing fulcrum rating under Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion.
    • Grip the black ironwood shaft with both scaled hands; verify that instantaneous handheld attunement engages with an audible harmonic ping, the bronze ferrules illuminate in amber Syl-Trace script, and the weapon does not occupy a slot against the ten-item attunement ceiling.

Great
Lever-Spade of Root-Wood and Bronze, Which Bore Up Sunken Sluice-Lid
of Vault Fourteen and Cleaved Blind Silt-Hounds in Drowned
Galleries
Rendered
from the Water-Damaged Bark-Parchments of the Deep Lineage by the
Clumsy Stylus of Scribe Gil-Vond

In the uncounted cycles when the Second Bringing-Together was yet spreading its stone roads through the belly of the world, the digger-clans of the Four-and-Eighty and Six Hundred [translator note: this number signifieth Lineage 684, who held from the high magistrates the sole seal for the measuring of deep stone, the clearing of silted ducts, and the digging of foundation-trenches] did push their iron shields beneath the cyclopean rubble of Archaic. In that drowned place, the earth was not clean rock that parteth with a dry crack before the pick, but was a heavy porridge of black marsh-tallow, drowned reed-peat, and the calcified milk of rotting water-bones, which did clog the wheels of the carts and drink the grease from the wheel-axles until the dray-beasts fell dead in their leather harnesses.

Now the lowest sewer of that sector was Sluice Vault Fourteen—a subterranean tank so wide that ten baggage-wagons might race abreast within its belly, walled round with dressed basalt blocks each weighing as much as four bull-crocodiles. Through this chamber did run the black sewer-torrents from the upper dye-works and the chemical distilleries of Syl-Kar. In the far end of the vault was set the Great Water-Drop: an eighty-ton slab of hard river-green granite, suspended by four chains of forged copper-iron, which was raised each half-turn of the water-clock to permit the poisoned sludge to fall into the burning magma-flues beneath the world. If the gate remained shut for the space of two watches, the sludge would back up through the floor-drains of the living quarters, boiling the avatars in their cots with sulfur-steam; yet if the gate fell while men stood beneath, it would crush their bones into fine flour and wash their gear into the fire-abyss.

In that season, the diggers of the lineage carried two burdens upon their backs: a long wooden rod marked with red lead to take the measure of the walls, and a heavy, brittle iron prybar to heave the stones. When they walked in the wet muck, their hands were filled with these two awkward sticks; and if a creeping terror leaped from the sewer-pipes, they must needs fling their measuring-rods into the dung and fumble at their girdles for an iron cleaver, and in that delay their throat-scales were torn out. Moreover, when they did thrust their soft iron bars beneath a fallen ceiling-block, the metal would bend like boiled tallow under the great weight of their tails and shoulders [translator note: the ancient scribe refereth here to the three-hundred-and-sixty-five-pound mass of the adult Karthian surveyor], so that four miners pulling together could not stir a single paving-flag, but were left with curved and useless rods of cold pig-iron.

To compound this misery, there dwelt in the muck of Sluice Vault Fourteen a ravenous pack of blind water-dogs, which the common laborers named the Maw-Hounds of the Sludge. These were pale, hairless terrors as large as yearling calves, having no eyes within their flat skulls, but possessing along their snouts two rows of weeping nerve-pits that could scent a drop of warm blood three furlongs away through stagnant sewage. Their legs ended in spade-claws that paddled through the grease, and their jaws were lined with four ranks of serrated teeth that could shear through a bronze boot like an adze through a pumpkin. When the water rose in the sumps, these hounds swam beneath the foam, dragging the line-apprentices down by their tail-fins into the dark siphons where no light ever shone.

Then came forth an elder line-surveyor and stone-lifter, whose name upon the copper rolls was Master Kor-Vaelen of the Thick Wrist. Kor-Vaelen had seen his sister’s son drowned in Sluice Vault Eight because his ash-wood measuring-rod had warped in the marsh-damp, reading four spans where there were but three, and when the lad had thrust his common ditching-spade against the silt-plug, the soft iron had folded double like a wet cloth. Kor-Vaelen sat upon the floor of the line-lodge, beating his scaled breast with a stone, and he swore an oath before the ancestors that he would shape a rod that could measure the span of a hall to the thickness of a moth’s wing, heave a mountain-block upon its hip without cracking, and slice the heads from the swamp-dogs before their jaws could close on scaled meat.

Kor-Vaelen sought not the market-stalls of the upper city, where the soft mountain-traders sell porous birch and river-pine. He journeyed on foot to the ancient, misty timber-sanctuaries of the Rootspire groves, where the great black ironwood trees drink the alchemical run-off of the deep earthen springs. There did he fell a seven-foot trunk—dense as black marble, straight as a plumb-line, and so heavy that it sank like a stone when cast into water.

He took this timber to his workshop beneath the aqueducts and mounted it upon a treadle-lathe. For six days he turned the wood, shaving it down until it was a true cylindrical shaft six spans and a half in length, with two inches of girth that filled the palm of a Karthian claw with honest weight. At every six inches along the black wood he turned a shallow bed into the bark, and into these beds he sweat-fit thirteen flush rings of red foundry-bronze, cold-hammered until they were tight as the bark upon a tree. Upon each bronze ring he scribed the sacred measurement glyphs of Syl-Trace script, so that a surveyor need only lay the wood against a rock-face or dip it into a sump to know the cubits of the room and the fathom-depth of the filth.

Then took he four pounds of refined tool-steel, high in carbon and hard as flint. In his hearth he forged a flared shovel-blade, wide as a turtle’s breast, drawing out the forward tip into a four-sided chisel beak that could bite into the hair-line crack of a stone lintel without blunting, and grinding both lateral flanks into curved axe-edges so sharp that a falling horse-hair would part upon their wire-edges. Behind the blade he forged a thick tubular socket, seamless and tough, to sleeve over the forward tenon of the black ironwood.

At the other end of the timber, where a common tool hath only a bare splinter of wood, Kor-Vaelen set a casting of solid bronze—a heavy, faceted octagonal prism weighing four pounds, ground with clean geometric flats. This heavy knob he pinned through the wood with three bronze bolts, so that when a surveyor held the weapon by its middle, the great weight of the bronze counter-weight balanced the heavy steel shovel-head like the counter-beam of a mine-crane, rendering the ten-pound engine light as a will-o’-the-wisp in the claws of an avatar.

