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Malagan 417 of the Master Sculptor

—

by

Dale
in

Lore

  • Carved from dense riverine rosewood harvested from the mist-veiled inland valleys of Lapita, this ceremonial relief-mask was shaped during the final memorial rites of a legendary Malagan wood-sculptor.
  • The artifact serves as a sacred vessel housing the artisan’s departed soul, capturing generations of sculptural techniques, grain-reading instincts, and spiritual relief-cutting mastery before their final transit into the spirit realm.
  • The bound spirit hungers to shape raw substance, guiding the hands of any artisan who wears it to liberate forms trapped within timber, soft stone, bone, and clay with effortless artistic grace.
  • Young apprentices, master carvers, and ritual effigy-makers hold this mask in great esteem, donning it during sacred commissionings, totem restorations, and the delicate shaping of ritual icons.

Description

  • The mask is sculpted from deep reddish-brown rosewood, dominated by interlocking filigree lattices and dramatic high-relief profiles of praying mantises and crested cockatoos perched along the temples.
  • Across the brow and cheeks, the wood is deeply undercut with spiraling relief gouge marks, highlighted with crushed cinnabar red, chalky white limestone, and volcanic black ash paste.
  • The eye openings are framed with finely carved, openwork lattice grates backed by polished mother-of-pearl discs that filter light into sharp, shadow-casting relief edges.
  • The lower jaw terminates in a sharp, adze-shaped chisel edge burnished to a gleaming hardness, fastened securely around the face with a three-point harness of woven pandanus leaf and sinew cordage.

Detailed Stats

  • Item Tier: Tier 1 (Common)
  • Gear Slot: Headwear Slot
  • Armor Check: +1 AC
  • Item Resilience: 10
  • Item Hit Points: Avatar Maximum Hit Points + 10
  • Attunement Requirement: 1 minute (Simple Attunement)
  • Weight: 2 lbs
  • Base Value: Subject to regional merchant access and market availability

Passive Magic

  • Grain-Whisperer’s Sight: The wearer instinctively perceives the internal grain structure, hidden knots, fault lines, and density variations of any wood, bone, or soft stone within arm’s reach, granting a +2 temporary bonus to Woodcarving, Sculpting, and Crafting checks.
  • Effortless Cleave: When using a hand chisel, gouge, or adze, the wearer’s blade moves through seasoned wood and dense materials as smoothly as soft green cedar, reducing crafting fatigue and doubling manual carving speed.
  • Chipping Deflection: The wearer is completely shielded from flying wood chips, stone splinters, and dust expelled during vigorous carving or sculpting, taking no minor eye or facial irritation.

Activable Magic

  • Gouge of the Ancestor: As an action, the wearer channels the spirit’s cutting intent into any handheld carving tool or knife for 1 minute. The tool temporarily gains the hardness and sharpness of magical iron, allowing it to carve clean geometric reliefs into solid stone, ironwood, or hard bone without dulling the edge. This ability can be used three times per day.
  • Spiritual Relief Binding: As an action, the wearer touches an unfinished or raw wooden sculpture. The mask animates the tool marks, instantly completing up to 1 square foot of intricate, decorative relief fretwork according to the wearer’s mental blueprint. This ability can be used once per day.
  • Quick-Hew Barricade: As an action, the wearer strikes a fallen log, wooden door, or thick timber post with a carving tool. The mask causes the wood to instantly splinter and re-carve itself into a spiked, interlocking wooden mantlet or barricade providing half cover. This ability can be used once per day.

Tags

  • Headwear, Mask, Wood, Carving, Malagan, Tier 1, Common, Crafting, Sculptor, Artisan, Rosewood, Lapita, Attuned, Utility, Creation, Ancestral, Filigree, Cinnabar, Cockatoo, Mantis, Chisel, Adze, Relief, Woodworking, Sculpture, Effigy, Pandanus

Commercial Outlets, Artisan Guilds, and Valuation of the Malagan 417

Artisans’ Guildhalls, Sculptors’ Ateliers, and Masonry Lodges

  • In prominent civic centers, craft quarters, and cultural districts across Lapita, dedicated woodcarvers’ guilds, monument ateliers, and temple artisan shops trade directly in master-grade chisels, exotic timber blanks, and ritual sculpting relics.
  • Purchasing the mask from an official guildhall typically costs between 30 and 50 Silver pieces (or 3 to 5 Electrum coins), with pricing rising during seasonal festive preparations or temple restoration commissions.
  • Recognized members of the Carvers’ Guild, Sculptors’ Fellowship, or regional trade unions receive a 10% discount per character tier upon presenting a valid artisan seal (a Tier 1 sculptor pays 27 to 45 Silver).
  • When selling the mask to a master artisan, the merchant negotiates the payout down by 10% per tier of the seller against appraised retail value, cataloging the transaction in the guild register and transferring the funds directly to the seller’s World Bank account with the standard 1% transaction fee applied.

