GearAscendancy.com

Reflecting 82 of the Chirurgeons Auscultation Gorget

—

by

Dale
in
  • Lore: Crafted along the marshy perimeter hospitals and frontline triage tents during the Blight-Seep campaigns of Saṃsāra, this throat collar was created for field medics, herbal diagnosticians, and combat embalmers who walked among the screaming wounded. In contaminated trenches and miasmic sick-wards, an examiner could easily fall prey to sudden convulsive spasms of infected patients, delirious lashings from dying soldiers, or ambushing scavenger beasts drawn to the reek of putrefaction. Using specialized distillation vials to extract the diagnostic fluid from electric glass-eels and the resonance-receptive marrow of subterranean cave-frogs, frontier artificers bound diagnostic harmonic runes into cold-hammered surgical bronze. Field chirurgeons quickly discovered the collar’s genius: resting against the carotid artery, it translated internal bodily rot, bone fractures, and unseen biological toxins into clear vibrational hums, and should a crazed casualty or scavenger strike the attending physician, the collar forcefully rebounded the violent trauma outward in an expanding perimeter of kinetic retribution.
  • Description: The item is a contoured, hinged throat collar constructed from polished, low-tarnish surgical bronze, lined on the interior with boiled lambskin saturated with dried camphor and dried lavender oils to soothe raw skin. Fastened at the nape by a spring-loaded latch, the front of the gorget curves upward to cup the lower larynx and clavicle. Set into the center of the throat plate is an azure crystal diaphragm framed by fine silver wire chased in the pattern of coiled serpents and measuring needles. Two thin, silver-plated acoustic tines extend upward from the collar to lightly graze the skin behind the wearer’s earlobes, funneling biometric vibrations directly into the inner ear. When placed against a diseased or wounded patient, the crystal pulses with a faint, warm teal light; when violent impact strikes the wearer, the gorget detonates with a sound like a brass tuning fork shattering upon slate, venting an azure shockwave that ripples along the floor.
  • Item Slot: Neck Slot
  • Stats:
    • Item Tier: Tier 1 (Common)
    • Item Hit Points: 10 plus wearer maximum health points (Resilience 10 x Tier 1)
    • Armor Check (AC) Bonus: +1
    • Weight: 1.0 pound
    • Attunement: Requires 1 minute of uninterrupted concentration to latch the collar over the neck, align the acoustic tines behind the ears, and tune the diagnostic frequency to the avatar’s Mind’s Eye.
  • Passive Magic:
    • Sympathetic Trauma-Echo: Whenever the wearer sustains physical damage from an attack or sudden hazard, the throat diaphragm instantly unleashes an omnidirectional shockwave of retaliatory force matching the exact damage type and numerical value of the injury received. This wave strikes all hostile entities within a radius in feet equal to the damage points sustained. If another creature within this blast radius bears an active reflective ward or similar counter-kinetic enchantment, an uncontrolled harmonic resonance triggers immediately, threatening catastrophic obliteration of all entities in the vicinity within a single turn.
    • Diagnostic Auscultation: By placing a hand or the bronze rim of the gorget against a living, diseased, or dying creature, the silver tines channel the subject’s internal status into the wearer’s hearing. The wearer gains a +2 bonus to Medicine, Perception, and Insight checks made to diagnose illnesses, detect internal hemorrhaging, identify biological poisons, analyze foreign parasites, and estimate a target’s remaining health vitality.
    • Miasmic Filter: The camphor-treated lining and sterile bronze ward grant the wearer a +1 bonus on saving throws and resilience checks against airborne contaminants, inhaled spores, and non-magical respiratory toxins.
  • Activable Magic:
    • Triage Disengagement Pulse: As an action during melee, or immediately upon being crowded by infected or hostile combatants, the wearer can tap the front diaphragm to discharge a directional shockwave of acoustic force. On a hit against an adjacent target, it deals base bludgeoning damage plus the avatar’s tier die (1d4), driving the target 5 feet backward. This knock-back can be utilized to push suspicious combatants out of close quarters, breaking proximity before a lethal harmonic loop can ignite if the opponent is suspected of carrying counter-enchantments.
    • Auscultator’s Diagnostic Scan: Once per exploration or combat encounter as an action, the wearer may channel mana through the azure diaphragm to emit a low-frequency harmonic hum. For one minute, the wearer perceives the precise biological status of all creatures within 30 feet, highlighting hidden internal injuries, structural bone weaknesses, or concealed venom reservoirs in faint teal outlines through the Mind’s Eye.
    • Sedative Carotid Stasis: Outside of combat as an action, the wearer can compress the side latches to direct a localized soothing vibration into an adjacent willing or restrained creature, stabilizing a dying ally and granting them 1 temporary health point that lasts until the end of the scene.
  • Tags: Neck, Gorget, Tier 1, Common, Reflecting Magic, Diagnosis, Medicine, Chirurgeon, Sonic, Warded, Retaliation, Knockback, Bronze, Healing, Biometric, Auscultation, Triage, Pathology, Collar, Antiseptic, Resonance, Carotid, Anatomy, Pulse, Quarantine, Fieldcraft

