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Persian 914 of the Faravahars Neural Lattice

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by

Dale
in
  • Lore:
    • During the technological synthesis of ancient traditions across the island continents of Saṃsāra, cyber-physicians and artificer-sorcerers sought a harmonious method to interface mechanical prosthetics with the subtle spiritual energies of reincarnated souls. Drawing upon ancient Persian spiritual metaphysics centered around the Faravahar—the guardian spirit and principle of divine moral progression—guild technomancers crafted delicate neural conduits from spun electrum, tempered desert glass, and blessed saffron resins. Persian 914 of the Faravahar’s Neural Lattice was forged to serve as an integrative bridge for Tier 1 avatars undergoing biological cybernetic alteration. Rather than allowing raw mechanical augments to generate phantom nerve rejection, glitching, or spiritual dissonance, this neural lattice anchors mechanical limbs and sensory cyberware directly into the body’s latent mana pathways, treating artificial hardware not as foreign metal, but as consecrated extensions of the avatar’s will.
  • Description:
    • This item takes the form of an intricate cervical cranial subdermal harness resembling an outstretched, winged Faravahar sun-disc cast from polished, non-magnetic electrum. The device sits snugly against the base of the skull along the cervical spine, anchoring fine, hair-thin electrum filaments that trace outward beneath the skin like gold leaf circuitry along the collarbones and down the spinal column. The central hub is set with a flat cabochon of pale amber glass containing microscopic cuneiform prayers of harmony and preservation. When active, warm amber light pulses through the electrum circuits in rhythm with the wielder’s heartbeat, and a faint rose-gold phosphor tracks along the seamlines of any connected cybernetic augments. The unit remains lukewarm to the touch, and close proximity carries the subtle scent of warm frankincense, electrical ozone, and dried cypress bark.
  • Detailed Stats:
    • Item Rank: Common (Tier 1)
    • Resilience: 10
    • Item Hit Points: Avatar Maximum Hit Points plus 10 (Derived from Resilience 10 multiplied by Tier 1)
    • Armor Check (AC): +0 AC bonus (Non-defensive bio-arcane interface implant)
    • Weight: 0.25 pounds
    • Attunement Requirements: Subdermal bonding requiring 1 full minute of synchronization while pressing the central electrum node against the nape of the neck, or instant attunement if attuned during surgical cybernetic implantation.
    • Durability Mechanics: If the item suffers damage equal to half its HP or less, it begins to experience feedback loops, causing its neural synchronization to glitch and its enchantments to cease until repaired. If reduced to 0 HP, the electrum circuits burn out into useless slag and brittle glass fragments. Targeted bio-electrical strikes while unattuned inflict damage directly against its HP pool.
  • Slot:
    • Head / Neck Slot (implanted subdermally at the base of the skull and cervical spine; counts as 1 cranial/neck bio-interface gear slot)
  • Passive Magics:
    • Bio-Mechanical Asha Synergy: The lattice balances cybernetic nerve connections with the avatar’s biological flow. The wearer gains a +1 bonus on saving throws or physical resistance checks against cybernetic rejection, neural feedback, electrical overloads, and biological strain caused by cybernetic augmentation.
    • Neural Flow Harmonizer: By channeling mana through the microscopic cuneiform circuitry, the wearer’s cybernetic limbs, optical implants, or sensory ports operate without lag or micro-tremors. The avatar gains a +1 bonus to all dexterity-based fine-motor checks (such as lockpicking, surgical patching, and precise mechanical calibration) performed using cybernetic hands or interfaces.
    • Electrum Surge Dissipation: When the avatar is subjected to non-lethal electrical shocks, electromagnetic pulses (EMP), or stray lightning arcs, the electrum filaments ground the energy safely into the surrounding atmosphere, reducing electrical or ionic damage taken by an amount equal to the avatar’s Tier level (1 point of damage reduction at Tier 1).
  • Activable Magics:
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive: As a bonus action or quick surge lasting 6 seconds, the avatar mentally commands the Faravahar disc to flood connected cybernetic limbs with refined solar prana. For the next round of combat or effort, the avatar’s cybernetic movement speeds increase by 10 feet, and the next physical action made with a mechanical limb receives a +1 bonus on the attack or athletics check. This ability can be used twice per long rest or full diagnostic cycle.
    • Aura of the Pure Core: As an action, the avatar channels mana through the amber cabochon to purge spiritual contamination, digital static, or biological infections from their integrated cybernetics. The lattice flares with soft amber-gold light, cleansing one active status effect that is impairing a cybernetic limb or ocular sensor (such as glitching, sensory blindness, or localized paralysis). This ability can be activated once per session.
    • Cuneiform Data-Scribe: As a utility action requiring 1 minute of focus, the avatar touches a mechanical data-terminal, vehicle interface port, or machine console with an electrum-threaded finger. The lattice projects an ancient Persian geometric key protocol, allowing the avatar to interface directly with the device’s basic operating system, granting a +2 bonus on skill checks made to operate unfamiliar mechanical machinery or read encrypted electronic registers.
  • Tags:
    • persian, common, tier 1, cybernetics, neck slot, neural interface, harmony, bio-mechanical, electrum, amber glass, integration, faravahar, technomancy, prosthetics, grounding, subdermal, spinal, cuneiform, prana, surge, interface, circuitry

Commerce and Acquisition Venues for Persian 914 of the Faravahar’s Neural Lattice