He submerged the completed piece in a granite basin filled with marsh-brine beside an old iron poleaxe that had cleaved seventy shields in the street-skirmishes of the Lower Tier. And he took a sun-stone of the first circle [translator note: a Tier 1 magic crystal] and laid it in a hollow carved beneath the steel socket, speaking the ancient unbinding-chants of the Earth-Movers until the fighting-soul of the broken poleaxe melted into the steel head, and the sun-stone’s pale yellow fire died, passing its immortal marrow into the bronze rings and the resin-boiled timber.

He marked the bronze butt with the number Nine-Hundred and Sixteen, which was its ledger-mark in the tool-crib of Lineage 684.

And when Kor-Vaelen closed both hands upon the black ironwood shaft, there was no waiting for a temple-drum to beat or an hour of prayer to pass. In the very instant that his scaled palms touched the wood, a great shudder went through his marrow; his tail planted itself firmly against the flagstones; the thirteen bronze rings flared with a soft, oily amber light like tallow-lamps behind oiled paper; and a deep bell-note hummed from the octagonal bronze butt. Through his Mind’s Eye, the stone walls of his shop became clear as window-horn: he saw through four feet of solid granite masonry, sensing the hollow air-pipes within the wall and the water trickling through the mortar-seams as clearly as if they were drawn upon sheepskin.

Then came a great shouting from the low sumps. The drainage-overseer burst into the lodge with his robes wet with slime: the hydraulic winch of Sluice Vault Fourteen had broken its gears! The eighty-ton granite water-gate had slipped down its grooves and jammed crookedly four cubits above the floor, sealing thirty apprentice-surveyors within the drown-chamber. The black drainage of the city was rising behind the jammed slab at the rate of two fingers’ breadth each minute; already the sludge was at their navels, and from the deep overflow conduits, the blind Maw-Hounds had smelled the panic and were swarming into the dark vault to feast upon the trapped children.

Kor-Vaelen slung the Nine-Hundred and Sixteenth piece across the twin brass hooks upon his dorsal plate and plunged down the wet tunnels into Sluice Vault Fourteen.

When he reached the iron grille of the upper gallery, the cavern was full of the roaring of foul waters and the screaming of the apprentices. In the dark pool below, thirty young avatars were clinging to the slick stone pilasters. The green granite gate had settled crookedly in its rock-track, its eighty-ton mass wedged like a tooth in a jaw, three cubits from the flags. The black sludge was rising like a dark dough; and through the greasy foam swam fifteen blind Maw-Hounds, their hairless snouts snorting with lust, their jaws snapping as they circled the weeping apprentices.

Kor-Vaelen leaped from the gallery into the five-foot deep muck. The filth splashed to his breast-plates; yet he did not stumble, for the weight of the nine-hundred-and-sixteenth tool upon his back held his center true.

With one heave of his shoulders, he unhooked the six-and-a-half-foot lever-spade. His claws took the two-handed battle-grip upon the wood.

The hounds saw not with eyes, but their snout-pits felt the wave of his landing. Three of the great pale beasts turned in the foam, their jaws gaping wide to show forty yellow bone-needles, and launched themselves through the water at his throat.

Kor-Vaelen stepped forward. He did not thrust with a weak point; he swept the six-and-a-half-foot shaft in a wide, singing horizontal circle.

The lateral axe-edges of the flared steel head caught the first hound in mid-leap, shearing through its rib-plates and spine as if it were a turnip. On the back-swing, Kor-Vaelen brought the faceted octagonal bronze butt round with the full torque of his tail, striking the second hound across its flat skull; the heavy bronze prism crushed the beast’s jaw-hinges and snout into a red paste with a sound like a smashing crock. The third hound snapped its teeth against the steel head, seeking to drag the tool down into the mud; but by virtue of the Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish, the beast’s jaws found no slime to hold, its teeth slipped along the vibrating steel, and with a short thrust of his wrists, Kor-Vaelen drove the diamond chisel-point straight through its gullet, pinning the dead brute to the stone floor beneath the water.

Yet eight more hounds were lunging toward the cluster of apprentices clinging to the far wall.

Kor-Vaelen drew the tool back, reversed his grip, and brought the heavy bronze octagonal butt down with all his strength upon the submerged stone floor, shouting the ancient strike-word of the earth.

He invoked the Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep!

A dull, subterranean thunder shook the foundations of the vault. From the spot where the bronze butt struck the bedrock, a jagged crack leaped across the floor through the five feet of sewage. A seismic shockwave raced along the stone flags in a fifteen-foot cone; the underwater shock struck the charging hounds in their soft bellies, lifting them out of the foam, disorienting their hearing-pits, and hurling them senseless against the basalt walls with their ribs cracked and their snouts bleeding black bile. Kor-Vaelen waded through the dead water, using the reach of the shovel-axe to sever the necks of the stunned beasts until the muck was still.

Yet the greatest horror was yet to be overcome.

Behind them, the four copper-iron chains of the gate groaned; the last safety-pin sheared with a shriek of tearing metal, and the eighty-ton slab of green granite slipped another foot, its lower edge crushing down into the silt, threatening to seal the vault forever and bury the thirty youths beneath the rising tide of acid sludge.

“Run through the gap!” roared Kor-Vaelen, as he threw himself beneath the descending mountain of stone.

He had no iron jacks; he had no cedar cribbing. He possessed only the Nine-Hundred and Sixteenth tool of Lineage 684.

He fell to his knees in the deep muck. He saw the narrow, calcified fissure where the edge of the granite slab had hung up on a boulder of river-bone. He jammed the flared chisel-beak of the carbon-steel head six inches deep into the stone seam. He planted the faceted bronze butt firmly into the basalt floor behind him to serve as an unyielding heel.

He wrapped his scaled claws around the black ironwood shaft, threw the weight of his three-hundred-and-sixty-pound bulk across the wood, and screamed the word of the World-Pillar.

He triggered the Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion and the Earth-Shifting Heave!

The eighty-ton slab descended. A weight that would have flattened five steam-trams and splintered a forest of ash-poles settled squarely onto the steel shovel-face.

The black ironwood shaft bowed. It bent two spans—three spans—curving like the bow of an imperial hunter under the crushing agony of eighty thousand pounds of stone. Yet the resin-cured grain from Rootspire held its integrity; the geomantic channels in the thirteen bronze rings flared like torches in the dark water, drinking the downward terror of the mountain and shooting the kinetic shock down the bronze butt into the bedrock of the world. The wood did not snap; the steel socket did not shear its bronze pins; the chisel beak did not curl upon the granite.

The descending gate stopped dead, caught upon the unyielding fulcrum of the single tool.

“Heave!” roared Kor-Vaelen, the blood bursting from his nostrils and his scale-joints under the terrible pressure. “Heave for the light of the upper city!”