Procurement and Commerce of the Chirurgeon’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Chirurgeons’ Guild Apothecaries and Sanitarium Dissections:
    • Located within municipal hospital courtyards, plague lazarettos, and academic medical colleges, these sterile establishments supply licensed leeches, bone-setters, and anatomists. The gorgets rest on velvet pads inside glass display cabinets alongside amputation saws, diagnostic tuning forks, and carbolic washes.
    • Purchasing cost: 120 to 160 silver coins (or 12 to 16 electrum coins). Members of an accredited Medical Board or Healers’ Fellowship receive a 10% guild discount per tier, bringing the price to 108 to 144 silver coins for a Tier 1 physician. Transactions are verified and deducted directly via the Mind’s Eye through the World Bank.
    • Selling value: The head apothecary inspects the acoustic tines for metal fatigue and tests the crystal diaphragm for microscopic fractures, offering roughly 10% of base valuation per seller tier (12 to 16 silver coins for a Tier 1 avatar). Credits are recorded directly to the seller’s World Bank ledger under anatomical equipment liquidation.
  • Frontier Field Hospitals and Military Triage Encampments:
    • Operating out of reinforced canvas pavilions and timber palisade infirmaries behind contested borderlands, these supply depots cater to combat medics and trench stretchermen. The collar is issued or sold from heavy iron-bound trunks containing tourniquets, splints, and cautery irons.
    • Purchasing cost: 10 electrum coins (equivalent to 50 silver coins) for enlisted corpsmen or contracted mercenaries holding valid combat clearance. Unaffiliated wanderers or unvetted sellswords must pay an unnegotiated field price of 120 silver coins, settled in physical coin or direct electronic registry.
    • Selling value: Field quartermasters buy back retrieved collars from fallen medics as surplus recovery, paying 8 to 10 silver coins deposited into the vendor’s World Bank account. These sales are logged as requisition recoveries, exempting the seller from provincial road taxes.
  • Black Market Mortuary Vaults and Body-Snatcher Dens:
    • Hidden beneath cemetery crypts, ossuaries, and illicit anatomical theaters in the damp undercrofts of old cities, these illicit brokers deal in stolen grave goods and contraband surgical tools harvested from dead doctors.
    • Purchasing cost: 18 to 25 gold coins (equivalent to 180 to 250 silver coins). Brokers demand steep premiums for sterilized, untraceable collars stripped of guild serials, accepting only physically weighed coinage and refusing World Bank tracking.
    • Selling value: Mortuary fences offer 20 to 30 silver coins in untraceable coin for an intact collar with undamaged acoustic tines, keeping the deal outside of city ledgers. If city inquisitors or sanitarium guards are conducting active quarantine sweeps, payouts fall to a flat 10 silver coins.
  • Itinerant Snake-Oil Wagons and Frontier Herbalist Caravans:
    • Traveling between agricultural settlements, logging camps, and frontier hamlets on iron-rimmed wagon trains, these itinerant merchants offer medical devices to remote homesteaders lacking access to hospital guilds.
    • Purchasing cost: 14 to 18 electrum coins (70 to 90 silver value). Prices climb during seasonal epidemics or localized blights, with the trader assessing the mandatory 1% World Bank transit fee and local road tariffs.
    • Selling value: Wandering traders maintain limited cash boxes, offering 7 to 9 silver coins in weighed local specie, or an equal value in dried medicinal herbs, surgical alcohol, or clean linen wraps. Transactions are finalized via World Bank transfer if the merchant holds an attuned terminal, or settled by barter weight.

