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Malagan 419 of the Master Timberwright

—

by

Dale
in

Lore

  • Hewn from the dense heartwood of a storm-felled mangrove along the coastal edges of Lapita, this artifact was shaped during the funeral rite of a legendary master timberwright.
  • The mortuary carving was commissioned to hold the lingering soul of the artisan, preserving his lifetime of structural knowledge, wood-grain intuition, and joinery mastery before his final crossing into the sea of purgatory.
  • Rather than seeking rest in quiet earth, the departed spirit yearns for the scent of fresh pine shavings, the rhythmic thud of adzes, and the creation of enduring mortise-and-tenon architecture.
  • Carpenters, builders, and shipwrights across the archipelago honor the carving by wearing it upon the brow while framing vessels, laying building foundations, and constructing reinforced fortifications.

Description

  • The artifact is a rigid, elongated wooden mask carved with stepped architectural fretwork, open geometric lattices representing load-bearing trusses, and side-crests styled after hornbills and burrowing wood-beetles.
  • Mineral pigments of charcoal soot, limestone chalk, and yellow ochre accent the measured grid lines etched across the forehead and cheekbones, functioning visually as precise imperial layout markings.
  • The eye slits are framed by inset nautilus shell rings that focus the wearer’s gaze, while the lower chin is shaped into a flat, level plane that can be rested against timber surfaces to check trueness and plumb lines.
  • The inner face is contoured to fit flush against the forehead and cheeks, secured by a four-point harness made of beaten vegetable fiber and tree-gum strapping to ensure the mask remains stationary during heavy manual labor.

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: 3 lbs
  • Base Value: Subject to regional merchant access and market availability

Passive Magic

  • Grain Intuition: While openly wearing the mask, the avatar gains a +2 temporary bonus to skill checks involving carpentry, woodcarving, ship repairs, and evaluating the structural integrity of wooden architecture.
  • Splinter Guard: The spirit of the timberwright repels jagged debris, granting the wearer resistance to minor piercing damage from flying wood splinters, thorns, and shattering timber.
  • Architectural Sight: The nautilus shell eye inlays provide the wearer with an innate, visual perception of true horizontal and vertical alignments, eliminating the need for mundane plumb lines or leveling tools on projects up to 30 feet in scale.

Activable Magic

  • Ancestral Joinery: As an action, the wearer places their hands on two unfastened, touching pieces of timber and speaks the carver’s invocation. The wood fibers instantly weave and fuse together at the seam, creating a seamless, water-tight joint with the strength of seasoned ironwood. This ability can be used three times per day.
  • Timber Fortification: As an action, the wearer touches a wooden door, barricade, or defensive palisade section. For the next 10 minutes, the targeted structure gains +5 temporary Hit Points and gains resistance to non-magical bludgeoning damage. This ability can be used once per day.
  • Lumberjack’s Cadence: As an action, the avatar channels kinetic force through their arms, doubling their physical sawing, hewing, and wood-planing speed for 1 hour without incurring physical fatigue. This ability can be used once per day.

Tags

  • Headwear, Mask, Wood, Carving, Malagan, Tier 1, Common, Crafting, Carpentry, Artisan, Lapita, Attuned, Utility, Timber, Ancestral, Joinery, Construction, Architecture, Shipwright, Fortification, Lattice, Truss, Geometry, Mangrove, Durability, Toolwork

Commercial Outlets, Trade Venues, and Valuation of the Malagan 419

Shipwright Yards and Coastal Docks

  • Located along the busy coastal wharfs and harbor docks of Lapita and neighboring maritime provinces, specialized shipyard supply shops cater directly to master builders and naval carpenters.
  • Purchasing the mask directly from an independent yard artisan involves an exchange in silver coinage, electrum, or standardized local port tokens, typically ranging from 30 to 55 Silver (or 3 to 5 Electrum) depending on regional lumber shortages and active ship construction contracts.
  • Buyers holding an open membership badge in the Shipwrights Guild or Carpenters Union receive the standard 10% discount multiplied by their tier level on the purchase price.
  • Avatars selling the mask to a dockside shipwright must undergo official assessment where the merchant haggles down the baseline offer by 10% times the seller’s tier level, logging the transaction and depositing the resulting precious metal value directly into the character’s World Bank account.