  • Apothecary-Chirurgeon Ateliers and Cyber-Sanctuaries:
    • Venue Type and Setting: Sterile yet incense-scented medical temples located within the high-tier artisan districts of major canal cities and trade hub metropolises. These hybrid clinics feature brass-trimmed operating couches, glass jars of biological nutrient fluid, and velvet-lined display cases displaying consecrated medical augments, overseen by licensed cyber-chirurgeons and priesthood technomancers.
    • Acquisition Method: Avatars acquire these lattices either unbonded in sterile velvet cases or bundled directly with a minor surgical implantation procedure. Chirurgeons inspect the lattice using their Mind’s Eye to ensure pristine electrum filament integrity, verify the microscopic cuneiform prayers along the spinal tracery, and confirm an uncorrupted Tier 1 rating.
    • Buying Cost: The standard medical clinic retail price is 50 silver coins (or 5 gold coins). Independent avatars pay the standard price. Avatars holding recognized credentials with medical guilds, certified hospital orders, or the Ascendant Artificers receive a 10% discount per tier level. For a Tier 1 avatar, this reduces the price by 5 silver, bringing the final cost to 45 silver.
    • Selling Protocol and Haggling: Sanctuaries accept clean, unscarred, and sterilized salvage lattices from certified practitioners at the standard buyback rate discounted by 10% per tier level of the seller (45 silver for a Tier 1 avatar). Payouts are transferred directly into the character’s World Bank account minus the mandatory 1% bureaucratic transaction fee. Lattices showing biological residue from an unconsented extraction are confiscated by temple wardens.
  • Artificer Clockworks and Technomancy Guildhalls:
    • Venue Type and Setting: Busy engineering workshops, prosthetic forges, and technomantic research facilities filled with the rhythmic clatter of gears, small soldering forges, and the hum of mana capacitors. Master artificers and guild clockmakers assemble, tune, and test bio-mechanical hardware alongside mechanical apprentices.
    • Acquisition Method: Displayed in locked glass cases alongside electrum wire spools, neural conduit grease, and replacement joint servos. The device is sold as an aftermarket stabilizing bridge for avatars experiencing early nerve rejection from mundane prosthetic limbs.
    • Buying Cost: Clockwork guilds retail the neural lattice for 55 to 60 silver coins, charging an additional small fee if specialized calibration is required for custom prosthetic limbs. Enrolled apprentices and recognized guild members qualify for the 10% tier discount, dropping the price to 49.5 silver (standardized to 50 silver or 49 silver and 5 copper).
    • Selling Protocol and Haggling: Technomancy workshops purchase pristine neural lattices for 45 to 50 silver to harvest the refined electrum filaments and pre-engraved amber cabochons for other projects. Payouts are made by direct World Bank account transfer, though artificers frequently offer store credit in trade parts or mechanical repairs at equivalent value.
  • Black-Alley Chop-Shops and Under-City Ripper Dens:
    • Venue Type and Setting: Unsanctioned back-alley surgical dens hidden beneath the docks of floating cities, sewer canal alcoves, or shadowed bazaar basements. These operations feature rusted hydraulic tables, chemical vapor scrubbers, and flicker-screens, managed by excommunicated chirurgeons, street cyber-docs, and smuggling fences.
    • Acquisition Method: Sold off-the-record straight from grease-stained lockboxes, often salvaged from fallen avatars, mercenaries, or hijacked medical shipments. Street docs value the lattice because its divine grounding enchantments prevent cheap, dirty prosthetics from rejecting violently in the patient’s spine.
    • Buying Cost: Due to illicit demand and black-market availability, chop-shop docs charge between 65 and 85 silver coins. Guild affiliations and formal discounts are disregarded entirely, and transactions must be paid strictly in physical coin, loose silver scrap, or unrefined electrum ingots to keep the trade hidden from municipal audits and World Bank oversight.
    • Selling Protocol and Haggling: Ripper docs eagerly buy functional neural lattices for 40 to 60 silver in cold coin, asking no questions regarding provenance or previous owners. If the lattice bears blood or extraction damage, the street doc knocks 15 silver off the payout to cover re-sterilization and electrum wire re-threading.
  • Frontier Waystation Outposts and Garrison Infirmaries:
    • Venue Type and Setting: Fortified trade supply depots, mining camp field hospitals, and military border garrisons stationed near harsh deserts, monster-patrolled roads, or canal locks. These functional supply posts deal in rugged survival gear, replacement limbs, and field surgical supplies.
    • Acquisition Method: Distributed by garrison quartermasters and caravan medics to soldiers, scouts, and caravaneers who have suffered limb loss or nerve trauma in frontier skirmishes.
    • Buying Cost: Subject to frontier logistics and supply shortages. Remote post quartermasters price the neural lattice between 55 and 70 silver coins. Avatars purchasing within administrative frontier fortresses are subject to municipal transaction processing, including standard border logistics fees and local garrison upkeep tariffs.
    • Selling Protocol and Haggling: Outpost medics purchase functional lattices for 40 to 45 silver to keep emergency replacement stores stocked for injured border sentries. Payment is credited through official ledger scrip or logged as an authorized deposit into the avatar’s World Bank account.

Environmental Tactical Applications and Roleplay for Persian 914 of the Faravahar’s Neural Lattice

  • Urban Industrial Sectors and Factory Arcologies:
    • Offensive Roleplay: In a narrow, steam-vented corridor of a manufacturing sector, the avatar is cornered by armed corporate enforcers. Mentally activating the Winged Spirit Overdrive, amber light surges from the cervical hub down the spine and into the electrum conduits of the avatar’s cybernetic legs. With an instantaneous 10-foot burst of acceleration, the avatar closes the gap before weapons can be raised, delivering a boosted strike with a mechanical fist that carries the kinetic momentum of the solar prana, knocking the lead enforcer into a bank of hydraulic conduits.
    • Defensive Roleplay: While moving through an automated stamping foundry, an enemy combat hacker triggers an industrial power surge, causing loose high-voltage cables to whip against the avatar’s torso and mechanical arm. The Electrum Surge Dissipation passive immediately grounds the lethal electrical feedback through the golden subdermal tracery and disperses it into the surrounding iron floor plates, dampening the shock and preventing catastrophic actuator lockup.
  • Subterranean Vaults and Ancient Catacombs:
    • Offensive Roleplay: Confronting a hostile biomechanical guardian blocking the sealed door of an imperial crypt, the avatar rushes forward and uses Cuneiform Data-Scribe. Pressing an electrum-laced index finger into the guardian’s ancient mechanical data port, the neural lattice projects an ancient Persian geometric protocol. Bypassing the machine’s archaic firewalls with an instant algorithmic key, the avatar overrides the construct’s targeting parameters, shutting down its offensive routines without triggering its self-destruct mechanism.
    • Defensive Roleplay: Traversing a damp, mold-choked lower crypt, necrotic fungal spores infect the synthetic flesh covering the avatar’s cybernetic spine, causing the neural link to stutter and blinding the synthetic eye. The avatar activates Aura of the Pure Core. The central amber cabochon flares with a warm, cleansing solar radiance, vaporizing the digital distortion and necrotic rot from the spinal interface, instantly clearing the sensory blindness and restoring full ocular telemetry.
  • High-Altitude Airships and Floating Platforms:
    • Offensive Roleplay: Boarding a hostile sky-skiff in mid-flight during a buffeting storm, the avatar needs to breach the pilot’s cabin across a wind-swept catwalk. Triggering Winged Spirit Overdrive, the neural lattice synchronizes the balance servos of the avatar’s mechanical feet with the wind sheer. The avatar bounds across the slick rigging with enhanced speed, leaping over defensive barricades to smash through the reinforced cabin hatch before the crew can bring swivel-guns to bear.
    • Defensive Roleplay: While battling raiders along the outer envelope of a cargo dirigible, a rogue lightning strike from a thundercloud arcs across the metallic rigging, striking the avatar directly in the neck harness. The Bio-Mechanical Asha Synergy and Electrum Surge Dissipation passives harmonize the sudden voltage influx with the body’s natural nervous system, diffusing the charge along the electrum-threaded collarbones rather than allowing the strike to fry the avatar’s brain stem or induce cardiac arrest.
  • Salt Flats, Deserts, and Sun-Scorched Outposts:
    • Offensive Roleplay: Pursuing a fleeing cyber-runner across open, sun-baked salt flats where heat distortion blinds mundane vision, the avatar relies on the Neural Flow Harmonizer. The electrum circuitry completely eliminates micro-tremors in the avatar’s prosthetic arm. Drawing a long-range projectile rifle, the avatar fires a perfectly stabilized shot that clips the runner’s drive rig at maximum distance, disabling the target without missing or losing control in the scorching crosswinds.
    • Defensive Roleplay: Trapped in a high-temperature desert sandstorm where fine silica dust infiltrates prosthetic joints and causes intense static friction, the avatar’s mechanical components begin to overheat and seize. The Bio-Mechanical Asha Synergy maintains an uninterrupted current of internal mana across the nerve endings, keeping the physical cyberware operating in seamless unison with the body and shielding the avatar from severe neural feedback and phantom strain.