Tactical Inquiries and Gorget Roleplay across Environments

  • Contaminated Trenches, Plague Lazarettos, and Field Hospitals:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Kneeling in mud to treat a soldier screaming from a toxic chemical burn, the avatar leans close as delirious spasms cause the casualty to violently thrash. When the wounded soldier suddenly drives a combat dagger into the physician’s neck, the blow clatters against the surgical bronze and crystal diaphragm. With the sharp acoustic snap of a tuning fork shattering on stone, the Sympathetic Trauma-Echo detonates outward. The retaliatory wave matches the puncture force, sweeping outward to knock rabid scavengers and infected ghouls clawing at the triage tent flap off their feet, while leaving the surgeon unscathed to finish applying the tourniquet.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Facing an infected officer who has succumbed to blood-madness and wields a heavy trench spade, the avatar uses the Auscultator’s Diagnostic Scan to read the madman’s anatomy through the Mind’s Eye. The scan reveals severe internal hemorrhaging in the officer’s right shoulder. Parrying the spade blow with the reinforced collar, the avatar triggers the Triage Disengagement Pulse, blasting the officer five feet backward against a tent stanchion to aggravate the torn muscle, disarming him without requiring a lethal counter-strike.
  • Flooded Swamps, Mire Caves, and Putrid Bogs:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Slogging through waist-deep mire choked with parasitic leeches and noxious gas vents, the avatar’s camphor-saturated lining filters out swamp-rot miasmas. When a subterranean bog-lurker ambushes from beneath the murky surface to clamp crushing jaws onto the scout’s throat, the gorget absorbs the bite. The reflective pulse erupts through the water, shattering the lurker’s jaw and concussively driving off the surrounding school of swamp-eels circling the party’s legs.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Tracking an amphibious beast through pitch-black cavern pools, the avatar presses their fingertips to the damp stone, allowing the collar’s acoustic tines to conduct the creature’s heartbeat and lung respiration directly into the inner ear. Pinpointing the beast’s submerged hiding spot beneath a hollow limestone shelf, the avatar lunges forward and fires the Triage Disengagement Pulse down into the pool, rupturing the beast’s buoyancy bladder with acoustic pressure and forcing it to the surface.
  • Ancient Crypts, Necromantic Ossuaries, and Embalming Vaults:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Examining a desiccated sarcophagus in a crumbling crypt, an embalmed mummy lurches from the shadows to deliver a crushing slam to the explorer’s collarbone. The bronze plate takes the blunt trauma and releases a teal shockwave that shatters the animated corpse’s dried ribs with the exact kinetic weight of its own strike, scattering crumbling bone fragments across the tomb tiles.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Confronting a renegade necromancer who is shrouded in a visible ward of reactive dark magic, close-quarters combat carries an immediate risk of a lethal harmonic loop. Recognizing the harmonic hum through the gorget’s diagnostic feedback, the avatar avoids a direct strike and instead channels the Triage Disengagement Pulse. The directional acoustic wave hammers into the necromancer’s sternum, driving the villain five feet back into an open embalming vat, safely breaking proximity before catastrophic resonance can obliterate the chamber.
  • Urban Sanitariums, Asylums, and Guild Academies:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Walking through a riot in an asylum ward where aggressive patients have broken free, an orderly is tackled from behind by an inmate swinging a heavy iron restraint chain. As the chain collides with the back of the gorget, the collar instantly discharges. The kinetic shockwave ripples across the stone floor, knocking down the violent assailants within reach while maintaining the physician’s balance.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Subduing an escaped, drug-frenzied criminal in an apothecary’s laboratory, the avatar activates the Sedative Carotid Stasis while closing distance. Pressing the collar’s bronze frame against the target’s neck during a grapple, the focused micro-vibrations calm the suspect’s erratic heart rate and induce swift neurological lethargy, neutralizing the threat without breaking bones or smashing fragile potion carboys on nearby shelves.