Artisan Guildhalls and Craft Guild Enclaves

  • In major walled cities exceeding five thousand residents, officially sanctioned guildhalls maintain curio and tool dispensaries managed by appointed guild administrators.
  • In these structured guild stores, the mask is sold as a verified master-tier architectural focus, commanding a standardized asking price between 45 and 70 Silver pieces (or 4 to 7 Gold in regional non-metal legal tender).
  • Active guild members in good standing who present their credentials receive a 10% discount per tier level off the catalog value.
  • Selling to an official guild merchant requires submitting the item for provenance inspection; the merchant discounts the payout by 10% per seller tier level, records the sale in city trade ledgers, and routes the funds into the character’s World Bank balance.

Harbor Back-Alley Fences and Salvage Rings

  • Unregulated black-market fences operating out of shipyard slums, abandoned dry docks, or hidden dockside taverns deal in salvaged trade goods, unrecorded ancestral relics, and stolen construction gear.
  • Purchasing from a black-market broker requires full payment in physical gold or precious metal coins, as bank transfers and guild credits are rejected. Due to illegal acquisition overhead, the fence charges full price or an inflated markup, pricing the carving between 6 and 9 Gold coins (60 to 90 Silver) without offering guild or faction discounts.
  • When an avatar sells the mask to a salvage fence, the trade is conducted in physical coin with no logs kept. If the fence has an immediate demand from private fortification contractors or illicit ship repairers, they may pay up to twice the standard merchant valuation (4 to 7 Gold in raw physical coin) while keeping the source confidential.

Inland Frontier Depots and Logging Outposts

  • As items are transported inland, through central capital cities, and across state borders, transit costs escalate due to the 5% state border tariffs and municipal road passage fees.
  • In remote interior logging settlements, frontier fortresses, or mountain valleys where quality coastal hardwood and oceanic joinery relics are exceedingly scarce, the mask is classified as an exotic luxury tool.
  • Inland frontier merchants price the item between 1 and 3 Gold coins (10 to 30 Silver in local coin equivalent), adjusting the price based on transport scarcity, while rural depot masters refuse to purchase the item unless the seller accepts a deep discount tailored to isolated frontier barter economies.

Tactical and Environmental Roleplay Applications of the Timberwright Mask

Shipyards, Docks, and Naval Vessels

  • Defensively during high-seas combat or harbor ambushes, the avatar uses the mask to instantly inspect cracked decking, snapped spars, and hull breaches caused by naval ballistas or sea monsters. By applying the ancestral joinery activation to splintered bulkheads, the wearer seals hull leaks and repairs collapsed gangways mid-combat, ensuring the party maintains secure footing and preventing the vessel from taking on water.
  • Offensively during shipboard boarding actions, the avatar targets the opposing vessel’s primary structural points. Using architectural sight to pinpoint the weak stress lines of the enemy ship’s mast, rudder assembly, or capstan, the wearer strikes with focused timber-cleaving attacks, disabling the adversary’s steering rigging and toppling heavy yardarms onto enemy crew formations.

Industrial Steamworks, Sawmills, and Rail Depots

  • Within bustling lumber mills and mechanized steam factories, the wearer employs the mask defensively by reading the kinetic vibrations of spinning gears and structural timber scaffolding. The avatar positions party members safely behind load-bearing framework away from burst steam pipes and high-velocity machinery, relying on the splinter-guard property to absorb the impact of flying sawdust, ruptured wood casings, and stray pressurized debris.
  • For offensive maneuvers in factory skirmishes, the avatar uses the lumberjack’s cadence to rapidly dismantle support struts, log ramps, and timber chutes. By swiftly severing keyed wedges and release pins, the wearer triggers controlled collapses of stacked lumber piles and industrial catwalks directly onto pursuing foes, trapping enemy enforcers beneath tons of fallen timber.

Overgrown Forests, Mangrove Swamps, and Wild Woodlands

  • In hostile wilderness terrain, the avatar roleplays defense by rapidly constructing emergency field shelters and fortified wooden redoubts. Touching fallen branches and living roots, the wearer fuses raw swamp timber into spiked defensive perimeters that repel charging feral beasts, while using the level chin plane to align defensive stakes at optimum deflecting angles against predatory lunges.
  • Offensively against hostile forest creatures or wild plant monsters, the avatar channels the master carver’s keen eye to identify rotten wood, hollow trunks, and unbalanced deadwood overhead. With a calculated chop from a hand axe or adze, the wearer drops massive overhead boughs onto lurking ambushers, utilizing the natural terrain as a devastating crushing weapon.