Fine Art Galleries, Curio Emporiums, and Antiquarian Salons

  • In affluent capital districts and imperial merchant plazas with populations exceeding five thousand residents, luxury art houses and antique curators offer the carving as a high-status display piece and masterwork sculpting catalyst.
  • These upscale establishments retail the mask between 40 and 70 Silver (or roughly 4 to 7 Gold in non-metal bank scrip), marketing its intricate openwork filigree and historical provenance to wealthy patrons and master artists.
  • Licensed scholars, accredited appraisers, and registered guild artists receive the standard 10% faction discount per tier level.
  • Avatars selling to an antiquarian salon must submit the artifact to physical and spiritual authenticity appraisals; the curator applies the standard 10% reduction per seller tier against the final price, lodging official acquisition paperwork and depositing the proceeds into the character’s World Bank ledger.

Underground Relic Dens, Thieves’ Markets, and Fence Haunts

  • Unlicensed curio dealers, contraband fences, and tomb prospectors operating out of secluded warehouse basements, dockside vaults, and catacomb markets deal in unregistered ceremonial relics obtained outside guild jurisdiction.
  • Acquiring the carving from an illicit dealer requires raw, untraceable physical coin (gold, silver, or electrum), as electronic bank transfers and guild scrip are strictly refused; these merchants sell at a premium without faction discounts, asking between 6 and 9 Gold pieces (60 to 90 Silver).
  • When an avatar sells the mask to a black-market fence, the exchange is settled immediately in unmarked coin with zero municipal logging. If the fence supplies illicit counterfeiters or covert siege-sappers needing rapid wood-shaping tools, they may offer up to double the standard merchant payout (5 to 7 Gold in hand) to secure the item off the books.

Frontier Logging Camps, Pioneer Outposts, and Timber Waystations

  • As hand-carved island relics travel into remote inland logging camps, frontier boomtowns, and wilderness stockades, base costs compound due to regional border import tariffs of 5% and territorial transit fees.
  • In isolated frontier stations and timber clearings where professional woodworking tools and magical crafting aids are scarce, the mask is prized as an invaluable tool for rapid fortification and shelter building.
  • Pioneer storekeeps price the carving between 1 and 3 Gold coins (10 to 30 Silver in local trade goods or bullion), while frontier carvers will only purchase the artifact if the seller accepts heavy trade discounts tied to remote settlement barter economies.

Environmental Tactics and Combat Roleplay of the Master Sculptor’s Mask

Dense Rainforests, Mangrove Swamps, and Inland River Basins

  • In overgrown island wilderness, the avatar utilizes the mask defensively by reading internal grain variations of the surrounding dense foliage. When ambushed by predators or skirmishers, the wearer channels Quick-Hew Barricade into living mangrove roots or thick ironwood burls, instantly bursting the wood into a dense, spiked palisade that halts charging beasts and deflects incoming blowgun darts.
  • Offensively amidst thick timber, the sculptor activates Gouge of the Ancestor on a basic machete or carving adze to slice cleanly through trunk-sized branches and deadfalls. The avatar collapses massive canopy limbs onto enemy patrols below or rapidly hews thorny deadfall into razor-sharp throwing stakes to ambush pursuit forces along narrow riverbanks.

Subterranean Mines, Ancient Crypts, and Stone Dungeons

  • Defensively within dark masonry halls and cavernous tunnels, the wearer uses Grain-Whisperer’s Sight to identify microscopic fault lines, hollow stone partitions, and structural stress points. If an enemy triggers a cave-in or collapse, the avatar drives an adze into the nearest support column to carve instant deflection channels, directing rock slides away from allies while flying debris is completely repelled by the mask’s chipping deflection.
  • Offensively underground, the avatar invokes Gouge of the Ancestor to treat soft stone, shale, and mineral veins like green cedar. The character rapidly notches structural keystones or support pillars, causing ceilings to collapse atop armored foes, or carves clean handholds up sheer vertical stone shafts to flank subterranean sentries from above.

Coastal Shipyards, Wooden Galleons, and Naval Battles

  • Defensively during naval warfare and boarding actions, the avatar inspects the ship’s timbers, immediately spotting dry rot, hull stress fractures, or hidden powder-magazine bulkheads. When enemy cannonades or ballista bolts splinter the ship’s gunwales, the avatar touches the splintered oak and uses Quick-Hew Barricade to knit the wreckage into a reinforced, arrow-proof fighting nest for deck archers.
  • Offensively aboard enemy vessels, the avatar channels cutting power into a simple drawknife, slicing through heavy wooden rudder assemblies, anchoring bitts, or mast steps as if they were soft wax. The wearer dismantles the enemy vessel’s steering capabilities in seconds, leaving opposing warships dead in the water while the crew readies boarding grapples.