With a final surge of earth-mana channeled through his palms, the tool discharges its kinetic heave. The eighty-ton slab groaned, lifted three finger-breadths from its seat, and hung suspended, creating a three-foot opening through which the black sludge and the trapped apprentices could pass.

One by one, the thirty youths scrambled through the muck beneath the bent, singing ironwood shaft, tumbling through the gap into the outer drain-flues where the rescue-teams of the Public Works stood with ropes and torches.

When the last boy had been dragged clear by his heels, Kor-Vaelen shouted to the foremen on the dry ledge: “Pull me by the tail-belt!”

Four large draka seized his leather harness and heaved backward with all their strength. As he was wrenched from beneath the gate, Kor-Vaelen reached forward with one claw, grasped the bronze counterweight, and wrenched the lever-spade free of the rock.

The instant the steel head slid from the fissure, the eighty-ton granite gate crashed down into the mud with a sound like the shattering of the sky. The water-wall slammed shut; the basalt walls groaned; and a fountain of black sewage boiled thirty feet into the air.

Yet on the dry flagstones of the rescue platform, Kor-Vaelen lay panting in the lantern-glow, the Nine-Hundred and Sixteenth piece cradled across his bleeding chest.

The lineage elders gathered round with their magnifying lenses and their scrapers to view the ruined tool. Yet when they wiped away the grease of the sump, they found no ruin: the black ironwood shaft had sprung back straight as a spear, without a single split along its grain; the thirteen bronze rings still showed their Syl-Trace measurement markings clear and bright; the flared steel head showed no notch upon its lateral axe-edges; and because of the hydrophobic polish, the foul mud of Vault Fourteen fell away from the blade like dry meal, leaving the metal clean and gleaming as on the morning it was struck from the anvil.

The Master of the Works raised the tool high before the assembly, proclaiming that from that day forward, no architectural company of the Second Consolidation should go into the drowned darkness of the ancient ruins without the measure and the leverage of the Nine-Hundred and Sixteenth hanging from their shoulders.

Moral of the story: He who enters the deep ruins carrying only an idle weapon for his enemies shall find himself helpless when the mountain falls; but he who carries an implement wherein the ruler of the surveyor, the fulcrum of the mason, and the axe of the warrior are forged into a single honest length shall measure his path with truth, hold up the falling sky with his shoulder, and hew his way through the pack in the absolute dark.

Suggested
conversions to other systems:

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Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

The Surveyor’s Lever-Spade 916

• Item Classification: Heavy Two-Handed Melee Weapon, Architectural Lever, and Field Survey Implement (2-Handed).
• Combat Characteristics:
  • Combat Skill: Fighting (Spear) or Fighting (Axe).
  • Damage: 1D10 + Damage Bonus (The investigator selects Bludgeoning when striking with the faceted bronze butt or flat spade face, or Slashing when striking with the honed lateral axe-edges upon declaring the attack).
  • Base Range: Touch / Melee (Possesses extended reach; allows engagement up to 2 yards away, striking before targets wielding shorter hand weapons).
  • Attacks per Round: 1 (unslinging from dorsal retention hooks, swinging or thrusting, and recovering to a defensive guard consumes the full combat action). If an investigator is granted a second attack in the same round, the second attack inflicts half total damage.
  • Malfunction Rating: 99–100 (due to the seasoned Rootspire black ironwood shaft and seamless socket, the head never loosens or snaps under standard impacts).
• Physical Profile and Action Economy:
  • Mass: 10.5 lbs (requires both hands to wield effectively in combat or excavation).
  • Instantaneous Handheld Attunement: Taking a firm two-handed grip on the black ironwood shaft immediately bonds the weapon to the investigator’s hands without ritual delay or Sanity expenditure, nor does it count against worn equipment limits.
  • Disarm Deactivation: If an opponent successfully executes a disarm maneuver or an attack directly damages the shaft, the implement powers down; its enchantments remain dormant until the investigator spends 10 minutes performing an uninterrupted ritual attunement during downtime.
• Passive Tactical Features:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: The black ironwood shaft and bronze socket absorb up to 15,000 lbs of mechanical load without bending, splitting, or transferring shock to the wielder. This grants two bonus dice on STR rolls made to lever fallen masonry, pry open jammed bank vaults, or breach fortified bunker doors.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Touching the calibrated bronze measurement ferrules to walls, ceiling arches, or standing water transmits instant architectural schematics to the investigator. This grants one bonus die on Archaeology, Spot Hidden, or Navigate rolls to determine wall thickness, locate hidden chambers, detect structural load stress, or measure water depth within 10 feet.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: High-frequency micro-vibrations across the carbon-steel blade prevent mud, clay, sewage, and blood from adhering to the metal, ensuring the tool never clogs or suffers physical drag in marshy or silted terrain.
• Active Occult Capabilities:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave (Tectonic Pry): The investigator expends 1 Magic Point (MP) while wedging the chisel tip beneath a fallen stone slab, iron door, or enemy’s stance. The tool discharges a kinetic pulse, tripling the wielder’s effective STR for 1 round to lift up to 20,000 lbs, or forcing an adjacent human-sized or larger opponent to succeed on an Extreme DEX or STR roll or be thrown 3 yards backward and knocked prone. This ability can be used twice per day.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep: The investigator slams the octagonal bronze counter-weight into the stone floor and expends 1 MP. A directional seismic wave travels outward in a 5-yard (15-foot) cone. All targets within the area must succeed on a DEX roll or suffer the Staggered condition (losing their next combat action), while the ground becomes broken terrain that halves movement rates. This ability can be used twice per day.