Subterranean Shafts, Mines, and Underground Cave Settlements

  • Deep within mine workings and subterranean cave cities, the avatar uses the mask defensively to evaluate the stability of wooden shoring beams, mine shafts, and tunnel braces. By reinforcing stressed support timbers with the timber fortification ability, the wearer prevents catastrophic cave-ins caused by ground-shaking tremorsense beasts or chaotic magic explosions, keeping the party’s extraction routes open.
  • For offensive subterranean tactics, the wearer identifies and exploits faulty shoring installed by subterranean adversaries. By severing critical lintels or unbinding braced tunnel headers during an enemy advance, the avatar drops controlled rock and timber deadfalls across tight corridors, sealing off enemy reinforcements and crushing forward scouts.

Urban Settlements, Fortresses, and City Palasades

  • Within walled cities and siege fortifications, the avatar acts defensively as an emergency combat engineer. When fortress gates, barricades, or sally ports are battered by enemy rams, the wearer rushes the breach, invoking ancestral joinery and timber fortification to weave shattered oak gates back into solid, iron-hard barrier walls under direct arrow fire.
  • Offensively during urban assaults or room-clearing operations, the avatar turns domestic wooden architecture into offensive tools. By analyzing the structural joints of wooden staircases, floorboards, and ceiling beams, the wearer breaks critical tenons to drop upper floors beneath defending guards, or converts shattered furniture and door planks into improvised, reinforced siege mantlets to push past defensive firing lines.

Perception of Activation:

User’s Perspective

  • Sight: The wearer experiences an immediate overlay of geometric grids across their vision, with structural load vectors, wood grain orientations, and hidden stress fractures highlighted in a vibrant amber and ultraviolet hue.
  • Sound: The open timber lattices channel and filter sound, replacing harsh ambient noise with the steady, measured rhythm of an adze biting into cedar and the faint scratching sound of wood-beetles chewing through bark.
  • Touch: The contoured interior of the mask warms significantly, while the vegetable-fiber strapping contracts slightly to form a solid, immovable grip against the facial bones, imparting a sensation of rigid stability.
  • Taste: A clean, dry bitterness reminiscent of green hardwood tannins and mineral limestone wash settles upon the tongue.
  • Smell: The wearer perceives a rich, pungent fragrance of freshly planed heartwood, boiling tree resin, and dry charcoal dust clearing their airway.
  • Extra-Sensory Perceptions: The avatar feels a direct telepathic alignment with the structural instincts of the departed timberwright, providing an innate mental compass for true level, balance, and the exact physical breaking points of surrounding architectural structures.
  • Positives: The user gains absolute spatial awareness regarding structural integrity, resistance against disorientation from shaking floors or collapsing debris, and an instant understanding of how to repair or reinforce nearby wooden obstacles.
  • Negatives: The hyper-focused architectural vision causes minor eye strain and a dull throbbing at the temples, slightly reducing peripheral awareness of non-structural, fast-moving organic hazards.

Observer’s Perspective

  • Sight: Spectators see the etched geometric lattices and hollow hornbill crests illuminate from within, casting sharp, amber-gold light lines across the wearer’s shoulders and the surrounding workspace.
  • Sound: Observers hear a subtle, harmonic hum vibrating through the wood grain, accompanied by the faint, rhythmic sound of unseen timber being sawn and measured.
  • Touch: Anyone stepping within a few feet of the wearer feels a dry, warm atmospheric draft accompanied by a faint settling sensation, as if the surrounding floorboards have suddenly locked firmly into place.
  • Taste: Those nearby note an unexpected, dry woodsy taste in the air, similar to standing inside an active sawmill or seasoning shed.
  • Smell: Bystanders detect an immediate, crisp scent of shaved pine, warm mangrove resin, and ground yellow ochre cutting through damp marsh or urban air.
  • Extra-Sensory Perceptions: Individuals with magical sensitivity or true sight perceive a shimmering framework of arcane construction lines radiating outward from the mask, temporarily binding the local physical space into rigid, orderly alignment.
  • Positives: The activation visibly demonstrates absolute craftsmanship authority and provides surrounding allies with a reassuring sense of physical stability and fortified cover.
  • Negatives: The stark, glowing layout patterns and distinct hum make the wearer instantly noticeable, preventing any attempt to conceal their position or hide behind illuminated barricades.