Perception of Activation:

  • User’s Perspective:
    • Sight: A vivid burst of bright teal and cold silver light erupts outward from the central crystal diaphragm, illuminating the surrounding area with a crisp, geometric ring of radial measuring lines.
    • Hearing: A resonant acoustic chime like a heavy bronze bell struck with a steel needle vibrates through the user’s skull, instantly accompanied by a sharp, crystal-clear acoustic ring in both inner ears.
    • Smell: A clean, medicinal vapor of crushed camphor, dried lavender, and warm polished bronze fills the nasal cavity, followed by the dry, metallic sting of ionized air.
    • Taste: A faint, soothing herbal bitterness spreads across the back of the tongue, accompanied by a slight galvanic tingle along the dental line.
    • Touch: The lambskin lining contracts with a snug, supportive brace around the throat and collarbones, while the silver acoustic tines hum rhythmically against the skin behind the earlobes, absorbing and dissipating the kinetic shock.
    • Extra-Sensory Perception (Mind’s Eye): The user’s field of awareness expands with diagnostic clarity, projecting the health vitals, organ integrity, and structural skeletal vectors of all living or hostile entities within the room as pulsing teal silhouettes.
    • Extra-Sensory Perception (Biometric Harmonic Sense): A deep visceral resonance informs the avatar of internal bleeding, hidden fractures, or latent bacterial toxins in nearby subjects, registering physiological distress as discordant micro-vibrations.
  • Observer’s Perspective:
    • Sight: As the blow lands upon the medic’s throat or upper chest, the central azure lens flares with an intense, spherical disc of mirrored teal light that washes across the floor and walls in a violent, expanding wave.
    • Hearing: Onlookers hear the ear-splitting acoustic crack of a massive surgical tuning fork shattering on hard slate, followed by a low, concussive thud that rattles loose glass bottles in nearby kits.
    • Smell: Witnesses catch an abrupt gust of displaced air carrying the scent of antiseptic liniments, scorched lambskin oil, and ozone.
    • Taste: Those caught near the blast perimeter detect a dry, chalky taste on the lips from airborne plaster dust and displaced antiseptic powder.
    • Touch: Hostile creatures within the expanding blast radius are hit with a sudden, bone-jolting concussive wave that matches the precise force and nature of the blow struck against the physician, driving them backward and knocking them onto the floor.
    • Extra-Sensory Perception (Aura Reading): Mystic-sensitive individuals observe a luminous, web-like matrix of diagnostic runes unspool from the bronze gorget, latching onto the attacker’s kinetic energy and violently inverting it into an omnidirectional retaliatory pulse.
    • Extra-Sensory Perception (Pathological Tremors): Wounded or infected entities feel an involuntary, shivering spasm through their nervous system as the gorget’s diagnostic wave passes through their flesh.
  • Positives:
    • Inverted Trauma Defense: Instantly converts unexpected strangulation attempts, blade thrusts, or wild strikes against the throat into an expanding circular shockwave that repels and punishes all nearby assailants without requiring an action.
    • Critical Anatomy Protection: The rigid, contour-molded surgical bronze plate and boiled lambskin absorb crushing trauma, preventing fatal trachea fractures, severed arteries, and neck trauma.
    • Immediate Diagnostic Insight: The acoustic flare instantly exposes the hidden internal weaknesses, bleeding points, and bone fractures of every enemy caught within the retaliatory pulse.
  • Negatives:
    • Piercing Acoustic Ring: The high-frequency tuning fork discharge produces a loud acoustic ringing that eliminates any chance of party stealth in quiet wards or subterranean spaces.
    • Catastrophic Resonance Hazard: If an ambusher or nearby creature possesses an active counter-reflective ward or kinetic feedback barrier, the colliding fields trigger an instantaneous harmonic detonation capable of obliterating everything in the room.
    • Carotid Fatigue: The sudden constriction and galvanic pulse across the radial and carotid zones can cause brief lightheadedness and mild throat hoarseness immediately following a heavy discharge.