Perception of Activation:

  • Visual Perception:
    • User’s Perspective: Your vision sharpens with heightened clarity as the device engages, washing high-contrast optical artifacts into crisp lines. When Winged Spirit Overdrive triggers, faint golden cuneiform telemetry traces across the peripheral edges of your visual field, accompanied by tiny, glowing amber embers tracking down your arms toward your mechanical joints. When Aura of the Pure Core fires, a soothing wash of white-gold light scrubs visual static, artifacting, and glitch-pixels out of your ocular HUD.
    • Observer’s Perspective: Observers see the electrum winged disc at the base of your skull pulse with brilliant amber radiance. Fine, glowing gold circuitry becomes visible beneath the skin of your neck, tracing across your collarbones and down your spine. When Winged Spirit Overdrive surges, the seamlines of your prosthetic limbs flash with sharp, rose-gold arcs of light. When Aura of the Pure Core is released, a distinct, three-foot halo of soft solar brilliance blossoms outward from your cervical vertebrae.
    • Positives: Optical HUDs and physical strike vectors are illuminated with perfect geometric precision, cutting through smoke, digital fuzz, and atmospheric haze.
    • Negatives: The radiant flare of electrum light beneath your skin and along your prosthetics eliminates all stealth, acting as a clear beacon in low-light environments.
  • Auditory Perception:
    • User’s Perspective: An instantaneous chime of clean, crystalline bronze resonates along your cervical spine and through the bones of your inner ear. This tone immediately resolves into a rhythmic, low-frequency electrical hum that synchronizes precisely with your resting pulse. When interfacing via Cuneiform Data-Scribe, you hear a soft, melodic cascade of chirping micro-relays and sliding metal beads as data transfers.
    • Observer’s Perspective: Anyone standing within five paces hears a high, bell-like hum similar to a singing bowl rubbed with wet leather, followed by the quiet, efficient whir of cybernetic servos spinning up to optimal torque. Targets of Electrum Surge Dissipation hear a sharp, static hiss as electrical arcs are grounded into the ambient air.
    • Positives: Clear auditory cues indicate optimal actuator synchronization without relying on intrusive, noisy system alarms.
    • Negatives: The high-frequency hum can be detected by directional microphones, cybernetic audio suites, and guard beasts with acute hearing.
  • Tactile Perception:
    • User’s Perspective: The initial activation sends a soothing, dry warmth radiating outward from the nape of your neck, loosening muscular tension along the traps and spine. Mechanical limbs lose all sensation of phantom cold, dead weight, or jarring servo lag, feeling as responsive, supple, and weightless as biological flesh. During Winged Spirit Overdrive, a fierce, invigorating tingle—like warm carbonated water flowing through the blood vessels—surges into your limbs.
    • Observer’s Perspective: If an ally touches your skin or prosthetics during activation, they feel a warm, steady vibration accompanied by mild, painless static electricity that makes fine body hairs stand on end.
    • Positives: Eliminates the phantom limb ache, joint stiffness, and neural friction typically associated with invasive cybernetic hardware.
    • Negatives: When the Winged Spirit Overdrive ends, a brief, heavy throb of muscular exhaustion pulses at the cervical implant site as the burst prana dissipates.
  • Olfactory Perception:
    • User’s Perspective: The back of your nasal passages fills with the crisp, clean scent of electrical ozone blended seamlessly with burning frankincense resin, dried mountain cypress, and hot copper wiring.
    • Observer’s Perspective: Nearby bystanders catch a distinct, temple-like aroma: the sweet, resinous fragrance of sanctified incense layered over the sharp, alkaline tang of an ionized spark gap.
    • Positives: The fragrant incense aroma helps override nauseating chemical fumes, burning insulation, or decaying biological matter in surgical dens.
    • Negatives: The distinct scent of frankincense and ozone lingers on the wearer’s collar, making them identifiable to tracking hounds or cybernetic olfactory sensors.
  • Gustatory Perception:
    • User’s Perspective: A faint, pleasant taste of steeped saffron tea and wild mountain honey settles at the back of your throat, cut with a sharp, clean metallic undertone like touching an electrum wire to the tip of the tongue.
    • Observer’s Perspective: Subjects standing close to an Aura of the Pure Core purge report a brief, dry sensation on their lips, resembling the metallic tang of dry air before a summer thunderstorm.
    • Positives: The warm saffron taste stimulates salivary flow, counteracting the severe dry mouth brought on by neural shock or adrenaline spikes.
    • Negatives: The persistent metallic residue can temporarily dull the subtler flavors of food and medicinal tonics.
  • Extra-Sensory and Metaphysical Perception:
    • User’s Perspective:
      • The Faravahar Meridian Web: In your Mind’s Eye, your nervous system and all connected cybernetics appear mapped as a single, contiguous tree of radiant golden light. The mechanical joints, actuators, and wiring harnesses cease to exist as separate inorganic machinery, registering instead as living pathways of refined spiritual prana.
      • Digital-Spiritual Resonance: When connecting to machinery via Cuneiform Data-Scribe, you perceive data structures not as lines of code, but as grand architectural colonnades and balanced balance-scales, allowing intuitive navigation of unfamiliar operating systems.
      • Asha’s Moral Anchor: A profound sense of spiritual balance and purpose fills your consciousness, shielding your core personality against dissociation, cyber-psychosis, and machine alienation.
    • Observer’s Perspective:
      • Soul Sight Radiance: Avatars looking through Soul Sight witness a radiant, winged golden spirit hovering behind your shoulders, its outstretched arms cradling your spine in a shield of protective amber light.
      • Aura of Sanctified Steel: Observers with True Sight see your cybernetics shorn of their industrial grime; the metal gleams as though forged in an imperial sun-temple, devoid of demonic parasites or malicious tracking hexes.
      • Techno-Purity Presence: Nearby technomancers and cyber-docs experience an involuntary sense of reverence, recognizing the immaculate, surgical-spiritual balance between avatar soul and forged metal.
    • Positives: Completely immunizes the user from the psychological dread of bodily alienation, anchoring identity and moral clarity despite extensive cybernetic transformation.
    • Negatives: The rigid alignment with spiritual order induces a profound psychological revulsion whenever handling corrupted, diseased, or chaotic bio-tech artifacts.