Master Timberwright Mask Recipe

Materials Needed

  • One solid balk of seasoned mangrove heartwood harvested from the tidal flats of Lapita.
  • One Tier 1 magic crystal (coin-sized and weighted) to function as the arcane catalyst and power cell.
  • Four ounces of sticky mangrove tree sap extracted using a fluid collector from a living hardwood.
  • Two polished nautilus shell rings harvested from coastal reef shallows.
  • Natural mineral pigments consisting of crushed yellow ochre, charred charcoal soot, and powdered limestone chalk.
  • Three yards of braided vegetable fiber strapping treated with natural tree gum.
  • One common mundane carpenter’s tool or scrap of wooden buckler to be consumed as a sacrificial component for magical transference.

Tools Required

  • Heavy adze, fine joinery gouges, pull-saws, and wood rasps.
  • A standard fluid collector for sap harvesting and adhesive distribution.
  • Stone grinding slab and muller for mineral pigment preparation.
  • Hardwood sanding blocks and sharkskin abrasive sheets for surface flattening.
  • An arcane shaping focus to direct cognitive will during the component dissolution and binding.

Skill Requirements

  • Woodcrafting (Carpentry) Skill Level 5 or higher.
  • Alchemical Crafting Skill Level 2 or higher (for sap temper and pigment stabilization).
  • Minimum Tier 1 Character status.

Crafting Steps

  • Harvesting and Sap Processing: Use a fluid collector to tap and extract biological sap from an ancient tidal mangrove, sealing the liquid with a splash of alcohol to maintain fluidity.
  • Squaring and Trueing: Hew the mangrove heartwood balk into a symmetrical, rectangular face blank using an adze, planing the bottom edge flat to serve as the true-level reference plane.
  • Lattice and Crest Piercing: Carve the central architectural trusses and stepped lattice fretwork with gouges and pull-saws, hollowing the upper crests into the forms of twin hornbills and burrowing wood-beetles.
  • Component Transference and Cavity Seat: Chisel a seated receptacle in the upper forehead of the carving. Place the Tier 1 magic crystal and the sacrificial wooden gear inside, channeling mental focus through the arcane focus to dissolve the sacrificial item and infuse its structural integrity into the wood grain.
  • Shell Focus Inlay: Coat the carved orbital sockets with refined mangrove sap, pressing the polished nautilus shell rings flush into the wood to form the visual alignment apertures.
  • Pigment Laydown: Grind yellow ochre, limestone chalk, and charcoal soot into fine powders, emulsifying them with tree sap. Paint the measured imperial grid markers, angle lines, and structural accents across the face and crests.
  • Burnishing and Harness Mounting: Sand the lower jaw plane and outer facets with sharkskin abrasives until glass-smooth, applying a protective layer of boiled gum resin. Anchor the four-point vegetable fiber strapping through reinforced holes drilled into the temple edges.
  • Ritual Conduit Awakening: Execute a continuous ten-minute ritual attunement while holding the mask, channeling mana into the embedded Tier 1 magic crystal to bind the architectural instincts of the master timberwright to the finished artifact.

Crooked Tower and Square-Eyed Face of 419

In the count of centuries when the great water-swell did not yet keep its proper hours and the island of the tall roots had no straight fences, there was an overseer of timber whose family mark was written as four hundred nineteen. The ancient bark-scroll, which was eaten at the margins by creeping insects and translated by priests who knew only the names of fish, tells that the people of the shore built houses that fell sideways whenever the great winds came out of the salt hollows.

The master of trees sat upon a mound of wet chips and was exceedingly sorrowful. He took a heavy adze of black basalt and struck a log of red mangrove that had grown in the salt mud for two hundred rotations of the great sky-disc. While he labored, the memory of his uncle—who had been crushed beneath an unbalanced ridgepole because he forgot to measure the plumb line—rose up out of the warm resin. The departed uncle made a noise like dry rafters rubbing together in a tempest. He told the carver that the halls of the sleeping souls were filled with crooked joints, sagging lintels, and doors that scraped upon the dirt, and he could find no rest because the angles of the void were utterly out of square.