---

Blades in the Dark

Fine Surveyor’s Lever-Spade 916

• Item Classification: Fine Two-Handed Melee Weapon and Heavy Architectural Rig (Load: 2).
• Tier and Quality: Tier II Quality Archaic Equipment (counts as Fine).
• Item Profile: A six-and-a-half-foot cylindrical shaft of seasoned Rootspire black ironwood ringed with thirteen flush bronze measurement ferrules, mounting a flared high-carbon steel spade head with lateral axe-edges and balanced by a four-pound faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight pommel.
• Combat and Action Economy:
  • Action Engagement: Operated with Skirmish to maintain distance and sweep foes in close combat, or with Wreck to lever open vault doors, shatter barricades, or breach cyclopean masonry.
  • Reach Advantage: Grants improved position or effect when holding off enemies armed with daggers, clubs, or short swords by denying them close approach.
  • Consecutive Attack Diminishing Returns: Striking twice in the same exchange halves the secondary attack’s effect level (from Standard to Limited) due to the recovery inertia of a ten-pound polearm.
  • Disarm Vulnerability: If disarmed or forcibly dropped, the internal geomantic matrices deactivate; all supernatural benefits and fine leverage qualities are suppressed until 10 minutes are spent during a breather or downtime to recalibrate the attunement bond.
• Passive Tactical Features:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: Possesses innate Potency on Wreck rolls to breach iron gates, dislodge massive ceiling slabs, or pry open reinforced vault doors, supporting up to multi-ton loads without structural failure.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Touching the shaft to masonry or standing water grants +1d to Survey actions to map building layouts, find concealed wall compartments, or gauge water depths.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: The blade repels all mud, silt, and gore, ensuring that digging through heavy muck or hacking through swamp vegetation never fouls the weapon or reduces effect.
• Active Capabilities:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave: Push yourself (spend 1 Stress) when wedging the chisel blade under a structural obstacle or an opponent. Gain an additional tier of Effect (e.g., Standard to Great) and either heave up to 20,000 lbs of deadweight or launch an opponent backward, knocking them prone and out of position.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep: Push yourself (spend 1 Stress) while slamming the bronze counter-weight into the cobblestones or rock floor. Creates a 15-foot cone of shattered ground, establishing the situational obstacle Fractured Ground and forcing advancing foes to lose their footing or retreat.

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Dungeons & Dragons (2024 Edition)

Ironwood Lever-Spade of the Deep Surveyor 916

• Item Type: Weapon (Martial Melee Weapon, Two-Handed, Heavy, Reach)
• Rarity: Uncommon (requires attunement by holding with two hands)
• Weight: 10.5 lb.
• Physical Characteristics: Six-and-a-half-foot seasoned black ironwood shaft banded with thirteen flush bronze measurement ferrules in Syl-Trace script. Features a flared heat-treated carbon-steel spade head with a diamond chisel tip and lateral axe-ground flanks, counterbalanced by a four-pound faceted octagonal bronze pommel.
• Combat Characteristics:
  • Damage: 1d10 Bludgeoning (Butt counter-weight or flat spade face) OR 1d10 Slashing (Lateral axe-edges), chosen when declaring the attack.
  • Weapon Properties: Heavy, Reach, Two-Handed.
  • Weapon Mastery: Push (Spade strike / Heave) or Topple (Sweep).
  • Attack & Damage Modifiers: You add your Strength modifier and your Tier Die (1d4 at Tier 1) to both the attack roll and the damage roll. The cumulative attack roll must strictly exceed the target’s Armor Class to hit. The tier die adopts the damage type chosen for the strike (Bludgeoning or Slashing).
  • Operational Action Economy: Unhooking the lever-spade from dorsal retention hooks, making an attack, and recovering to a guard consumes 1 full Action.
  • Consecutive Attack Diminishing Returns: If you make a second attack with this weapon on the same turn, the total damage output (base die, tier die, and Strength modifier) of that second attack is halved.
• Attunement Constraints:
  • Instantaneous Handheld Attunement: You attune to the lever-spade instantly upon gripping the shaft with both hands; while held, it does not count against your standard maximum attunement limit.
  • Disarm Deactivation: If an effect or creature successfully forces you to drop or disarm this weapon, it immediately deactivates and unattunes. It functions merely as an ordinary, non-magical polearm until you complete a 10-minute ritual attunement during a short or long rest.
• Passive Properties:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: The weapon functions as an indestructible lever under loads up to 15,000 pounds. You have Advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made to force open doors, lift portcullises, or heave fallen rubble.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: While holding the shaft against contiguous masonry, natural stone, or standing water, you gain Tremorsense out to a range of 10 feet and have Advantage on Wisdom (Perception) and Intelligence (Investigation) checks to locate secret doors, hollow wall cavities, and assess water depths.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: Mud, clay, slime, and blood cannot adhere to the blade face. Difficult terrain caused by deep mud, silt, or marsh marl does not impede your excavation or weapon recovery.
• Active Properties:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave (Tectonic Pry): As an Action, you wedge the spade head beneath a barrier or creature and expend 1 charge. You can lift or tilt an object weighing up to 20,000 pounds for 1 round, or force a Large or smaller creature within your reach to make a DC 13 Strength saving throw; on a failed save, the creature takes 2d6 Force damage, is pushed 10 feet away, and is knocked Prone. This property has 2 charges and regains all expended charges daily at dawn.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep: As an Action, you slam the bronze counter-weight into the ground and expend 1 charge. Shockwaves ripple outward in a 15-foot cone originating from you. Each creature on the ground in that area must succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 Bludgeoning damage and be knocked Prone. The ground in the cone becomes difficult terrain until cleared. This property has 2 charges and regains all expended charges daily at dawn.

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Knave (2nd Edition)

Black-Ironwood Lever-Spade 916

• Item Slots: 2 Slots (requires two hands to carry and wield).
• Damage: 1d10 (The wielder chooses Bludgeoning with the bronze counter-weight or flat spade face, or Slashing with the lateral axe-edges upon declaring the attack).
• Qualities and Durability:
  • Quality: 4/4.
  • Item Health Points: 33 HP. Sustaining damage that reduces the polearm to 16 HP or lower inflicts the broken condition, loosening the socket and splintering the shaft, which removes all offensive combat traits until repaired by a smith or carpenter. Shatters completely into useless scrap at 0 HP.
  • Reach: Can strike targets up to 10 feet away or engage from behind a rank of allies.
• Combat and Action Dynamics:
  • Instant Handheld Bond: Gripping the shaft with both hands instantly attunes the implement without consuming attunement slots.
  • Action Economy: Uncoupling from back hooks, swinging, and returning to a guard consumes 1 full combat action. If granted a second attack in the same round, the damage dealt by the second attack is halved.
  • Disarm Deactivation: If disarmed by an opponent’s maneuver, the weapon powers down immediately. It remains a standard mundane shovel until the wielder spends 1 exploration Turn (10 minutes) cleaning and re-attuning the bond during downtime.
• Passive Tactical Properties:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: Acts as an unbreakable lever supporting up to 15,000 pounds. Grants Advantage on Strength checks made to pry open dungeon gates, overturn sarcophagi, or brace sagging ceilings.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Tapping walls or flooring reveals hollow rooms, concealed cavities, wall thickness, and water depth up to 10 feet away without requiring structural demolition.
  • Hydrophobic Polish: Clay, mud, marsh water, and viscera slide off the spade head instantly, preventing the blade from clogging during excavation or combat in wet ruins.
• Active Properties:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave: Twice per day, the wielder discharges a kinetic heave when levering an obstacle or attacking a foe. This triples lifting capacity for 1 round or forces an opponent to make a Strength save or be launched 10 feet backward and knocked prone.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep: Twice per day, the wielder strikes the floor with the bronze counter-weight. A 15-foot cone of floor fractures into jagged rubble, forcing all creatures in the area to make a Dexterity save or fall prone; the area becomes difficult terrain.