Urban Settlements, Fortified Keeps, and Timber Palisade Outposts

  • Defensively within urban alleys and walled keeps, the avatar turns common street furnishings, timber scaffolding, and heavy carriage wagons into instant fortified shelters. When cornered by city guards or rival guilds, the wearer touches heavy wooden gates or tavern doors, rapidly re-shaping and reinforcing them with interlocking relief joints to prevent battering rams from breaching the threshold.
  • Offensively during siege assaults or urban infiltration, the character uses Spiritual Relief Binding and enhanced chisel strikes to silently carve away the mortise joints and wooden crossbars of fortified compound gates. By removing structural pins and latches without ringing iron against iron, the avatar breaches secure estates silently, opening pathways for strike teams.

Arid Badlands, Petrified Forests, and Canyon Narrows

  • Defensively across barren plateaus and petrified stone valleys, the wearer locates fossilized wood trunks and mineralized bone beds, utilizing Grain-Whisperer’s Sight to find natural geological cover. When caught in crossfire across open canyon floors, the avatar splinters petrified stumps into interlocking stone-wood mantlets to establish instant hard cover against ranged salvos.
  • Offensively within narrow canyon passes, the sculptor applies focused gouge strikes to petrified timber deposits and calcified cliff faces, undermining natural overhangs. The avatar releases targeted rockfalls against enemy wagon trains below, channeling ancestral precision to ensure the rubble forms a natural holding pen that traps the opposing force in place.

Perception of Activation:

User’s Perspective

  • Sight: The user’s field of vision transforms into high-contrast chiaroscuro, where raw timber, stone, and bone illuminate from within, exposing branching growth rings, density gradients, and luminous golden fault lines waiting to be carved.
  • Sound: Ambient sounds dull into a deep, rhythmic thrumming akin to an adze biting rhythmically into green wood, accompanied by the crisp, dry rustle of falling rosewood shavings.
  • Touch: A surge of kinetic warmth pulses through the wearer’s hands and forearms, accompanied by a tingling sensation in the palms that makes heavy chisels feel balanced and nearly weightless.
  • Taste: The palate detects the dry, sweet, and slightly peppery taste of fresh rosewood dust and natural cinnabar mineral paste.
  • Smell: A rich, heady aroma of damp heartwood shavings, boiled resin, crushed limestone, and smoldering charcoal fills the sinuses.
  • Extra-Sensory Perceptions: The wearer experiences “form premonition”—an intuitive spatial sensation where the finished sculpture or structural relief is felt as an already-existing phantom shape trapped inside the raw material, awaiting liberation.
  • Positives: Flawless manual accuracy, elimination of tool slippage, instant recognition of material weaknesses, and the ability to sculpt without physical fatigue or eye irritation.
  • Negatives: Intense fixation on physical textures and grain lines, creating tunnel vision that reduces peripheral awareness of distant ranged hazards or social cues.

Observer’s Perspective

  • Sight: The deep-red rosewood of the mask warms to a smoldering cherry hue, with the carved mantis and cockatoo crests casting elongated, animated shadow-reliefs while the eyes emit a focused, warm amber light.
  • Sound: Bystanders hear a sharp, resonant chiming like iron chisels striking musical stone, layered with the rapid, spectral sound of blades peeling ribbons of timber.
  • Touch: A dry, warm draught of air radiates outward within three paces, smelling of friction-heated timber and sawdust.
  • Taste: Nearby individuals notice a dry, chalky taste in the air, similar to fine airborne carving dust.
  • Smell: The immediate area fills with the aromatic, spicy fragrance of carved riverine rosewood and warm lacquer.
  • Extra-Sensory Perceptions: Sensitive onlookers feel a distinct vibration in nearby wooden objects, as if dormant grain patterns in furniture, floorboards, or tool shafts are subtly aligning themselves with the mask’s presence.
  • Positives: Allies can visually trace the glowing amber tool-paths projected by the mask, making cooperative construction, rapid shoring, and demolition efforts highly efficient.
  • Negatives: The rhythmic chipping echoes and vivid crimson-amber radiance make stealth impossible in quiet, dark spaces.

Master Sculptor Mask Recipe

Materials Needed

  • One solid block of dense, riverine rosewood heartwood harvested from the inland river valleys of Lapita.
  • One Tier 1 magic crystal (coin-sized and weighted) to serve as the core arcane battery and carving catalyst.
  • Four ounces of biological mangrove sap and clear tree gum extracted using a fluid collector from a living ancient hardwood.
  • Two polished mother-of-pearl retaining discs ground flat to back the ocular lattice grates.
  • Natural mineral pigments consisting of crushed red cinnabar, chalky white limestone, and volcanic black ash paste.
  • Three yards of three-ply braided pandanus leaf and sinew cordage treated with boiled tree resin.
  • One common mundane woodcarving gouge, chisel, or scrap piece of carved wooden effigy to be consumed as a sacrificial component for magical transference.