The carver, having no papyrus and very little grease for his lamps, began to cut the red wood with great speed. He did not draw the face of a dancing woman or a fat pig. He carved the steps of roof trusses upon the forehead, and he pierced the wood with many holes shaped like the nests of boring grubs so that the wind of the sea could blow through without tearing the mask from his ears. In the place of eyes, he laid rings of coiled sea-snail shell that had been ground upon wet stones until they showed only the four true quarters of the compass. He ground the yellow mud of the smoking hill and the black soot of his own cooking hearth, painting lines of ten fingers and five fingers across the nose so that every cut might be known without counting upon pebbles.

When the resin was dry, the artisan bound the wood to his visage with four cords of swamp grass. The ancient parchment states that as soon as the knots were drawn tight, the earth under his sandals ceased to wobble. He walked into the settlement where the king’s cousin was attempting to erect a high watchtower of forty poles. The poles were crooked like the legs of a dying crab, and the workers were weeping because the heavy crossbeams fell upon their shoulders whenever a sea-gull landed upon the thatch.

The master timberwright did not speak with the words of courtly greeting. He climbed upon the swaying scaffolding, and from the mouth of the carved face came a sound like two stones grinding corn. He touched the unshaped trunks with his palms, and the wood fibers began to knit together like the scales of an eel. The joints that had been loose became hard as forged iron. He placed his flat chin against the upright posts, and wherever the wood leaned toward the sunset, he pushed it straight with a single finger, for the spirit within the carving would not permit any beam to rest at an untrue angle.

The translated tablet records that the king’s soldiers came with spears, shouting that the tower was built without paying the timber tax to the city gatekeeper. Yet when they thrust their iron points against the wooden walls, the spearheads bent backward like wet reeds, for the mask had fortified the posts with the strength of the deep earth. The workers shouted with astonishment and cast down their copper axes, refusing to labor for any master who did not wear the square-eyed visage. For seven years, the tower stood against three great storms that tore the trees from the mountains, and not a single joint creaked nor did a single drop of rain enter the roof.

When the building of the seven storeys was completed and the last tenon was driven home, the master carver took down the mask and set it upon an altar of cedar shavings. His eyes were red from the brightness of the yellow lines, and his fingers were stiff like dry pegs, but the town had straight walls for the first time since the falling of the stars. The ancestor within the wood closed his mouth and rested in the smell of pine, waiting for another builder whose walls lean toward the earth to lift the cord and set the true line once more.

Moral of the Story: A strong foundation and true corners preserve the house long after the hands of the builder have turned to dust, but he who builds in haste without plumb or measure will find his roof falling upon his own bed when the first storm arrives.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

The Melanesian Joiner’s Relic

  • Description: An authentic early-colonial Malagan mask collected from New Ireland, crafted from seasoned mangrove wood with geometric lattice carvings, yellow ochre lines, and polished nautilus shell eye inlays. It smells strongly of cedar resin and drying sap.
  • Item Type: Minor Oceanic Occult Artifact / Talisman
  • Sanity Cost: 1/1d3 Sanity points upon donning the artifact or opening its geomantic sight.
  • Passive Effects:
    • Structural Intuition: While wearing the mask, the investigator gains a +20% bonus to Art/Craft (Carpentry, Woodworking, Shipbuilding) and Mechanical Repair checks involving wooden mechanisms, scaffolding, shoring, or structures.
    • Splinter Deflection: The wearer gains 1 point of physical Armor against non-magical piercing and slashing damage originating from wooden hazards, collapsing timbers, flying splinters, or primitive wooden barricades.
  • Active Effects:
    • Geodetic Assessment: The user may spend 2 Magic Points to enter a state of deep concentration for 1 minute. The user immediately detects hidden structural weaknesses, secret doors framed in wood, stress fractures, dry rot, and weight-bearing breaking points within any wooden building or ship compartment up to 30 feet away.
    • Spiritual Splicing: The user may spend 4 Magic Points and 1 Sanity point to touch two separate pieces of unfastened wood. The timber fibers instantly meld and fuse with the tensile strength of iron-reinforced joinery, allowing emergency barricading or instant structural stabilization without nails, glue, or tools.
  • Drawback: The geometric grid vision induces severe eye strain and spatial rigidity. While equipped, the wearer suffers a Penalty Die on all Dodge rolls and Sleight of Hand checks against fast-moving organic threats.