Crafting Recipe: Persian 914 of the Faravahar’s Neural Lattice

  • Materials Needed:
    • Refined Electrum Ingot: 1 small bar of high-purity electrum (a refined, non-magnetic 50/50 gold-and-silver alloy).
    • Spun Electrum Micro-Filaments: 1 spool of ultra-fine, hair-thin electrum neural wire.
    • Desert Glass Cabochon: 1 small, flawless cabochon of pale amber desert glass, free of fractures and bubbles.
    • Consecrated Saffron-Cypress Resin: 1 vial of distilled mountain saffron oil blended with wild cypress sap and frankincense tears.
    • Sacrificial Component: 1 mundane neural link jack, copper bio-monitor implant, or brass cyber-conduit harness (Tier 1; completely dissolved and consumed during the attunement process).
    • Alchemical Flux: 1 small vial of silver-nitrate conductive paste and a measure of crushed mountain salt.
  • Tools Required:
    • Artificer’s Micro-Burin: Hardened steel or diamond-tipped stylus for engraving microscopic cuneiform script into glass and metal.
    • Jeweler’s Brazier and Soldering Bellows: Miniature high-heat flame hearth for micro-soldering fine electrum wiring.
    • Precision Micro-Pliers and Wire-Draw Plates: Fine jewelcrafting instruments for shaping, threading, and coiling subdermal leads.
    • Lapidary Dop and Polishing Wheel: Tooling to shape and finish the central amber cabochon.
    • Sterile Arcane Crucible: Specialized ceramic basin treated with purifying salt to conduct the sacrificial resonance transfer.
  • Skill Requirements:
    • Metalsmithing / Micro-Artifice: Skill Level 2 (trained).
    • Jewelcrafting / Lapidary: Skill Level 1 (trained).
    • Biotechnical Chirurgery / Anatomy: Skill Level 2 (trained, ensuring safe subdermal spinal mapping).
    • Arcane Scription / Cuneiform Lore: Skill Level 1 (trained, to engrave the sacred prayers of harmony).
    • Mind’s Eye Proficiency: Required to monitor neural mana currents, align the spinal meridians, and bond the attunement conduits.
  • Crafting Steps:
    • Step 1: Casting the Winged Cervical Disc:
      • Heat the refined electrum ingot in the jeweler’s brazier and cast it into the flat, contoured shape of an outstretched Faravahar winged disc.
      • Forge the underside with ergonomic curves to sit flush against the base of the skull at the cervical vertebrae.
      • Form a central circular bezel setting on the exterior face to receive the cabochon.
    • Step 2: Drawing and Inscribing the Filament Tracery:
      • Draw down the electrum micro-filaments through the wire-draw plate until they match the gauge of human nerve fibers.
      • Using the micro-burin, engrave microscopic cuneiform petitions of physical preservation and spiritual alignment along the primary branch wires that will trace down the spine and across the collarbones.
      • Solder the filament roots securely into the lateral edges of the electrum disc using the silver-nitrate conductive flux.
    • Step 3: Preparing the Amber Soul-Core:
      • Shape the pale amber glass on the lapidary wheel into a smooth, domed cabochon fitted to the disc’s central bezel.
      • Using the diamond-tipped stylus, etch the ancient cuneiform seal of Asha onto the flat reverse face of the cabochon.
      • Anoint the engraved reverse with the consecrated saffron-cypress resin, sealing the prayers within the mineral matrix.
      • Set the cabochon into the electrum disc and crimp the bezel rim firmly into place.
    • Step 4: Subdermal Mapping and Alignment:
      • Lay out the branching electrum filaments in a geometric array matching standard spinal and clavicular bio-pathways.
      • Coat the micro-filaments in a micro-thin layer of saffron-infused resin to act as a bio-compatible, non-rejection sheath for subsequent implantation.
    • Step 5: Sacrificial Transference and Neural Attunement:
      • Place the assembled electrum lattice alongside the mundane sacrificial neural component inside the sterile crucible.
      • Ignite the brazier with low coals and open your Mind’s Eye to view the target’s neural prana channels.
      • Channel your intent through the flame, dissolving the base metal of the sacrificial hardware and siphoning its latent connective imprint directly into the electrum core of the lattice.
      • Maintain steady focus for at least 1 full minute as the central amber cabochon begins to pulse with a self-sustaining, rhythmic amber light, permanently anchoring the lattice’s bio-mechanical synchronization enchantments.

Bronze Arm, King Whose Flesh Turned to Iron-Slag, and Weaver Who Bound Soul to Lever

In the ages before the sun was measured by the seven-geared wheel of the star-watchers, when the seventy-and-three continents were still small flat pancakes floating upon the greasy broth of the great deep, there was no city of high towers, but only the wide salt-marsh of the ox-butchers. In that valley, the men were not whole; their bones were soft like boiled turnip-roots because the sky-water had a sour rot in it, and whenever an ox kicked a boy in the pasture, the boy’s hip-joint would break like a dried bird-skull.

There lived in the low ditch behind the reed-dykes a worker of dead iron whose mark upon the tally-sticks was Ardashir-of-the-Joints. He did not build the great war-chariots with two knives upon each axle, nor did he make the high bronze crowns for the priests of the dog-star. His only craft was to gather the discarded copper hinges from broken grain-bins, beat them flat upon a wet basalt rock with an iron hammer that had no handle, and bind them with wet goat-gut around the broken knees of the old plowmen so that they might drag the seed-baskets for another three harvests.

In those days, the master of the iron redoubt upon the sulfur-ridge was King Hormoz-of-the-Ladle. Hormoz had spent sixty bags of raw silver to buy the great arms of brass from the strange artificers who came out of the east on rafts made of hollow lead barrels. These artificers had taken Hormoz’s left shoulder and his right leg, cutting away the wet red flesh with hot copper knives, and in their places they had screwed heavy limbs made of cast bronze, oiled with the fat of boiled turtles. The bronze arm had the strength of twelve draft-mules; with its fingers Hormoz could squeeze a river-pebble until the white dust ran out between his knuckles like dry flour, and his bronze heel could smash through the roof of a mud house with a single stomp.

Yet the metal did not love the blood. Whenever the north wind blew cold across the salt-flats, the flesh around Hormoz’s copper bolts turned black like a rotten pomegranate, weeping green water that smelled of dead swamp-snakes. The bronze hand would close without the king’s command, crushing his silver drinking-bowls into flat leaves of foil, or twitching like a dying toad until the king wept upon his sheepskin mattress, unable to sleep because the metal whispered inside his collarbone like twenty crickets trapped in an iron pot.

Hormoz grew mad with the singing of the copper in his marrow. He sent his two-handed spearmen down into the mud-ditch, shouting that every bone-setter, blacksmith, and leaper of ditches should be dragged to the redoubt; and if any man could not make the brass stop biting the royal meat, he was thrown alive into the lime-pit where the scrap-metal was bleached. Forty-and-two leeches were thus boiled in the white dust, for they knew only how to plaster wounds with river-mud and sheep-grease, which did nothing against the anger of the bronze gears.

Then the runners seized Ardashir-of-the-Joints, dragging him by his beard through the sharp flint-gravel until his knees left two red furrows in the trail. They threw him before the throne of black slate, where King Hormoz lay groaning, his bronze arm twitching and smashing the arms of his chair into splinters, while his human eye bled yellow bile and his brass heel kicked holes into the stone paving-flags.

“You who tie sheep-bones with leather-cords,” shouted the king, and his breath smelled of burning tallow and copper rust, “make this brass sheep stop kicking inside my ribs! If my arm takes another cup from my table and dashes it against my brow, I will have your children beaten into grease for my chariot-wheels!”