Tools Required

  • Narrow mortise chisels, deep-sweep carving gouges, detail v-tools, and a lightweight wooden carving mallet.
  • A standard fluid collector for reagent harvesting and adhesive distribution.
  • Agate mortar and pestle for pulverizing cinnabar and mineral pigments into fine relief paste.
  • Sharkskin abrasive sheets, pumice blocks, and wet polishing stones.
  • An arcane shaping focus to direct cognitive intent through the conduit during soul-binding.

Skill Requirements

  • Woodcrafting (Woodcarving / Sculpting) Skill Level 5 or higher.
  • Alchemical Crafting Skill Level 2 or higher (for cinnabar emulsion and resin temper).
  • Minimum Tier 1 Character status.

Crafting Steps

  • Harvesting and Sap Tempering: Use a fluid collector to extract fresh biological sap from a living riverine hardwood, blending it immediately with a measure of pure grain spirit to maintain workability.
  • Blank Dressing and Relief Planing: Hew the block of riverine rosewood into an elongated facial blank using a curved adze, shaping the chin into a hardened, sharp chisel-edge profile.
  • Filigree Piercing and Crest Sculpting: With deep gouges and fine pull-saws, pierce through the cheeks and brow to create the openwork filigree grates, sculpting the high-relief figures of the crested cockatoo and praying mantis along the temple rims.
  • Sacrificial Component Transference: Hollow out an internal chamber behind the upper brow of the mask. Place the Tier 1 magic crystal and the sacrificial carving tool within the cavity, channeling focused cognitive intent through an arcane focus to dissolve the physical steel tool and bind its cutting edge into the wood grain.
  • Ocular Lattice Setting: Coat the eye recesses with refined tree gum adhesive, seating the mother-of-pearl discs flush behind the carved openwork wooden grates to create the light-filtering ocular viewports.
  • Pigment Grinding and Relief Inlay: Pulverize red cinnabar, white limestone, and volcanic black ash using an agate mortar, blending them into thick emulsions with the harvested sap. Apply the deep red cinnabar along the undercut spiral gouge channels and accent the outer lattice with white chalk and black ash.
  • Burnishing and Harness Mounting: Sand the high-relief surfaces with sharkskin abrasives and pumice stone to a glossy satin finish, sealing the entire exterior with a thin coat of boiled clear resin. Secure the three-point braided pandanus and sinew harness through reinforced anchor points at the temples and crown.
  • Ritual Awakening: Hold the completed carving before an unfinished wooden effigy during an uninterrupted ten-minute attunement ritual, channeling mana directly into the embedded Tier 1 magic crystal to bind the ancestral soul of the master sculptor to the mask.

417 Knife and Spirit Trapped Inside Red Tree

In the count of centuries before the kings of the northern valleys learned to make their houses with burned mud bricks, when all gods dwelt inside the thick trunks of trees and demanded to be let out with sharp stones, there was a man who chipped the shapes of spirits whose lineage mark was registered as four hundred seventeen. The ancient clay cylinder, which was baked in a fire of dry sheep dung and translated into the old dialect of the plains by scribes who understood only the counting of oil jars, states that the people of that province wept constantly because their sacred wooden dolls looked like swollen melons and could not carry the souls of their ancestors into the sky.

The master cutter sat upon a heap of red wood flour near the rushing river. He was very sour of spirit because the high chieftain had cast three of his ritual posts into the cooking fire, saying they resembled dead dogs rather than the great grandfather of the clan. The artisan took an adze of heavy river basalt and struck a log of dark mountain rosewood that had been pulled from the bottom of the black gorge after four rainy seasons. When the stone tool bit into the red heartwood, the breath of his maternal uncle—who had died seventy summers before when a great cedar tree fell across his ribs while he was seeking a totem trunk—came hissing out of the wet sap like hot steam from an earthen pot. The departed uncle made a noise like two dry sticks rubbed together in a high wind. He said that the valley of the dead was a silent and shameful place because the ancestors possessed no wooden faces with open eyes, and were forced to wander through the grey dust bumping their knees against stone boulders.

The artisan took neither barley mash nor river water. He took a narrow chisel forged of cold star-iron and pierced the deep red wood with the likeness of the biting insect that prays with folded arms, and upon the crown he carved two wild mountain birds with high horns upon their beaks. He scraped the eye cavities until they were like fine fishnets of open lattice, setting behind them the flat round shells of sea oysters that had been ground upon sandstones until they shone like the moon through water. With the red stone powder scraped from the mountain of sulfur, the white lime of burned snail shells, and the black grease of roasted wild boar, he painted forty-two twisting spirals along the cheeks, each measuring the exact depth that a blade must sink into timber to liberate an ancestral ear without severing the nose.