Blades in the Dark

The Timberwright’s Dagger-Isle Visage

  • Item Classification: Arcane / Tool (1 Load)
  • Description: A heavy, lattice-carved mask made of mangrove ironwood, stained with yellow ochre and soot, housing the meticulous ghost of an archipelago master carpenter.
  • Quality / Tier: Tier I Fine Quality Arcane Tool / Armor
  • Mechanics:
    • Potency in Woodcraft: You gain Potency (+1 Effect level) on all Tinker, Finesse, and Wreck action rolls made to build, reinforce, pick apart, or collapse wooden architecture, scaffolding, barricades, ship hulls, and carriage frames.
    • Structural Fortification: When you take physical Harm from collapsing debris, flying wooden shrapnel, or structural falls, you may spend 1 Armor charge from this item to reduce the Harm by 1 level.
    • Ghost Joinery (Arcane Trigger): Spend 1 Stress to channel the mask’s bound artisan soul. Choose one:
      • Instantly weld two touching wooden surfaces into a seamless, unbreakable joint without tools or noise, creating an impromptu reinforced door lock or sturdy climbing anchor.
      • Temporarily grant a wooden barrier, barricade, or door the Sturdy quality (+1 Tier defense against physical breach attempts) for the duration of the score.
  • Complication / Attention: The etched yellow ochre lines and shell inlays glow with an amber luminescence during active joinery. Using the ghost-joinery mechanic in view of city guards, inspectresses, or rival crews leaves unmistakable spectral residue that cannot be washed away.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)

Malagan Mask of the Master Builder

  • 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’s Measure: You have advantage on ability checks using Carpenter’s Tools, Woodcarver’s Tools, and Vehicles (Water). You always know true level and vertical plumb within 30 feet without measuring implements.
    • Deflecting Grain: You have resistance to piercing damage dealt by non-magical wooden objects, tree branches, thorns, and splintering structural debris.
    • Instant Tenon (3 Charges/Day): As an action, you expend 1 charge and touch two touching pieces of non-magical timber. The wood fibers weave seamlessly together, fusing the pieces as if joined by a permanent master mortise-and-tenon joint. The mask regains all expended charges daily at dawn.
    • Reinforce Threshold (1/Day): As an action, you touch a wooden door, chest, or 10-foot section of palisade. For the next 10 minutes, the object’s damage threshold increases by 5, its maximum hit points increase by 10, and the DC to break or force it open increases by 5.

Knave (2nd Edition)

The Mangrove Mason’s Mask

  • Item Slot: 1 Item Slot (Worn on Head / Face)
  • Durability: 10 / 10
  • Armor Value: +1 Defense (Headwear)
  • Item Properties:
    • Artisan’s Eye: When inspecting dungeon architecture, shoring beams, pit traps, or wooden doors, gain advantage on Intelligence and Wisdom checks made to identify structural instability, trigger mechanisms, or secret seams.
    • Timber Shielding: Ignore all minor damage (1-2 points) caused by flying splinters, collapsing wooden scaffolding, and wooden punji stakes.
    • Runic Joinery (3 Uses per Day): Spend an action chanting while pressing two pieces of raw or planed wood together to meld them permanently into a single solid piece, creating instant barricades, field ladders, or watertight hull repairs.
    • Tool Fragility: If the mask suffers 5 or more Durability damage from blunt impact, its alignment grids crack, disabling all magical properties until repaired by a skilled carpenter using refined resin and yellow ochre powder.

Fate Core / Fate Condensed

Mask of the Ancestral Joiner

  • Item Type: Unique Crafting Extra (Aspect and Stunts)
  • Permissive Aspect: Vessel of the Master Timberwright
  • Description: A heavily carved ceremonial mangrove mask bearing etched layout grids, geometric lattice trusses, and nautilus shell eye inlays housing an ancestral artisan spirit.
  • System Mechanics and Stunts:
    • Master of the Grain: Gain a +2 bonus to Create an Advantage or Overcome actions using Crafts when designing, repairing, fortifying, or dismantling wooden architecture, barricades, scaffolding, or sea vessels.
    • Seamless Splice: Once per scene, spend a Fate Point to instantly fuse two unfastened touching pieces of timber into a single seamless, solid joint without tools, fasteners, or sound.
    • Fortified Timber Threshold: When creating an obstacle or defensive barrier from wood, you may attach an extra free invoke to the resulting aspect (such as Reinforced Oak Barricade or Iron-Hard Palisade).
    • Splinter Deflection: Gain Armor:1 against physical attacks and environmental hazards resulting from shattering wood, wooden debris, or structural collapses.
    • Compel / Trouble: Rigid Architectural Obsession. The spirit’s demand for true level and perfect symmetry can compel the wearer to hesitate or pause in chaotic environments to inspect or fix unsound structures.