Ardashir looked upon the king’s shoulder, where the brass plate was riveted to the meat with iron wedges. He did not smell the sweat of a man; he smelled the hot grease of an engine that has lost its water, and he saw that the king’s soul—which should have walked through the five gates of the body like a herdsman carrying a lantern—was caught in the screw-threads, pinched and howling like a dog with its tail shut in a heavy gate.

Ardashir bowed his face to the gravel and said: “O Lord of the Ladle, the iron of the earth and the flesh of the womb were not spoken in the same hour. When you bolt the cold mountain-ore to the warm bone of your mother, the bone weeps because it thinks the mountain has fallen upon it, and the mountain rages because it will not be driven by the spit of a worm. You cannot quiet the metal with grease, nor with the blood of slaves. You must give the metal a soul that has wings, so that it may fly in step with the breath of the lung.”

“Go then to the place of the fire-well,” roared the king, “and bring me the winged thing, or your flesh shall be fed to the smelter-pots before the moon turns her belly!”

Ardashir took his iron hammer, a sack of dry parched barley, and three spools of native electrum wire that had been washed down the salt-rills from the hills of the sun-priests. He walked three days toward the smoking crater where the earth opens its gullet to the night. There stood the shrine of the winged spirit whose image is carved upon the ancient boundary-stones—the spirit whose body is a bearded king, whose middle is a sun-ring, and whose sides are the two broad wings of the sea-falcon.

Beside the altar of black bitumen sat the Priestess Whose Spine Was Made of Gold Rods. Her legs did not move upon the stones, for they were joined into a single pillar of electrum that descended twenty cubits into the burning asphalt beneath the earth, anchoring her flesh to the deep furnace of the mountain. Her teeth were made of polished amber beads, and when she breathed, the air did not stir with wind, but with a fine rain of golden sparks that drifted across her naked arms like yellow pollen.

The Priestess spoke, and her voice was like the sound of two bronze shields rubbing together in a chariot-rut: “Why does the tier of bone-ropes come to the throat of the fire? Do you bring tallow for the lamps, or do you come to throw your meat into the pot of the molten metals?”

Ardashir laid the electrum wire and his parched barley upon the black bitumen. He said: “The king on the slate throne has fastened a bull of brass to his shoulder, and the bull will not chew the cud; it tears his lung with its horn. If I do not make the brass walk like the meat, my house will be leveled and my seeds will be trodden into the lime-pit. Give me the grease that turns the bronze into bone.”

The Priestess laughed, and the electrum pillar within her spine hummed like a great swarm of desert wasps waking in a dry bush. “The fools of the dirt buy the limbs of the star-smiths, but they bring no bridle for the iron,” said she. “They think the flesh is a log of wood that may be wedged with nails; they do not know that the soul is a thread of clear fire that breaks whenever an iron nail touches its path. If you screw the mountain to the meat, you must give the screw the sign of Asha, which is the balance that sits between the stone that does not move and the water that runs away.”

Then the Priestess reached behind her head, to the place where her skull met the first gold bead of her spine, and she drew forth from beneath the skin a long, narrow comb of electrum. The comb had two broad wings of beaten foil, and its teeth were not teeth of bone, but hundreds of microscopic needles of white gold, each needle inscribed with sixty wedge-signs that praised the Lord of Wisdom and the thirty-and-three spirits of the pure breath. In the belly of the winged comb sat a single tear of hardened amber, clear as the oil of the wild mountain-poppy.

“This is the lattice of the Faravahar,” the Priestess said, and her fingers left trails of cold gold dust upon Ardashir’s wrists as she gave him the comb. “It is not an armor that turns a blade, nor is it a lever that lifts a wagon. It is the road upon which the ghost walks into the bronze. Lay this along the nape of the king’s neck; let the gold teeth drink the water of his brain-well, and let the long wires follow his marrow down to the brass screws. Then the bronze shall know that it is a hand, and the soul shall know that the metal is its servant.”

Ardashir took the winged electrum comb, wrapped it in three layers of damp linen, and ran down the mountain as the vultures began to gather over his house in the ditch.

When he returned to the redoubt of King Hormoz, the king was bound to his black slate chair with seven ropes of twisted bull-hide, for his bronze arm had run so wild that it had torn out the throat of his royal taster and was now beating the king’s own ribs with a rhythm like a cooper hooping a barrel. Hormoz’s face was the color of lead-dross, and his human hand was clawing at the wall, begging his guards to run him through with their spears to stop the singing in his bone.

The guards drew their copper axes to cut Ardashir down, believing he had returned empty-handed; but Ardashir held the winged electrum lattice aloft, and the amber sun-disc in its center caught the noon light, flaring with an brilliance so pure that the executioners dropped their axes, covering their eyes as if an eagle had flown into the hall carrying the noon sun in its talons.

Ardashir leaped behind the slate throne. While the king’s bronze fist thrashed against the ropes, Ardashir took his father’s iron hammer and his fine copper chisel, and with three steady strokes he opened the skin at the base of the king’s skull, right where the red marrow leaves the bone-box. The king shrieked like a split hog, and black blood mixed with green copper-water spurted across Ardashir’s hands.

Without pausing to wipe his eyes, Ardashir thrust the electrum lattice into the gap.

The hundred gold needles went into the marrow like hot spits into butter. Instantly, the shrieking of the king ceased, cut off as if a copper bowl had been clapped over his mouth.

A sound rose through the hall—not the clang of metal nor the groan of a dying man, but a high, sweet ringing like a silver bell struck beneath clear water. Along the king’s neck, the skin did not swell; the electrum wires reached outward beneath the flesh, shining through the fat and the skin like golden rivers running across a white plain. The gold lines crept down the collarbone, crossed the purple seam of the scar, and climbed directly into the bronze plates of the mechanical shoulder.

Where the gold thread touched the brass, the green rust dissolved into a thin white smoke that smelled of dried frankincense and summer cypress. The crude iron bolts that held the prosthesis ceased their grinding; the gears within the forearm, which had shrieked like crows, began to spin with a sound as smooth and silent as an owl’s wing turning in the dark.

The bronze hand, which had been clenched like an iron ball to crush the king’s heart, opened softly. Its fingers stretched, flexing one by one, delicate as the legs of a water-strider upon a pond. The hand turned, picked up a single hair from Ardashir’s sleeve, and held it up to the light without breaking the strand.

King Hormoz opened his eyes. The yellow bile was gone from his gaze; in its place burned a calm, amber brilliance that filled his pupils from edge to edge.

“I do not feel the mountain,” the king whispered, and his voice was no longer the bark of an iron horn, but the clear, measured speech of an imperial judge. “The bronze does not bite; it listens. The brass is my skin, and the gears are the pulse of my father’s house.”

The king cut the bull-hide ropes with his own bronze nails, standing upon his two feet without a stumble. He looked upon Ardashir-of-the-Joints, whose hands were still covered in the royal blood and the bitter grease of the discarded rust.

“You have given my soul a house of brass that does not rot,” King Hormoz said. “I will give you forty stone palaces, and you shall have three hundred horses with electrum bits, and you shall be the Chief Mechanist of the Iron Mountain, sitting above all the princes of the reed-beds.”

Ardashir looked at his own two hands, which were rough from beating iron and had three fingernails missing from the stones of the quarry. He shook his head.