When the red mineral paste was dry under the heat of the sky, the artisan bound the mask to his head with three cords of braided marsh grass and deer sinew. The translated cylinder records that instantly his two hands began to shake like the wings of a trapped bird, and his eyes threw forth long rays of warm red fire. Upon every log lying in the riverbed, he saw the shapes of men, hawks, lizards, and horned devils struggling beneath the bark, crying out to have their wooden flesh cut away.

He ran into the chief’s courtyard where sixteen apprentice carvers were beating a great ironwood trunk with bronze axes, sweating and crying because the grain was hard as river flint and broke all their blades. The master did not speak a greeting. He took a common scraping knife of soft iron and struck the great trunk. The cylinder states that the blade did not ring with a loud noise; instead, it moved through the hard ironwood as if passing through warm fat or soft mud. Ribbons of red and yellow timber curled away from his blade like water flowing down a smooth rock. Within the time it takes a pot of river beans to boil, the master had peeled away the dead wood and brought forth the standing image of the first chief, complete with pierced ears, teeth of polished bone, and fingers wrapped around a war club. When the elders of the tribe touched the carving, they fell upon their knees, for the wood was warm like living skin and breathed out the sweet scent of mountain flowers.

The clay chronicle tells that for seven harvests the carver went through the towns of the river valley, wearing the wooden face and carrying only a curved adze. Wherever a bridge was needed across a deep ravine, he struck a fallen trunk three times, and the wood split and carved itself into interlocking arches that supported forty loaded ox-carts without a creak. When the wild mountain clans came down with clubs to burn the grain stores, the master struck the logs of the palisade, causing the wooden stakes to grow rows of sharp thorns and open mouths that bit the hands of the attackers and hurled them into the ditch. The raiders fled in great terror, shouting that the river folk were commanded by a red demon who sculpted war from the trees.

When the valley was filled with straight totems and every dead ancestor had received a proper wooden house for his soul, the carver returned to his river hut and unloosed the sinew straps. His fingers had become curved and hard like iron hooks, and his eyes could no longer look upon a flat wall without weeping for the figures trapped within the stone, but every ritual pole in the kingdom stood without rot. He placed the mask inside a chest of fragrant cedar and buried it beneath his work bench, waiting for a true carver to lift the blade and call forth the sleeping shapes from the forest once more.

Moral of the Story: The raw material of the world holds great beauty and strength in its heart, but it remains mute and useless until the patient hand of the craftsman cuts away the excess with reverence and true skill.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

The Melanesian Sculptor’s Effigy Relic

  • Description: A ceremonial Malagan relief mask originating from the inland river valleys of the New Ireland archipelago. Carved from dense riverine rosewood, it features high-relief praying mantises, open filigree grates backed by mother-of-pearl, and deep gouges filled with cinnabar paste. It exudes the scent of warm lacquer, cedar shavings, and crushed mineral pigments.
  • Item Type: Minor Oceanic Occult Artifact / Talisman
  • Sanity Cost: 1/1d3 Sanity points upon donning the mask or attuning to its material resonance.
  • Passive Effects:
    • Grain Intuition: The investigator gains a +20% bonus to Art/Craft (Woodcarving, Sculpting, Stonemasonry) and Mechanical Repair checks made to shape, carve, restore, or dismantle organic and soft mineral materials.
    • Chipping Deflection: The wearer gains 1 point of physical Armor against small flying debris, stone chips, wood splinters, and environmental blast fragments.
  • Active Effects:
    • Chisel of the Ancestor: The user may spend 2 Magic Points to empower a handheld cutting blade, gouge, or chisel for 10 minutes. The tool effortlessly carves through seasoned hardwoods, dense bone, and soft masonry as if they were soft cedar, leaving clean geometric cuts without dulling.
    • Spiritual Relief Shaping: The user may spend 4 Magic Points and 1 Sanity point to strike a fallen timber, door, or wooden partition. The wood rapidly splinters and reknits itself into a spiked, interlocking wooden barricade providing 3 points of temporary physical cover armor against ranged attacks.
  • Drawback: The intense sensory focus on internal grain and structural shapes induces tunnel vision. While the mask’s powers are active, the investigator suffers a Penalty Die on Spot Hidden checks directed at distant or fast-moving threats.