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Fate

The Epigrapher’s Lever-Spade 916

• Classification: Specialized Extra, Two-Handed Reach Weapon, Architectural Lever, and Field Survey Implement.
• Aspect Integration:
  • Dedicated Item Aspect: Seasoned Black Ironwood and Calibrated Bronze Lever-Spade. This aspect can be invoked to deliver sweeping reach attacks, pry open cyclopean stone vault doors, detect concealed structural chambers, or support massive falling rubble; it may be compelled to represent the physical awkwardness of maneuvering a six-and-a-half-foot rigid staff in narrow ventilation crawlways, the vulnerability to disarming deactivation, or the necessity of using both hands at all times.
  • Inherent Operational Aspect: Two-Handed Heavy Polearm. Requires both hand slots during combat, prying, and excavation, preventing the simultaneous use of torches, shields, survey slates, or secondary weapons.
• Attunement & Disarm Deactivation:
  • Instantaneous Handheld Attunement: Taking a firm two-handed grip on the black ironwood shaft immediately bonds the implement to the wielder’s hands without consuming refresh or personal milestone stunt slots.
  • Disarm Deactivation: If an opponent successfully executes a disarm action against the wielder or forcibly knocks the staff away, the implement deactivates instantly; all aspects, stunts, and magical properties remain dormant until the wielder spends 10 minutes of uninterrupted rest recalibrating the bond during downtime.
• Weapon Rating and Reach:
  • Weapon:3: Deals 3 additional shifts of physical stress on a successful hit with Fight. The player selects whether the strike inflicts Bludgeoning (the faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight or flat spade face) or Slashing (the honed lateral axe-edges) upon declaring the action.
  • Reach Advantage: Grants an inherent tactical advantage to establish zone-denial or contest approaches against adversaries armed with shorter hand weapons.
  • Operational Draw Action: Readying the lever-spade from rear dorsal hooks, executing an attack, and recovering to a guard is resolved within a single exchange.
  • Consecutive Strike Diminishing Returns: If granted an extra action to make a second consecutive attack within the same exchange, the shifts of stress inflicted by the second strike are halved.
• Passive Tactical Mechanics:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: The black ironwood shaft and bronze socket absorb up to 15,000 pounds of mechanical load without bending or splintering, granting a +2 bonus to Physique to overcome obstacles when prying open reinforced vault doors, lifting portcullises, or levering massive stone slabs.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Touching the calibrated bronze measurement ferrules to masonry or standing water grants a +2 bonus to Notice or Investigate rolls to detect hollow cavities, hidden doors, wall thickness, or water depth within the zone.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: High-frequency micro-vibrations repel clay, mud, and gore, completely ignoring environmental difficulty or movement penalties created by thick silt, quick-mud, or swamp muck.
• Active Stunt Capabilities:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave (Tectonic Pry): Twice per session (or by spending 1 Fate Point), the wielder jams the chisel tip beneath a heavy obstacle or an enemy’s footing. The wielder gains a +4 bonus on a Physique roll to heave a multi-ton object (up to 20,000 pounds), or inflicts +2 additional stress on a successful attack and creates the situational aspect Launched and Prone on the target with one free invocation.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep: Twice per session, the wielder slams the octagonal bronze butt into the stone floor and sweeps the spade head in a wide arc. This creates the situational aspect Fractured Rubble on the entire zone with two free invocations, forcing all adversaries in the zone to defend against being knocked off-balance or staggered.

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Numenera & Cypher System

Rootspire Surveyor’s Lever-Spade 916

• Item Level: 3 (governs crafting difficulty, maintenance tasks, and environmental interaction thresholds).
• Form and Structure: A six-and-a-half-foot cylindrical shaft of seasoned Rootspire black ironwood ringed with thirteen flush bronze measurement ferrules, mounting a flared high-carbon steel spade head with lateral axe-edges and a diamond chisel tip, balanced by a four-pound faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight pommel.
• Weapon Classification and Operational Flow:
  • Classification: Heavy Melee Weapon (requires two hands; inflicts 6 points of damage, selected as Bludgeoning or Slashing upon attack declaration).
  • Reach: Possesses reach, allowing melee engagement against targets up to 10 feet away or over barricades.
  • Operational Action Economy: Unhooking from dorsal retention hooks, swinging, and returning to a defensive guard is resolved as a single action.
  • Consecutive Attack Diminishing Returns: If an ability, asset, or speed maneuver allows a second attack with the weapon in the same round, the second strike inflicts half damage (3 points).
  • Instant Attunement & Disarm Deactivation: Bonds immediately upon establishing a two-handed grip without counting against cypher or artifact capacity. If forcibly disarmed in combat, the item deactivates, losing all special properties and structural leverage benefits until the wielder spends a 10-minute recovery period recalibrating the bond.
• Depletion Rating: 1 in 1d20 (checked only upon activating Earth-Shifting Heave or Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep; passive capabilities do not incur depletion rolls).
• Passive Tactical Capabilities:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: Eases Might-based tasks to lever, lift, or pry open heavy stone vault doors, fallen ceiling slabs, or iron portcullises by two steps, supporting up to 15,000 pounds without structural damage.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Eases Perception and Intellect tasks to detect hollow wall compartments, secret passageways, structural load lines, or water depths by one step when the shaft touches stone or water.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: Mud, clay, and slime cannot adhere to the blade face; completely ignores task hindrances caused by digging through or fighting in thick swamp marl, silt, or marsh mud.
  • Durability Telemetry: Telemetry automatically monitors the weapon’s structural health (33 Item Health Points; entering the Broken condition at 16 HP or lower, which loosens the head and removes all offensive combat traits until repaired).
• Active Capabilities:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave (Action): The wielder triggers a localized kinetic pulse through the spade head while levering a barrier or attacking an adjacent foe. Eases Might tasks to lift up to 20,000 pounds by three steps for 1 round, or deals 3 additional points of damage (9 damage total) and pushes a target up to immediate distance (10 feet) backward and prone. Depletion: 1 in 1d20.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep (Action): The wielder slams the faceted bronze counter-weight into the floor. A directional seismic wave ripples outward in an immediate (15-foot) cone. All targets within the area must succeed on an Agility defense task or fall prone and take 3 points of ambient damage; the ground within the cone becomes difficult terrain. Depletion: 1 in 1d20.