“Lord of the Ladle,” Ardashir said, “a man who lives in an iron palace soon begins to think his heart is made of bronze, and he forgets that the seed-corn must be watered with the sweat of the skin. If I stay in your high stone house, who will tie the wooden splints upon the legs of the ox-boys? The lattice was not made that a king might become a mountain; it was made so that the man who carries a burden of metal may walk among the living without breaking the bread of his brothers.”

Ardashir took only his iron hammer and a jar of sweet oil to clean his hands. He went down the stone stairs, back to the salt-ditch and the reed-screens, where he lived seventy years more, mending the wooden plows and the copper ankles of the low people with scraps of electrum wire and prayers to the winged sun.

As for King Hormoz, he ruled his redoubt for two hundred winters, and his bronze arm never rusted nor did it ever twitch in anger. When he died, the priests did not burn his body, for the metal and the meat had grown together into a single root of gold-veined electrum; they laid him within a hollowed cedar log in the heart of the mountain, where the winged lattice at the base of his skull continues to hum with a soft amber light, waiting for the hour when the seventy-and-three continents shall be pulled back into the great deep.

Moral of the Story: He who welds the cold machine to the living flesh without the bridge of the spirit creates only an iron master that will tear out the hearth of his own breast; for power without the harmony of the divine pattern is nothing but an unbridled wheel that crushes the cart it was built to carry.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

The Faravahar Biomechanical Conduit

  • Classification: Arcane Subdermal Prosthetic / Hyper-Geometrical Implant
  • Sanity Cost to Attune: 1D3 Sanity points upon surgical integration and neural alignment.
  • Powers and Mechanics:
    • Neural Alignment & Rejection Immunity (Passive): The investigator suffers no physical deterioration, cellular necrosis, or nervous rejection from mechanical, cybernetic, or artificial bodily replacements. When making CON or First Aid checks to recover from physical shock, invasive prosthetic operations, or somatic nerve damage, the investigator gains a Bonus Die.
    • Motor Synchronization (Passive): Eliminates micro-tremors and mechanical latency. The investigator gains a +10% bonus to Sleight of Hand, Locksmith, and Mechanical Repair checks when using hands or tools guided by the integrated conduit.
    • Grounding of the Sun-Disc (Passive): Mundane electrical shocks, lightning arcs, and bio-electric discharges are channeled through the electrum filigree and harmlessly vented. The investigator reduces all electrical damage taken by 1 point per damage instance.
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive (Active Spell): Costs 3 Magic Points and 1 Sanity point. For 1 combat round, the investigator floods artificial actuators with refined vital energy. Movement speed is increased by 5 yards, and the investigator receives a Bonus Die on their next Brawl or Fighting (Maneuver) roll made using an artificial limb.
    • Aura of the Pure Core (Active Spell): Costs 4 Magic Points. As an active action, the investigator purges active somatic paralysis, muscular spasms, or digital/chemical bio-toxins impairing their nervous system, restoring immediate functionality.
  • Side Effects: The user radiates a faint scent of frankincense and ozone; when viewing oneself in mirrors, the reflection reveals an eerie, winged golden phantom hovering directly behind the investigator’s spine.

Blades in the Dark

The Faravahar Lattice

  • Item Type & Quality: Arcane Subdermal Implement, Rare Spark-Craft Harness (Tier I Quality, 0 Load if surgically embedded, 1 Load if uninstalled).
  • Keywords: Arcane, Spark-Craft, Precision, Bio-Interface.
  • Rules and Mechanical Function:
    • Harmonized Steel (Passive): Cybernetic limbs, spark-craft prosthetics, and artificial sensory eyes function without nerve feedback or mechanical latency. You gain Potency when performing fine-motor Tinker or Finesse actions involving intricate machine parts, lock mechanisms, or delicate micro-tooling.
    • Arc-Dissipation Filigree (Passive Armor): You may mark 1 use of Armor to absorb or ground harm caused by electrical shocks, lightning barriers, or spark-craft electrostatic discharges.
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive (Pushing Yourself): You may spend 1 Stress to push yourself when executing high-velocity physical maneuvers or athletic strikes using artificial limbs. This grants +1d or Potency to a Skirmish or Prowl action as the solar prana surges through your actuators.
    • Pure Core Purge (Active Trait): You may spend 1 Stress to immediately clear a temporary physical impairment, nerve paralysis, or mechanical actuator lockup caused by external tampering, electro-static interference, or biological poison.
    • Complication: When pushing yourself or activating the harness, the electrum filigree flares brightly beneath your skin, casting amber light through your clothes and making discrete movement impossible for that moment.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition, 2024 Revision)

Faravahar’s Neural Lattice

  • Item Category: Wondrous Item (Cybernetic / Prosthetic Attachment)
  • Rarity: Common
  • Attunement: Requires Attunement by an avatar with at least one prosthetic, artificial limb, or mechanical implant
  • Properties and Action Economy:
    • Somatic Harmony (Passive): While attuned and implanted at the base of the skull, you have advantage on saving throws against effects that inflict the Paralyzed or Poisoned conditions on your limbs or motor systems, and saving throws against electrical or lightning damage.
    • Actuator Calibration (Passive): You gain a +1 bonus to ability checks using Thieves’ Tools, Tinker’s Tools, and fine-motor Sleight of Hand checks using an arm or hand linked to the lattice.
    • Surge Dissipation (Passive): Whenever you take lightning damage, that damage is reduced by 1.
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive (Bonus Action, 2/Day): You channel solar prana through the electrum pathways into your prosthetic joints. Until the end of your current turn, your walking speed increases by 10 feet, and the next melee weapon attack or Athletics check you make using a cybernetic limb has advantage. The lattice regains all expended uses daily at dawn.
    • Aura of the Pure Core (Action, 1/Day): You touch the central amber cabochon, causing it to flare with warm sunlight. You end one condition currently affecting you from the following list: Blinded, Deafened, or Paralyzed (provided the condition stems from neural interference, technological disruption, or electrical shock).
    • Cuneiform Data-Scribe (Utility Action): By pressing an electrum-laced fingertip against a mechanical lock, clockwork construct, or arcane terminal for 1 minute, you gain a +2 bonus to Intelligence (Arcana or Investigation) checks made to decipher its schematic or interface with its basic functions.

Knave (Second Edition)

Spinal Faravahar Lattice

  • Item Slots: Takes up 1 Item Slot (worn subdermally on the neck/spine).
  • Durability: 3 Quality / 3 Item Hit Points.
  • Rules and Mechanical Syntax:
    • Prosthetic Integration (Passive): Any artificial limb, hook, or metal joint attached to the bearer’s body acts as natural biological flesh. The bearer ignores penalties associated with cumbersome or clumsy replacement limbs.
    • Grounding Path (Passive): Electrical, ionic, and lightning-based damage suffered by the wielder is reduced by 1 point per damage roll.
    • Fine Motor Grace (Passive): The wielder has Advantage on Dexterity checks made to pick mechanical locks, disarm clockwork traps, or handle fragile, minute items.
    • Winged Surge (Active Action, Once Per Rest): The wielder channels solar vitality into their mechanical appendages. For 1 round, the character moves at double their normal speed and their next physical attack deals an additional +1d4 damage.
    • Aura of Restoration (Active Action, Once Per Rest): The bearer activates the amber core to instantly cure localized muscle paralysis, numbness, or nerve spasms caused by poison or lightning strikes.
    • Fragile Filaments: If the bearer suffers an electrical or bludgeoning wound that drops them to 0 HP, roll a d6; on a 1–2, the electrum filigree burns out, reducing the item’s Quality by 1. At 0 Quality, the lattice burns to slag and its enchantments are permanently lost.