Numenera & Cypher System

Biomorphic Timber-Shaper Visage

  • Level: 3 (1d6)
  • Form: An intricate mask fashioned from dense biological mangrove wood, inlaid with iridescent spiral synth-rings and sealed with crystalline amber sap.
  • Gear Classification: Worn Artifact (Headgear)
  • Depletion: 1 in 1d20 (check per day of active structural manipulation)
  • Armor: +1 to Armor against physical attacks and environmental hazards from wooden projectiles, splinters, or falling debris.
  • Passive Mechanics:
    • Structural Analysis: The wearer eases all tasks related to crafting, repairing, understanding, or disabling wooden structures and mechanical wood assemblies by one step.
    • Level Compass: The wearer always perceives true horizontal and vertical alignment within immediate range, easing navigation and balance tasks on narrow timber or rigging by one step.
  • Active Abilities:
    • Molecular Wood Fusion (Action, 1 Intellect Point): The wearer touches two contacting pieces of non-synth wood, causing the cellular fibers to fuse instantly into a seamless, permanent joint with level 4 material strength.
    • Structural Fortification (Action, 2 Might Points): The wearer reinforces a wooden barrier, door, or shoring beam within immediate reach. The structure gains +1 to its effective level (up to level 5) against physical damage and breach attempts for 1 hour.

Pathfinder (2nd Edition)

Malagan Mask of the Master Carpenter

  • Item Classification: Item 1; Common, Divination, Transmutation, Invested, Magical
  • Price: 18 gp (Subject to local timber market 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 and Fortitude saving throws against hazards, falling objects, and traps composed primarily of timber or collapsing architecture.
  • Passive Enhancement:
    • Master Timberwright: The wearer gains a +1 item bonus to Crafting checks made to repair, build, or analyze wooden items, fortifications, and waterborne vehicles.
  • Active Abilities:
    • Activate — Instant Tenon:
      • Frequency: 3 times per day
      • Cost: 1 Action (Manipulate)
      • Effect: The wearer touches two adjacent, unfastened wooden objects. The wood fibers knit together seamlessly, creating a permanent structural bond as strong as seasoned heartwood.
    • Activate — Reinforce Palisade:
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Cost: 2 Actions (Interact, Concentrate)
      • Effect: The wearer touches a wooden door, barricade, or 10-foot section of wooden wall. The target gains 10 temporary Hit Points and gains Hardness 5 against non-magical physical damage for 10 minutes.

Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition – SWADE)

Mask of the Timber Master

  • Item Type: Arcane Relic / Minor Enchanted Headgear
  • Requirements: Minimum Strength d4
  • Weight: 3 lbs
  • Armor Value: +1 Armor to the Head area.
  • Passive Properties:
    • Artisan’s Eye: The wearer gains a +2 bonus on all Repair and Notice rolls made to construct, evaluate, reinforce, or sabotage wooden structures, vessels, doors, and siege defenses.
    • Deflecting Grain: The wearer gains +2 Toughness against non-magical piercing and slashing attacks caused by flying wooden splinters, wooden traps, and collapsing timber debris.
  • Active Powers:
    • Timber Weave (Power Points: 3): As an action, the wearer channels the mask’s spirit to cast Barrier (wood trappings only) or fuse two touching wooden planks into an unbreakable join. The item recharges 1 Power Point per hour.
    • Fortify Threshold (Power Points: 2): As an action, touching a wooden barrier or door increases its Hardness by +2 and grants the object the ability to ignore 2 points of incoming physical damage for 10 minutes.
  • Drawback:
    • Amber Radiance: During any active power use or structure evaluation, the grid markings glow brightly, imposing a -2 penalty on Stealth checks in dark environments.