Crafting Recipe: The Chirurgeon’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Materials Needed:
    • One Tier 1 magic crystal (coin-sized and coin-weighted, harvested from a slain creature to act as the kinetic inversion and harmonic resonance core).
    • Eight ounces of high-purity surgical bronze sheet (cold-rolled, low-tarnish alloy for the neckplate, articulated collar hinges, and rim).
    • One circular cabochon or diaphragm of optical-grade azure crystal (roughly two inches in diameter, free of occlusions, to serve as the acoustic transducer).
    • One square foot of cured lambskin leather (boiled and infused with dried camphor crystals and essential lavender oil for an antiseptic interior lining).
    • Two six-inch drawn sterling silver acoustic rods (tapered to fine tines to channel micro-vibrations behind the ears).
    • One-quarter ounce of fine silver solder and jeweler’s borax flux.
    • One spring-loaded steel latch-pin with a miniature brass tension coil (for the nape release closure).
    • Half an ounce of pulverized clear selenite and calcified bone ash (used as the diagnostic channeling flux).
    • One bronze medical lancet or surgical dissection scalpel (sacrificial instrument consumed during the flux burn to imprint diagnostic discernment and anatomical precision into the bronze framework).
  • Tools Required:
    • Neck and collar forming mandrel, planishing hammer, and wooden shaping mallets.
    • Metal shears, jeweler’s piercing saw, and fine needle files.
    • Diamond-tipped hand graver and jeweler’s loupe (minimum 10x magnification).
    • Lapidary grinding wheel and fine cerium oxide polishing laps.
    • Alcohol spirit micro-torch with soldering tweezers and a charcoal soldering block.
    • Leather skiving knife, stitching awl, and sinew thread.
    • Ceramic crucible with miniature melting furnace.
  • Skill Requirements:
    • Bronze Armoring / Metalsmithing: Minimum Skill Level 5.
    • Anatomical Medicine / Chirurgery: Minimum Skill Level 4.
    • Harmonic Ward Inscription / Mind’s Eye Calibration: Minimum Skill Level 3.
  • Crafting Steps:
    • Step 1 (Collar Plate Shaping): Hammer the surgical bronze sheet over the neck mandrel using wooden mallets, shaping an anatomical two-piece articulated collar contoured to fit the lower larynx and rest flush across the clavicle. File the edges smooth and install the rear hinge and spring-loaded steel latch-pin at the nape.
    • Step 2 (Sacrificial Tool Decomposition): Place the bronze surgical lancet into the ceramic crucible alongside the pulverized selenite and bone ash flux. Heat the crucible until the steel and bronze dissolve into liquid slag, channeling its latent anatomical precision and diagnostic authority into the molten silver solder as it cools into thin wire rods.
    • Step 3 (Diaphragm Housing and Engraving): Cut a two-inch circular aperture into the front throat plate of the bronze gorget. Beat a raised retaining bezel around the opening. Using the diamond-tipped graver under magnification, engrave an unbroken border of coiled serpents and calibrated measuring hashmarks along the collar’s exterior throat rim.
    • Step 4 (Harmonic Ward Inscription): Take the azure crystal diaphragm and micro-etch a concentric web of kinetic reflection runes and diagnostic acoustic channels across its reverse face. Coat the inscribed surface with a thin layer of resin flux to seal the ward lines without impeding acoustic transmission.
    • Step 5 (Transducer and Battery Mounting): Seat the Tier 1 magic crystal into a recessed bracket directly behind the lower rim of the central throat aperture. Lay the etched azure crystal diaphragm flush against the battery crystal, burnishing the bronze bezel edge over the glass rim to form a vibration-sealed, impact-resistant seal.
    • Step 6 (Acoustic Tine Assembly): Shape the two sterling silver acoustic rods to follow the upward contours of the collar, terminating each in a rounded tip. Solder the bases of the rods directly to the silver bezel of the central diaphragm using the treated sacrificial solder, ensuring a continuous vibrational path from the front lens to the tips that touch the skin behind the wearer’s ears.
    • Step 7 (Lining, Fitting, and Final Calibration): Skive the edges of the camphor-infused lambskin and stitch it along the interior of the bronze collar plates using waxed sinew. Latch the completed gorget onto a wooden medical training bust. Strike the center of the azure diaphragm with a brass diagnostic hammer while focusing intent through the Mind’s Eye, verifying that the silver tines ring with a clear acoustic tone and the crystal emits a faint teal shockwave. Cleanse the collar with pure alcohol and seal it within an oiled linen shroud until attunement begins.