Blades in the Dark

The Sculptor’s Rosewood Visage

  • Item Classification: Arcane / Tool (1 Load)
  • Description: A deeply carved rosewood mask etched with cinnabar pigments and mother-of-pearl eye grates, housing the restless spirit of an archipelago master woodcarver.
  • Quality / Tier: Tier I Fine Quality Arcane Tool / Crafting Focus
  • Mechanics:
    • Potency in Sculpting & Shaping: You gain Potency (+1 Effect level) on all Tinker, Finesse, and Wreck action rolls made to carve, reshape, breach, or structurally alter wooden barricades, doors, statues, ship hulls, and masonry keystones.
    • Chisel Empowerment (Arcane Trigger): Spend 1 Stress to channel the mask’s bound artisan spirit into a handheld blade or chisel for the score. The implement cuts through seasoned hardwoods, bone, and soft masonry without resistance, sound, or tool wear.
    • Instant Mantlet: Spend 1 Stress to strike a wooden surface or log. The material instantly splits and reweaves itself into an interlocking, spiked barricade, providing +1 Cover Defense against ranged attacks for your position.
  • Complication / Attention: The cinnabar-filled channels and mother-of-pearl eyes glow with a warm cherry-red luminescence when active. Carving with spiritual aid leaves distinct spectral tool marks visible to ghosts and Spirit Wardens.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)

Malagan Mask of the Master Sculptor

  • Wondrous Item: Headwear, common (requires attunement)
  • Armor Class: While wearing this mask, you gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class if you are wearing light armor or no armor.
  • Properties:
    • Master Carver: You have advantage on ability checks using Woodcarver’s Tools, Mason’s Tools, and Painter’s Supplies.
    • Chipping Deflection: You have resistance to piercing and slashing damage dealt by non-magical flying splinters, shattering wood hazards, and stone fragments.
    • Gouge of the Ancestor (3 Charges/Day): As a bonus action, you expend 1 charge to enchant a handheld carving tool, dagger, or adze for 1 minute. The weapon’s attacks against wooden, bone, or stone objects deal maximum damage and ignore damage thresholds up to 10. The mask regains all expended charges daily at dawn.
    • Quick-Hew Mantlet (1/Day): As an action, you touch a fallen log, wooden door, or substantial timber object. The wood instantly carves and knits itself into a 5-foot-wide, 4-foot-tall spiked wooden mantlet that grants half cover (+2 AC and Dexterity saving throws) to anyone positioned directly behind it.

Knave (2nd Edition)

The Master Sculptor’s Mask

  • Item Slot: 1 Item Slot (Worn on Head / Face)
  • Durability: 10 / 10
  • Armor Value: +1 Defense (Headwear)
  • Item Properties:
    • Sculptor’s Insight: Gain advantage on Wisdom and Intelligence checks made to analyze stone or wood architecture, carve delicate items, identify structural stress points, or find hollow spaces in masonry.
    • Deflecting Visor: Ignore all minor damage (1-2 points) caused by flying rock chips, splintering wood, and collapsing shoring debris.
    • Ancestral Chisel (3 Uses per Day): Spend an action chanting to empower a blade or chisel for 10 minutes, allowing it to carve through solid hardwoods, bone, and soft stone as easily as soft clay.
    • Fragile Filigree: If the mask suffers 5 or more Durability damage from direct blunt impacts, its openwork lattices crack, disabling its magical sculpting abilities until repaired by a carver using refined tree sap and crushed cinnabar.

Fate Core / Fate Condensed

Mask of the Ancestral Sculptor

  • Item Type: Unique Crafting & Fortification Extra (Aspect and Stunts)
  • Permissive Aspect: Vessel of the Master Sculptor
  • Description: A riverine rosewood relief-mask carved with praying mantis motifs and mother-of-pearl grates, inlaid with cinnabar paste and housing a master carver’s spirit.
  • System Mechanics and Stunts:
    • Master of the Gouge: Gain a +2 bonus to Create an Advantage or Overcome actions using Crafts when sculpting, carving, reshaping, or structurally dismantling wooden objects, stonework, bone, or barricades.
    • Ancestral Cleave: Once per scene, spend a Fate Point to empower a handheld cutting blade or chisel. For the rest of the scene, the tool cuts through solid timber, bone, and soft stone as easily as soft wax, completely ignoring obstacle difficulty based purely on material hardness.
    • Instant Spiked Mantlet: When creating an obstacle or physical cover from raw wood or timber rubble, you may attach an extra free invoke to the resulting aspect (such as Spiked Rosewood Mantlet or Interlocking Timber Barricade).
    • Chipping Deflection: Gain Armor:1 against physical damage and environmental hazards resulting from flying wood splinters, shattering stone chips, or bursting masonry.
    • Compel / Trouble: Artisan’s Hyperfixation. The spirit’s constant urge to liberate forms from raw materials can compel the wearer to fixate on sculpting or examining a material flaw when immediate action or vigilance is required.