Fate Core

Faravahar’s Neural Lattice

  • Aspect: Bio-Arcane Consecration of the Winged Sun
  • Stunts:
    • Neural Flow Harmonizer: Because you have the Faravahar’s Neural Lattice implanted along your cervical spine, you gain a +2 to Crafts or Notice rolls involving delicate physical operations, micro-calibrations, picking mechanical locks, or operating intricate cybernetic components without lag.
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive: Once per scene, you may invoke the lattice’s refined solar reserves to surge your cybernetic appendages. When you do, you gain a +2 to Athletics to sprint, leap, or close distance, or a +2 to Fight when making a forceful physical attack with an integrated prosthetic limb.
    • Electrum Surge Dissipation: When you take physical stress or consequences resulting from electrical surges, lightning magic, or ionic discharges, you may reduce the severity of the incoming shift value by 1 (minimum 1 shift).
    • Aura of the Pure Core: Once per session, you may spend 1 Fate point to immediately clear a temporary physical situation aspect related to cybernetic glitching, neural feedback, sensory blindness, or localized limb paralysis.
  • Trouble / Invoke Cost: The lattice anchors your body rigidly to lawful, pure metaphysical conduits. Adversaries may invoke your neural lattice to cause hesitations when acting contrary to spiritual balance, or exploit the glowing amber flare across your skin to compromise your stealth.

Numenera & Cypher System

The Faravahar Bio-Conduit

  • Level: 2
  • Form: Subdermal electrum winged disc set with an amber glass cabochon, branching into micro-wires across the neck and spine.
  • Kind: Cypher or Artifact (Depletion: 1 in 1d20 when activating Overdrive or Core Purge)
  • Mechanics:
    • Bio-Mechanical Asha Synergy (Passive): The user gains an asset on Speed defense tasks made to resist neural overloads, biological cyberware rejection, and electromagnetic or static disruption.
    • Precision Calibration (Passive): All fine-manipulation Speed tasks performed using integrated cybernetic limbs or mechanical interface tools (such as lockpicking, surgical patching, and electronics repair) are eased by one step.
    • Surge Dissipation (Passive): Whenever the user takes direct electrical or lightning damage, the damage suffered is reduced by 1 point.
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive (Action): By spending 1 point from your Speed pool, the device pumps solar prana through your artificial joints. For 1 round, your movement speed increases by one category (immediate to short, or short to long), and the next physical attack made using a cybernetic limb is eased by one step.
    • Aura of the Pure Core (Action): By spending 1 point from your Intellect pool, the central cabochon purges digital interference and somatic strain, immediately ending one condition affecting your augments (such as blinded oculars, glitching servos, or localized motor paralysis).
    • Cuneiform Data-Scribe (Action): Spending 1 point from your Intellect pool allows you to interface directly with an unfamiliar machine console or electronic ledger, easing any task to understand, operate, or decode the device by one step for 10 minutes.

Pathfinder (Second Edition, Remaster Core)

Faravahar’s Neural Lattice

  • Traits: Item 1, Uncommon, Cybernetic, Divination, Magical
  • Usage: Implanted (cervical spine); Bulk: —
  • Activate: Single Action (Manipulate)
  • Statistics and Rules:
    • Bio-Mechanical Asha Synergy (Passive): You gain a +1 item bonus to Fortitude saving throws against effects that cause neural feedback, bio-rejection, or afflictions impairing your motor functions.
    • Actuator Harmonizer (Passive): You gain a +1 item bonus to Thievery checks made to Pick a Lock or Disable a Device when using cybernetic limbs connected through the lattice.
    • Surge Dissipation (Passive): You gain electricity resistance 1.
    • Activate — Winged Spirit Overdrive: Single Action (Manipulate, Primal). Frequency: Once per hour. Effect: You channel solar prana into your connected cybernetic prosthetics. You gain a +10-foot status bonus to your Speed until the end of your turn, and the next Strike you make with an integrated mechanical unarmed attack or prosthetic weapon before the end of your turn gains a +1 circumstance bonus to the attack roll.
    • Activate — Aura of the Pure Core: Two Actions (Concentrate, Manipulate). Frequency: Once per day. Effect: You touch the amber cabochon at your neck to purge bio-electric corruption. You immediately attempt an additional flat check or saving throw to end the Clumsy, Dazzled, or Paralyzed condition affecting your cybernetics or nervous system.
    • Activate — Cuneiform Data-Scribe: Single Action (Concentrate). Frequency: At will. Effect: You press an electrum-threaded finger against a mechanical console, interface port, or mechanical lock. You gain a +1 item bonus to your next Lore, Crafting, or Thievery check to decode, operate, or bypass the mechanism within the next minute.

Savage Worlds (SWADE)

Faravahar Neural Lattice

  • Item Type: Arcane Cyberware / Subdermal Implant
  • Strain: 1
  • Weight: 0.5 lbs
  • Cost: $1,000 (or 50 Silver)
  • Statistics and Game Mechanics:
    • Harmonized Reflexes (Passive): The lattice eliminates latency between organic nerves and mechanical actuators. The avatar gains a +1 bonus to Thievery and Repair rolls requiring fine motor manipulation when using cybernetic hands or mechanical interfaces.
    • Electrum Grounding (Passive): The character receives +1 Armor against electrical, lightning, and ionic attacks, and gains a +1 bonus to Vigor rolls to resist electrical stunning, electromagnetic shock, or neural feedback.
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive (Active): Once per encounter as a Free Action, the user can flood their cybernetics with solar energy. Pace increases by +2 and running die increases by one die step (e.g., d6 to d8) until the end of the character’s turn. Additionally, the character gains a +1 bonus on the next Fighting or Athletics roll made during that turn.
    • Aura of the Pure Core (Active): Once per day as an Action, the wearer channels energy through the amber cabochon to cleanse digital or somatic corruption. The character may instantly remove the Distracted, Entangled, or Stunned condition, provided the impairment was caused by electrical shock, sensory overload, or cybernetic glitching.
    • Cuneiform Protocol Interface (Active): By physically contacting a computing console or electronic lock for 1 full minute, the user adds +1 to Hacking or Electronics rolls made to bypass or decrypt the system.