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Pathfinder (Second Edition Remaster)

Epigrapher’s Lever-Spade 916

• Item Metadata: Item 3; Uncommon, Magical, Transmutation.
• Price: 55 gp.
• Usage: Held in 2 hands; Bulk: 2.
• Base Statistics:
  • Base Weapon: Martial Two-Handed Melee Weapon (Polearm group).
  • Damage: 1d10 Bludgeoning (Butt counter-weight or flat spade face) OR 1d10 Slashing (Lateral axe-edges).
  • Traits: Reach, Shove, Versatile B (or Versatile S, depending on primary damage chosen).
• Attunement and Action Dynamics:
  • Instantaneous Handheld Investiture: Invests automatically the moment the wielder takes a two-handed grip on the black ironwood shaft; it does not count against the character’s 10-item investment limit while held.
  • Disarm Deactivation: If an enemy successfully uses the Disarm action against the lever-spade, it immediately deactivates and unattunes. It functions merely as an ordinary, non-magical polearm until the wielder spends 10 minutes performing a ritual attunement during a rest.
  • Operational Draw Activity: When worn across dorsal retention hooks, you can Interact to draw the weapon, make a Strike, and recover to a guard as a single 2-action activity.
  • Consecutive Strike Diminishing Returns: If you make a second consecutive Strike with this weapon on the same turn, the total damage output (base die, tier die, and Strength modifier) is halved.
• Passive Properties:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: The weapon functions as an indestructible lever under mechanical loads up to 15,000 pounds. You gain a +2 item bonus to Athletics checks to Force Open doors, lift portcullises, or heave fallen rubble.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: While holding the weapon with the shaft or head pressed against stone or submerged in water, you gain imprecise tremorsense out to a range of 10 feet and a +1 item bonus to Perception checks to locate secret doors, hollow wall cavities, and determine water depths.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: The blade repels all mud, clay, and viscous fluids. You ignore difficult terrain caused by deep mud, silt, or marsh marl when executing Strikes or excavation actions.
  • Durability & Health: Possesses 33 Item Hardness/HP; reduces to the broken condition at 16 HP or lower, removing all offensive combat traits until repaired by a blacksmith or woodworker.
• Active Properties:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave [one-action] (Transmutation); Frequency: twice per day; Trigger: You hit an adjacent creature or wedge the blade under an object; Effect: The head discharges a kinetic pulse. If targeting an object, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus to Athletics checks to lift or tilt up to 20,000 pounds for 1 round. If targeting a creature, the Strike deals an additional 1d6 force damage, and the target must succeed on a DC 19 Fortitude save or be pushed 10 feet away and knocked Prone.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep [two-actions] (Earth, Evocation); Frequency: twice per day; Effect: You slam the bronze counter-weight into the ground and sweep the blade. A seismic shockwave erupts in a 15-foot cone originating from you. Each creature on the ground in the area takes 2d6 bludgeoning damage and must succeed on a DC 19 Reflex save or fall Prone. The affected area becomes difficult terrain.

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Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition)

Rootspire Lever-Spade 916

• Classification: Personal Melee Weapon, Architectural Lever, and Field Survey Rig (Two-Handed).
• Damage: Str+d10 (Bludgeoning with the faceted bronze counter-weight/flat spade face, or Slashing with the lateral axe-edges, chosen upon attack declaration).
• Weight: 10.5 lbs.
• Minimum Strength: d8.
• Reach: 1 (Two-Handed).
• Price: 185 silver coins.
• Operational Flow and Action Economy:
  • Operational Action: Unhooking from rear retention hooks, executing an attack, and returning to a balanced guard is resolved as a single action, ignoring standard Readying Weapon multi-action penalties.
  • Consecutive Strike Penalty: If the wielder attacks twice in the same turn with this weapon via an Edge or Multi-Action, the total damage of the second consecutive attack is halved.
  • Instant Attunement & Disarm Deactivation: Bonds to the wielder’s grip immediately upon establishing a two-handed stance. If an opponent successfully executes a Disarm maneuver, the polearm deactivates instantly; its enchantments remain dormant until the wielder spends 10 minutes recalibrating the bond during a rest.
• Passive Mechanics:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: Acts as an unbreakable lever supporting up to 15,000 pounds. Grants a +2 bonus to Strength rolls made to pry open heavy doors, hoist portcullises, or lever fallen masonry.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Touching the shaft to masonry or water grants a +2 bonus to Notice rolls to detect hollow chambers, concealed niches, structural fault lines, or water depths up to 2 inches (4 yards).
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: Mud, clay, and muck cannot adhere to the blade face. The wielder ignores Difficult Ground penalties caused by deep mud, silt, or swamp marl while moving or attacking.
  • Durability: Possesses 33 Item Health Points; reaches the Broken state at 16 HP or lower, removing all offensive combat and prying traits until repaired.
• Active Mechanics:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave (Action): Twice per day, the wielder discharges a kinetic heave. When used to lift, it triples effective lifting capacity for 1 round (up to 20,000 pounds). When used in combat against a target of Size 2 or smaller, a successful hit inflicts normal damage + 1d6, and the target must succeed on a Strength roll at -2 or be knocked back 2 inches (10 feet) and fall Prone.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep (Action): Twice per day, the wielder slams the bronze counter-weight into the ground. Place a Cone Template extending outward from the wielder. All targets on the ground within the template must succeed on an Agility roll at -2 or be knocked Prone and become Distracted; the ground inside the template becomes Difficult Ground.

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Shadowrun (Sixth World Edition)