Numenera & Cypher System

Biomorphic Sculptor Visage

  • Level: 3 (1d6)
  • Form: A sculpted rosewood mask inlaid with cinnabar mineral traces, openwork lattice grates, and polished mother-of-pearl ocular discs.
  • Gear Classification: Worn Artifact (Headgear)
  • Depletion: 1 in 1d20 (check per day of active material shaping)
  • Armor: +1 to Armor against physical damage from flying debris, stone shards, and wooden splinters.
  • Passive Mechanics:
    • Material Analysis: The wearer eases all tasks related to crafting, sculpting, carving, and identifying structural stress points in wood, bone, and soft stone by one step.
    • Grain Reading: The wearer instinctively detects natural fault lines and density variations in organic and mineral objects within immediate reach.
  • Active Abilities:
    • Molecular Blade Empowerment (Action, 1 Might Point): The wearer touches a handheld chisel, knife, or adze. The tool is energized, easing all tasks made to carve, slice, or breach wood, bone, and masonry by two steps for 10 minutes.
    • Instant Mantlet Shaping (Action, 2 Might Points): The wearer strikes a wooden object or log within immediate reach, reshaping it into a spiked wooden barricade that provides asset-level cover (+1 to Speed defense rolls) against ranged attacks for 1 hour.

Pathfinder (2nd Edition)

Malagan Mask of the Master Sculptor

  • Item Classification: Item 1; Common, Transmutation, Invested, Magical
  • Price: 18 gp (Subject to local artisan guild availability)
  • Usage: Worn Headwear; Bulk: L
  • Armor Bonus: +1 item bonus to Armor Class (AC) if the wearer is unarmored or wearing light armor.
  • Saving Throw Modifiers: The wearer gains a +1 item bonus to Reflex saving throws against traps, flying debris, and hazards involving shattering wood or stone.
  • Passive Enhancement:
    • Master Sculptor: The wearer gains a +1 item bonus to Crafting checks made to carve, sculpt, reshape, or repair objects made of wood, bone, or stone.
  • Active Abilities:
    • Activate — Gouge of the Ancestor:
      • Frequency: 3 times per day
      • Cost: 1 Action (Manipulate)
      • Effect: The wearer touches a carving tool, dagger, or adze. For 1 minute, the tool ignores up to Hardness 5 when striking or carving objects composed of wood, bone, or soft stone.
    • Activate — Rapid Mantlet:
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Cost: 2 Actions (Interact, Manipulate)
      • Effect: The wearer touches a log, wooden door, or substantial piece of timber. The wood rapidly reshapes into a 5-foot spiked mantlet that grants standard cover (+2 circumstance bonus to AC and Reflex saves) to one creature behind it for 10 minutes.

Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition – SWADE)

Mask of the Master Sculptor

  • Item Type: Arcane Relic / Minor Enchanted Headgear
  • Requirements: Minimum Strength d4
  • Weight: 2 lbs
  • Armor Value: +1 Armor to the Head area.
  • Passive Properties:
    • Carver’s Touch: The wearer gains a +2 bonus on all Repair, Trade (Crafting), and Notice rolls made to carve, sculpt, evaluate, or structurally weaken objects made of wood, stone, and bone.
    • Debris Deflection: The wearer gains +2 Toughness against damage caused by flying wood splinters, stone fragments, and falling masonry debris.
  • Active Powers:
    • Ancestral Edge (Power Points: 2): As an action, the wearer channels the mask’s spirit into a handheld blade or chisel. The tool gains AP 4 against wooden, stone, or bone barriers and objects for 10 minutes. The item recharges 1 Power Point per hour.
    • Instant Palisade (Power Points: 3): As an action, touching a fallen timber or door allows the wearer to cast Barrier (wood trapping only, creating a 1-section spiked mantlet with Hardness 10) for 10 minutes.
  • Drawback:
    • Crimson Radiance: While actively channeling power or sculpting, the cinnabar-filled channels and eye grates emit a cherry-red light, imposing a -2 penalty on Stealth checks in darkened environments.

Shadowrun (Sixth World)

Lapita Sculptor Qi Focus

  • Item Type: Qi Focus / Enchanted Artisan Mask (Force 1)
  • Slot: Headwear / Face Mask
  • Armor Value: +1 Defense Rating
  • Karma Cost: 2 Karma (to bond)
  • Availability: 4 (Market and artisan availability dependent)
  • Passive Mechanics:
    • Artisan’s Eye: The character gains a +1 dice pool modifier to Engineering (Sculpting, Carpentry, Structural Demolition) and Perception tests made to evaluate material integrity, detect grain flaws, or breach organic and masonry barriers.
    • Splinter Deflection: The wearer gains +1 Defense Rating against environmental blast hazards, wood splinters, and flying stone shrapnel.
  • Active Mechanics:
    • Molecular Cleave: As a Minor Action, the user channels astral force into a handheld blade, gouge, or chisel for 10 minutes, allowing it to bypass 2 points of Object Structure/Armor when cutting through timber, bone, or soft stone.
    • Spiked Palisade Surge: As a Major Action, the user spends 1 Edge while touching a fallen timber or wooden barricade to instantly reshape it into an interlocking wooden mantlet providing Medium Cover (+2 Defense Rating) for the scene.
  • Drawback:
    • Astral Luminescence: The item maintains an active Force 1 astral signature and glows with a warm cinnabar-amber aura during active cutting, preventing visual concealment in shadows.