Shadowrun (Sixth World)

Lapita Timber-Architect 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:
    • Engineering Intuition: While worn, the character gains a +1 dice pool modifier to Engineering and Electronics tests made to analyze, repair, build, or undermine wooden structural components, temporary fortifications, and architectural supports.
    • Splinter Dispersion: The character gains a +1 dice pool modifier to damage resistance tests against fragmentation or physical impact hazards caused by splintered wood and collapsing structural framework.
  • Active Mechanics:
    • Resonant Structural Scan: As a Minor Action, the user aligns their focus with the mask, detecting load-bearing stress points, hidden cavities, and structural weaknesses within wooden frames up to 10 meters away without electronic diagnostic equipment for 10 minutes.
    • Spiritual Splice: As a Major Action, the user spends 1 Edge to channel the spirit into two adjacent pieces of timber. The wood grain instantly weaves together, creating a seamless, reinforced bond capable of sealing doors or reinforcing physical barriers with +2 Defense Rating for the scene.
  • Drawback:
    • Astral Beacon: The item maintains an active Force 1 astral signature and produces an amber visual glow along its geometric lines when active, preventing the user from benefiting from visual concealment in darkness.

Starfinder (Second Edition)

Mangrove Joiner’s Visage

  • Item Level: 1
  • Price: 45 credits (Market variable by system and trade route)
  • 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:
    • Structural Engineering: The wearer gains a +1 item bonus to Crafting skill checks made to repair, assemble, evaluate, or disassemble wooden structures, furniture, shoring, and decorative organic bulkheads.
    • Splinter Deflection: The wearer gains resistance 2 against non-magical piercing and slashing damage from splintered wooden debris, collapsing timber framing, and biological thorn hazards.
  • Active Mechanics:
    • Activate — Instant Tenon:
      • Cost: 1 Action (Manipulate)
      • Frequency: 3 times per day
      • Effect: The wearer touches two contacting pieces of untreated timber or organic composite material, causing the fibers to fuse into a seamless, permanent joint with structural integrity equal to reinforced ironwood.
    • Activate — Palisade Reinforcement:
      • Cost: 2 Actions (Interact, Concentrate)
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Effect: The wearer touches a wooden barricade or door section, granting the structure 10 temporary Hit Points and Hardness 5 against kinetic bludgeoning damage for 10 minutes.

Traveller (Mongoose 2nd Edition)

Archipelago Structural Alignment Mask

  • Tech Level (TL): 2 (Primitive Artisanal Craft, Resonant Psi-Focus)
  • Weight: 1.5 kg
  • Armor: Armor +1 (Head location only)
  • Cost: Cr 180 (Subject to world law level and availability of Oceanic relics)
  • Passive Mechanics:
    • Architectural Precision: The wearer receives DM+1 on all Profession (Carpentry, Construction) and Mechanic checks involving the structural evaluation, framing, assembly, or demolition of wooden buildings, furniture, and sea vessels.
    • Debris Protection: The wearer gains +1 protection against personal damage caused by collapsing timber framing, wood shrapnel, and environmental splinter hazards.
  • Active Mechanics:
    • True-Plumb Calibration (Resonant Sight): Once per day, the user may activate the nautilus shell apertures to gain a precise visual evaluation of load distribution, structural integrity, and hidden seams in timber structures within Short range (5 meters) for 1D x 10 minutes.
    • Instant Fiber Weld (Psionic / Resonant Trigger): Once per day, the user channels focused mental energy through the mask’s wood grain into two contacting pieces of timber, fusing the fibers into a permanent, seamless joint with standard structural strength without using mechanical fasteners.
  • Drawback:
    • Rigid Fixation: The overwhelming sensory demand for geometric balance imposes a DM-1 penalty on Recon checks when scanning for organic, non-geometric movement in the brush.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4th Edition)

Malagan Visage of the Master Timberwright

  • Classification: Minor Enchanted Talisman / Artisan 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, Shipwright, Woodcarver) Tests and Perception Tests made to evaluate the structural strength or hidden weaknesses of wooden structures, palisades, and ship hulls.
    • Deflecting Fiber: The wearer gains a +10 bonus to Toughness Tests made to resist damage or wounds caused by shattering wooden barricades, punji stakes, and splintering structural beams.
  • Active Mechanics:
    • The Ancestor’s Joinery: Three times per day, the wearer may spend a standard action touching two adjoining timber components while reciting an ancient craftsman’s invocation. The wood grain seamlessly knits together, creating an unbreakable structural seam that instantly repairs damaged doors or reinforces makeshift barricades.
    • Reinforce the Line: Once per day, the wearer touches a 2-yard section of wooden palisade, wall, or door. The barrier gains +2 AP against siege attacks and bludgeoning damage for 1 hour.
  • Drawback:
    • Luminescent Markings: The yellow ochre grid markings glow with amber light whenever structural magic is channeled, imposing a -20 penalty on all Stealth (Urban or Rural) Tests in darkened environments.