Rootspire Architectural Lever-Spade 916

• Item Classification: Exotic Melee Weapon (Two-Handed Polearm / Heavy Breaching Lever) and Architectural Field Rig.
• Weapon Attributes and Combat Statistics:
  • Damage Value (DV): 5P (The wielder selects Bludgeoning with the faceted bronze pommel/flat spade face, or Slashing with the honed lateral axe-edges, upon declaring the attack).
  • Attack Rating (AR): 10 / 3 / — / — (Close: 0–4 meters, Near: 5–10 meters, Far: —, Extreme: —).
  • Reach: 1 (Melee Reach; allows engaging targets up to 2 meters away and keeping adversaries outside close melee range).
  • Availability: 4.
  • Legality: Legal (classified as heavy geological survey equipment, excavation tackle, and reinforced structural lever).
  • Cost: 2,600 Nuyen.
• Physical Profile and Operational Flow:
  • Mass and Structure: Six-and-a-half-foot seasoned Rootspire black ironwood shaft ringed with thirteen flush bronze measurement ferrules, a flared high-carbon steel spade head with a diamond chisel tip, and a 1.8 kg faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight pommel. Total mass is 4.75 kg (10.5 lbs).
  • Operational Action Economy: Unhooking from dorsal retention hooks, swinging or thrusting, and recovering to a defensive guard is resolved as a single Major Action.
  • Consecutive Strike Diminishing Returns: If an adept power, edge boost, or cybernetic implant grants a second consecutive attack with the weapon in the same combat turn, the total DV of the second strike is halved (reduced to 2P).
  • Instant Handheld Attunement: Taking a two-handed combat grip on the black ironwood shaft bonds the weapon instantaneously to the runner, bypassing standard bonding rituals and consuming zero essence or attunement slots. If an adversary successfully executes a Disarm combat maneuver against the shaft, the implement deactivates immediately; all supernatural and kinetic properties remain dormant until the runner spends 10 minutes performing bench recalibration during downtime.
  • Durability & Resilience: Possesses 33 Item Health Points with 10 base resilience. Sustaining damage that reduces the weapon to 16 HP or lower inflicts the Broken condition, loosening the socket and removing all offensive and prying traits until repaired by a tool-smith.
• Skill Bonuses Gained While Wielded:
  • +1 dice pool bonus to Athletics (Lifting / Breaching) tests made to force open heavy reinforced doors, lift fallen rubble, or pry apart structural steel.
  • +1 dice pool bonus to Engineering or Perception tests made to evaluate masonry load lines, locate concealed wall compartments, or gauge water depths.
• Passive Tactical Properties:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: The black ironwood shaft and bronze socket absorb up to 6,800 kg (approx. 15,000 lbs) of mechanical load without bending, splitting, or transferring shock. The runner gains a +2 dice pool bonus on Strength-based tests to lever fallen slabs, breach security doors, or hoist portcullises.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Touching the calibrated bronze ferrules to masonry or water transmits immediate structural telemetry. The runner detects hollow wall cavities, material density, structural load vectors, and water depths up to 3 meters away through the Mind’s Eye.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: High-frequency kinetic micro-vibrations across the carbon-steel spade head repel mud, clay, sewage, and viscous fluids, completely ignoring movement or attack penalties caused by deep mud, wet silt, or marsh terrain.
• Active Operational Capabilities:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave (Minor Action / 1 Edge): The runner jams the chisel tip beneath a fallen barrier or an enemy’s footing. The head discharges a kinetic pulse, tripling the wielder’s effective lifting capacity up to 9,000 kg for 1 turn, or dealing +2 DV (Physical) on a hit and forcing the target to pass a Body + Willpower (3) test or be hurled 3 meters backward and gain the Prone status. This ability can be used twice per run.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep (Major Action): The runner slams the faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight into the floor. A directional seismic wave travels outward in a 5-meter (15-foot) cone. All targets in the cone must pass an Agility + Reaction (3) test or fall Prone and suffer the Staggered status; the floor within the cone becomes difficult terrain. This ability can be used twice per run.

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Starfinder (Second Edition)

Surveyor’s Lever-Spade 916

• Item Metadata: Item 3; Uncommon, Magical, Tech, Transmutation.
• Price: 55 Credits.
• Usage: Held in 2 hands; Bulk: 2.
• Base Statistics:
  • Base Weapon Category: Martial Two-Handed Melee Weapon (Polearm group).
  • Damage: 1d10 Bludgeoning (Butt counter-weight or flat spade face) OR 1d10 Slashing (Lateral axe-edges), selected when declaring the Strike.
  • Traits: Heavy, Magical, Reach, Shove, Tech, Two-Handed, Versatile B (or Versatile S).
• Attunement and Action Dynamics:
  • Instantaneous Handheld Investiture: Invests automatically the moment the wielder grips the shaft with two hands; while held, it does not count against the character’s 10-item investment limit.
  • Disarm Deactivation: If an enemy successfully uses the Disarm action against the weapon, it immediately deactivates and unattunes. It functions merely as an ordinary, non-magical polearm until the wielder spends 10 minutes performing a maintenance ritual during a rest.
  • Operational Draw Activity: When worn across dorsal retention hooks, you can Interact to draw the weapon, make a Strike, and recover to a defensive guard as a single 2-action activity.
  • Consecutive Strike Diminishing Returns: If you make a second consecutive Strike with this weapon on the same turn, the total damage output (base die, tier die, and Strength modifier) is halved.
  • Durability & Health: Possesses 33 Item HP with 10 base resilience. Sustaining damage that reduces the weapon to 16 HP or lower inflicts the Broken condition, loosening the head and removing all offensive combat traits until repaired by an artisan.
• Skill Bonuses Gained While Wielded:
  • +1 item bonus to Athletics checks to Force Open reinforced airlocks, lift blast doors, or dislodge fallen bulkhead beams.
  • +1 item bonus to Perception checks to locate hollow wall compartments, secret passageways, or structural stress points in stone and metal bulkheads.
• Passive Tactical Features:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: The weapon functions as an indestructible lever under mechanical loads up to 15,000 pounds. You gain a +2 item bonus to Athletics checks to Force Open doors, lift heavy gates, or heave fallen stone slabs.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: While holding the shaft against contiguous masonry, metal plating, or standing water, you gain imprecise tremorsense out to a range of 10 feet and can determine wall thickness, hidden chambers, and water depths without diagnostic instruments.
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: Mud, clay, slime, and blood cannot adhere to the blade face. You ignore difficult terrain caused by deep mud, silt, or marsh marl when executing Strikes or excavation tasks.
• Active Operational Capabilities:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave [one-action] (Tech, Transmutation): Frequency: twice per day; Trigger: You hit an adjacent creature or wedge the chisel point under an obstacle; Effect: The spade head discharges a kinetic pulse. If targeting an object, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus to Athletics checks to lift or tilt up to 20,000 pounds for 1 round. If targeting a creature, the Strike deals an additional 1d6 force damage, and the target must succeed at a DC 19 Fortitude save or be pushed 10 feet away and knocked Prone.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep [two-actions] (Earth, Evocation, Tech): Frequency: twice per day; Effect: You slam the bronze counter-weight into the ground and sweep the blade. A seismic shockwave erupts in a 15-foot cone originating from you. Each creature on the ground in that area takes 2d6 bludgeoning damage and must succeed at a DC 19 Reflex save or fall Prone. The affected ground becomes difficult terrain until cleared.