Starfinder (Second Edition)

Sculptor’s Master Relief Visage

  • Item Level: 1
  • Price: 45 credits (Market variable by planetary artisan lodge)
  • Bulk: L (Light)
  • Item Type: Worn Magic Item (Headwear)
  • Usage: Worn, 1 minute investiture
  • Armor Bonus: +1 item bonus to Armor Class (AC) if the wearer is unarmored or wearing light armor.
  • Passive Mechanics:
    • Material Analysis: The wearer gains a +1 item bonus to Crafting skill checks made to carve, sculpt, reshape, or repair objects composed of wood, bone, stone, or bio-synthetic resin.
    • Splinter Resistance: The wearer gains resistance 2 against piercing and slashing damage dealt by bursting environmental wood, stone chips, or flying debris.
  • Active Mechanics:
    • Activate — Gouge of the Ancestor:
      • Cost: 1 Action (Manipulate)
      • Frequency: 3 times per day
      • Effect: The wearer touches a blade or chisel, granting it the ability to ignore up to Hardness 5 against wooden, bone, or mineral targets for 1 minute.
    • Activate — Rapid Mantlet:
      • Cost: 2 Actions (Interact, Manipulate)
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Effect: The wearer touches a piece of timber or structural wood, rapidly reshaping it into a 5-foot-wide spiked barricade that grants standard cover (+2 circumstance bonus to AC and Reflex saves) for 10 minutes.

Traveller (Mongoose 2nd Edition)

Archipelago Master Sculptor Mask

  • Tech Level (TL): 2 (Primitive Artisanal Craft, Resonant Psi-Focus)
  • Weight: 1 kg
  • Armor: Armor +1 (Head location only)
  • Cost: Cr 180 (Subject to world law level and availability of Oceanic relics)
  • Passive Mechanics:
    • Sculptor’s Precision: The wearer receives DM+1 on all Profession (Carpentry, Stonemasonry, Sculpting) and Recon checks made to analyze structural flaws, breach wooden barriers, or evaluate building materials.
    • Shrapnel Deflection: The wearer ignores the first point of damage from flying wood splinters, shattering stone chips, or minor structural collapses.
  • Active Mechanics:
    • Chisel Empowerment: Three times per day, the wearer touches a blade or cutting tool, granting DM+2 on all checks made to cut, carve, or dismantle timber, bone, and soft masonry for 10 minutes.
    • Instant Timber Mantlet: Once per day, the wearer strikes a fallen log or wooden beam, instantly reshaping it into an improvised wooden barricade providing Armor 4 cover against small-arms fire for 1 hour.
  • Drawback:
    • Tunnel Focus: The deep concentration on internal material grain imposes DM-1 on Initiative rolls during surprise attacks.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4th Edition)

Malagan Visage of the Master Sculptor

  • Classification: Minor Enchanted Talisman / Artisan’s Curio (Headwear)
  • Encumbrance: 0 (Worn on Face/Head)
  • Armor Points: 1 AP (Head)
  • Availability: Rare (Exotic import from remote island cultures)
  • Passive Mechanics:
    • Master of the Grain: The wearer gains a +10 bonus to Trade (Carpentry, Stonemasonry, Woodcarving) Tests and Perception Tests made to spot structural stress fractures, secret wooden compartments, or masonry flaws.
    • Chipping Deflection: The wearer gains +1 AP against damage caused by flying wood splinters, shattering stone debris, and collapsing mine timbers.
  • Active Mechanics:
    • Adze of the Ancestor: Three times per day, the wearer empowers a handheld blade or chisel for 10 minutes. The tool gains the Damaging quality and ignores up to 2 AP of wooden, bone, or soft stone barriers.
    • Quick-Hew Mantlet: Once per day, the wearer spends a standard action to strike a wooden door or log, instantly reshaping the timber into an interlocking spiked barricade that counts as Hard Cover (providing 4 AP of cover) for 1 encounter.
  • Drawback:
    • Cinnabar Flare: The cinnabar grooves and eye inlays emit a noticeable warm crimson light when active, imposing a -20 penalty on all Stealth Tests in darkened environments.