Shadowrun (Sixth World Edition)

The Faravahar Biomechanical Lattice (Bio-Arcane Implant Focus)

  • Item Type: Bioware / Technomantic Neural Bridge
  • Essence Cost: 0.1 (Constructed with consecrated electrum filigree to minimize spiritual severance)
  • Focus Rating: 1
  • Availability: 3 (Sanctified Clinic / High-Tier Artificer Guild)
  • Cost: 12,500 Nuyen
  • Mechanical Profile and Statistics:
    • Neural Flow Harmonizer (Passive): By grounding chrome hardware into the body’s natural bio-currents, the lattice eliminates micro-tremors and actuator latency. The user gains a +1 dice pool bonus to Electronics (Hardware), Cracking, and Agility-based fine manipulation tests (such as lockpicking or micro-soldering) when using cybernetic hands or connected toolkits.
    • Bio-Mechanical Asha Synergy (Passive): The wielder gains a +1 dice pool bonus to Body or Willpower tests made to resist cyberware glitching, bio-rejection, sensory burn-in, or DNI (Direct Neural Interface) dumpshock.
    • Electrum Surge Dissipation (Passive): Stray electrical charges and EMP pulses are dispersed into the ambient atmosphere. The user reduces all Electrical damage taken by 1 point.
  • Awakened Abilities and Activation:
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive (Minor Action): Once per combat encounter, the runner channels refined solar prana through the electrum circuits into linked limb actuators. For the remainder of the combat turn, the user gains +2 meters to their Sprint speed, and the next Close Combat attack made using a cybernetic limb gains a +1 dice pool bonus.
    • Aura of the Pure Core (Major Action): The central amber cabochon flares with warm gold brilliance, cleansing corrupted data packets and bio-electric feedback. The user immediately removes the Glitched or Blinded status effect if it was caused by technological disruption, flash-bangs, or electrical feedback. This action inflicts 1 point of unresisted Stun Drain on the user.
    • Cuneiform Data-Scribe (Minor Action): By pressing an electrum-threaded finger against a hardwired port or keypad, the lattice translates the machine’s protocol into ancient geometric matrices, granting an Edge on the next Matrix test made to interface with or hotwire that physical device.

Starfinder (Second Edition)

Faravahar’s Neural Lattice

  • Item Level: 1
  • Price: 260 Credits
  • Bulk: — (Implanted)
  • Usage: Implanted (cervical spine / subdermal neck)
  • Traits: Cybernetic, Magical, Tech-Hybrid, Divination
  • Item Statistics and Operational Syntax:
    • Actuator Harmonizer (Passive): The user eliminates mechanical latency across artificial joints and internal cybernetics, gaining a +1 item bonus to Thievery checks to Pick a Lock or Disable a Device, and a +1 item bonus to Crafting checks involving micro-electronics.
    • Bio-Mechanical Asha Synergy (Passive): You gain a +1 item bonus to Fortitude saving throws against biological cyberware rejection, technological diseases, and neural shock.
    • Electrum Surge Dissipation (Passive): You gain electricity resistance 1.
    • Activate — Winged Spirit Overdrive (Single Action — Manipulate, Primal): Frequency: Once per hour. Effect: Solar energy floods through your cybernetic servos. You gain a +10-foot status bonus to your Speed until the end of your turn, and the next Strike made with an integrated cybernetic weapon or prosthetic fist before the end of your turn gains a +1 circumstance bonus to the attack roll.
    • Activate — Aura of the Pure Core (Two Actions — Concentrate, Manipulate): Frequency: Once per day. Effect: You tap the amber cabochon at your neck to purge system interference. You immediately attempt an additional saving throw or recovery check against the Clumsy, Dazzled, or Paralyzed condition affecting your cybernetics or nervous system, ending the condition on a success.
    • Activate — Cuneiform Data-Scribe (Single Action — Concentrate): Frequency: At will. Effect: You touch an electrum lead to a data port, vehicle console, or digital terminal. You gain a +1 item bonus to Computers checks made to hack, access, or operate the console for the next 10 minutes.

Traveller (Mongoose Second Edition)

The Faravahar Subdermal Neural Bridge

  • Item Type: TL-12 Cybernetic Subdermal Interface / Bio-Electric Regulator
  • Mass: 0.1 kg (Negligible)
  • Tech Level: TL-12
  • Base Value: Cr 25,000 (Artificer Medical Grade)
  • System Characteristics and Rules Profile:
    • Actuator Synchronization (Passive): Micro-filaments woven around the spinal cord balance neural commands with prosthetic and powered limbs, providing a +1 DM to Mechanic, Electronics (Sensors or Computers), and delicate Stealth tasks involving mechanical fine-motor manipulation.
    • Static and Surge Grounding (Passive): The electrum filigree acts as a directional lightning rod for the nervous system. The user reduces all damage from electrical weapons, electro-stunners, and static arc hazards by 1 point per damage die.
    • Strain Dampening (Passive): The user gains a +1 DM to Endurance checks made to resist physical strain, bio-mechanical rejection, or systemic shock after receiving field cybernetic surgery or augment repairs.
    • Overdrive Protocol (Active — Minor Action): Once per combat scene, the user surges the power cell of their cybernetic limb. Movement distance increases by +3 meters for that round, and the user gains a +1 DM on the next Melee (Unarmed) attack made using an artificial limb.
    • System Purge (Active — Minor Action): Once per operational cycle (day), the user can discharge a pulse of stored bio-arcane current from the amber node, immediately shaking off sensory blindness, localized servo lockup, or muscle tremors caused by stun weaponry or EMP feedback.
    • Interface Key (Active — Minor Action): Direct conductive contact with an unfamiliar computer terminal, automated airlock console, or machinery interface grants a +1 DM on the user’s next Electronics (Computers) task.

Warhammer (Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory)

Faravahar’s Subdermal Lattice

  • Tier: 1
  • Value: 3 (Rare Mechanicus / Technomantic Augmetic)
  • Rarity: Rare
  • Keywords: Imperium, Adeptus Mechanicus, Cybernetic, Relic
  • Rules Profile and Mechanical Syntax:
    • Cyber-Neural Harmony (Passive): Implanted along the cervical spine, the electrum filigree bridges the machine spirit with the flesh. The wearer adds +1 bonus die to all Tech and Agility tests requiring delicate fine-motor manipulation, repair, or lock-bypass when using bionic limbs or augmetic fingers.
    • Asha’s Rejection Resistance (Passive): The bearer gains a +1 bonus die to Toughness tests made to resist systemic shock, augmetic rejection, and biological infection around bionic interfaces.
    • Surge Dissipation (Passive): Stray currents and arc-rifle feedback are grounded safely away from vital organs. When taking damage with the Arc or Shock keyword, the total damage suffered is reduced by 1.
    • Winged Spirit Overdrive (Free Action): Once per combat encounter, the bearer stimulates the machine spirit within their cybernetics with holy solar prana. The character’s Speed increases by +2 meters until the end of the turn, and the next Weapon Skill attack made with an augmetic arm gains a +1 bonus die to the attack roll.
    • Aura of the Pure Core (Combat Action): Once per day, the bearer channels energy through the amber cabochon, releasing a pulse of sanctified warmth that purges scrapcode, digital interference, and muscular lockup. The bearer immediately ends the Blinded, Hindered, or Staggered condition if caused by tech-interference or electrical shock.
    • Cuneiform Data-Link (Simple Action): The bearer interfaces an electrum-threaded bionic digit with a cogitator or machine port, adding +1 bonus die to Tech tests made to commune with unfamiliar machine spirits or operate imperial databanks.