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Mongoose Traveller (2nd Edition)

Type-916 Ironwood Lever-Spade

• Item Classification: Archaic Field Engineering Implement, Structural Lever, and Heavy Reach Weapon.
• Tech Level and General Statistics:
  • Tech Level: TL 4 (Precision Archaic Metallurgy, Seasoned Black Ironwood, and Low-Friction Kinetic Surface Polishing). Completely non-electronic and immune to EMP or magnetic interference.
  • Damage: 3D (The wielder chooses Bludgeoning with the octagonal bronze counter-weight/flat spade face, or Slashing with the lateral axe-edges, upon declaring the attack).
  • Range: Melee (Extended Reach, 2 meters).
  • Mass: 4.8 kg (approx. 10.5 lbs).
  • Price: Cr 850.
• Physical Architecture and Operational Flow:
  • Construction: Six-and-a-half-foot seasoned black ironwood shaft ringed with thirteen flush bronze measurement ferrules, a flared high-carbon steel spade head with lateral axe-ground flanks, and a four-pound faceted octagonal bronze counter-weight pommel.
  • Operational Draw: Designed to ride across twin dorsal retention hooks. Unhooking, swinging, and recovering to a defensive guard is resolved as a single combat action.
  • Consecutive Strike Penalty: If an initiative boon or edge grants a second consecutive melee attack with the weapon in the same combat round, the total damage of the second strike is halved.
  • Instant Handheld Bonding: Bonds to the traveler immediately upon assuming a two-handed grip. If disarmed in combat, the weapon deactivates instantly; its mechanisms remain dormant until the traveler spends 10 minutes recalibrating the bond during downtime.
  • Durability & Integrity: Possesses 33 Item HP with 10 base resilience. If reduced to 16 HP or lower, the socket loosens and the shaft splinters, inflicting the Broken condition and negating all combat and prying traits until repaired.
• Skill Modifiers While Wielded:
  • +1 DM to Athletics (Strength) checks made to force open jammed blast doors, heave structural beams, or lever fallen debris.
  • +1 DM to Engineer or Recon checks made to evaluate masonry thickness, detect structural hollows, or measure water depths.
• Passive Tactical Mechanics:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: Acts as an unbreakable lever under mechanical loads up to 6,800 kg (approx. 15,000 lbs). The traveler gains a +2 DM to Strength-based checks to lever debris, lift security gates, or shore up sagging ceilings.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Tapping the bronze ferrules against bulkheads or submerged ground projects structural telemetry (wall thickness, hidden void spaces, and fluid depth up to 3 meters).
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: High-frequency micro-vibrations prevent mud, silt, sewage, and gore from clinging to the blade face, ignoring terrain movement penalties caused by thick silt, quick-mud, or marsh bogs.
• Active Operational Capabilities:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave (Minor Action): Twice per 24-hour cycle, the traveler triggers a kinetic pulse when prying an obstacle or striking a foe. This triples effective lifting capacity up to 9,000 kg for 1 round, or inflicts +1D additional damage on a hit and forces the target to pass an Opposed STR check (8+) or be hurled 3 meters backward and fall prone.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep (Significant Action): Twice per 24-hour cycle, the traveler slams the bronze counter-weight into the deck or stone floor. A directional shockwave erupts in a 5-meter (15-foot) cone. All targets within the cone must pass an Athletics (DEX) check (8+) or fall prone and lose their next minor action; the affected ground becomes difficult terrain.

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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4th Edition)

Masterwork Surveyor’s Lever-Spade 916

• Item Classification: Masterwork Two-Handed Melee Polearm, Architectural Crowbar, and Field Survey Implement.
• Weapon Statistics and Values:
  • Price: 4 Gold Crowns, 10 Silver Shillings.
  • Encumbrance: 2.
  • Availability: Exotic (highly prized by dwarf runic surveyors, sappers, and imperial siege engineers).
  • Weapon Group: Polearm (Two-Handed).
  • Reach: Long.
  • Damage: +SB+5 (The wielder chooses Bludgeoning when striking with the faceted bronze butt or flat spade face, or Slashing when striking with the lateral axe-edges, upon declaring the attack).
  • Qualities: Defensive, Impact, Pummel, Slash, Special (Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion, Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration, Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish, Earth-Shifting Heave, Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep).
  • Flaws: Unbalanced (if used consecutively).
• Operational Flow and Attunement:
  • Instant Handheld Attunement: Bonds instantaneously to the wielder upon taking a two-handed grip on the black ironwood shaft. If an adversary successfully Disarms the bearer, the weapon deactivates immediately; its special qualities and enchantments remain inactive until the wielder spends 10 minutes of uninterrupted rest recalibrating the bond.
  • Operational Draw Action: When seated across rear dorsal hooks, the wielder may draw the weapon, make an attack, and recover to a defensive guard as a single Action.
  • Consecutive Strike Penalty: If the wielder attacks twice in the same round using an ability or talent, the total Damage inflicted by the second strike is halved.
  • Durability & Resilience: Possesses 33 Item HP with 10 base resilience. If reduced to 16 HP or lower, the implement gains the Broken condition, loosening the head and removing all offensive combat and prying traits until mended by a blacksmith or woodworker.
• Skill Bonuses Gained While Wielded:
  • +10 bonus to Athletics (Strength) Tests made to force open heavy vault doors, lift portcullises, or heave fallen stone blocks.
  • +10 bonus to Perception or Trade (Engineer / Masonry) Tests when evaluating stone thickness, detecting hollow cavities, or measuring water depths.
• Passive Special Rules:
  • Tectonic Fulcrum Dispersion: The weapon functions as an indestructible lever under mechanical loads up to 15,000 pounds, granting a +2 SL bonus on Strength Tests to lever objects, lift portcullises, or shore up collapsing ceilings.
  • Epigraphic Cadastral Calibration: Touching the bronze measurement ferrules to masonry or standing water grants the wielder intuitive awareness of wall thickness, structural load stress, hidden cavities, and water depth within 2 yards (approx. 6 feet).
  • Hydrophobic Clay-Shearing Polish: Mud, clay, slime, and gore cannot adhere to the blade face; the wielder ignores Movement and Combat penalties caused by deep mud, wet silt, or marsh marl.
• Active Special Rules:
  • Earth-Shifting Heave: Twice per day, the wielder discharges a kinetic heave when levering an obstacle or making an attack (an Action). When lifting, it triples effective Strength capacity for 1 round (up to 20,000 pounds). When attacking, a hit deals an additional +1d10 Damage, and the target must pass an Opposed Strength Test or be thrown 2 yards backward and gain the Prone Condition.
  • Ground-Rupture Tremor Sweep: Twice per day, the wielder slams the bronze counter-weight into the ground (an Action). A directional seismic wave travels outward in a 5-yard (15-foot) cone. All targets on the ground within the cone must pass a Challenging (+0) Dodge Test or gain the Prone and Stunned Conditions; the ground within the cone becomes Difficult Ground.