Marsh Lazaretto and False Throat of High Embalmer

Behold the scratched tracks set upon the greasy potsherd by the fifth blind scraper of the reed marshes, who had neither the teeth to chew the elder verbs nor the three eyes needed to read the twisted signs that were drawn like squashed locusts upon the older copper. In the days before the sky-fire grew cold, when the great wanderer Saṃsāra had not yet spat the fourth moon from its belly, the lords of the clay did not perish from the bite of the bronze spear. They rotted from within their own skins, for the mist that rose from the black mud brought the Grey Spittle, which turns the blood into cold broth and causes a man to choke upon the fat of his own lungs.

Now the master of the dead-houses in the city that was called Gissur-of-the-Leeches was an embalmer whose mark upon the tallow pots was Shulgi-of-the-Loom. Shulgi was not a captain of horse-wagons, nor did he carry the silver flail before the palace gate. His hands were always soaked in the oil of cedar and the white salt of the bitter lake; he had cut the belly of nine hundred princes to draw out the black bile before the maggots could set their teeth. But the rulers of the mud-throne became afraid of their own spitting. When the King of the Marsh coughed three spots of black grease onto his linen lap-cloth, he sent forth his runners with bronze whips, crying: “Bring forth every man who carries the lancet, and let the man who cannot stay the rot in my windpipe be drowned in a jar of hot lard!”

Among the dressers of wounds was an old woman whose mark in the dirt was Kem-of-the-Stanchions. Kem had no house of fired brick, nor did she possess twenty jars of sweet mountain beer. She lived in a pen of woven reeds beside the ditch where the dying soldiers were cast upon wet straw, washing their open ulcers with the boiled water of wild camphor and holding the heads of the boys who vomited bile. Her ears were strange and wide, like the ears of an owl that sits upon a cemetery wall; she could lay her dry cheek against a sick man’s ribs and say: “Here is where the cold worm sleeps, and here is where the red blood has turned to river-clay.”

Now Shulgi-of-the-Loom desired to be named the First Cleanser of the King, so that he might wear the collar of electrum and eat the sweet marrow from the royal dishes. But he was an empty pot of grease. When he knelt before the coughing King, his hands trembled like reed tops, and he knew not whether the black spittle came from the liver, the throat, or the dry spleen. Therefore he spoke in secret unto his eight club-bearers: “Go down into the low ditch where the old woman cleans the rotting soldiers. Seize her throat-band, for I have heard that she touches the sick with a piece of metal that hums like an ox-fly, telling her where the rot hides. Bring her neck-clasp unto my house, and let her tongue be pulled out with hot copper pincers that she may not cry out against the First Embalmer.”

Kem-of-the-Stanchions had sat for sixty-three turnings of the red sun Helios within her cell of ditch-reeds. She had seen the pestilence-fog sweep down the mountain like a wool shroud, and she knew that the madmen who choked on the spittle would strike out with daggers of rusted bronze, seeking to bite the throat of the woman who held the water bowl. She took a plate of red surgical bronze that had fallen from the table of an ancient healer of the sky-carts. With river-mud and sheep tallow, she beat the metal against a river-boulder until it curved upward to hold her neck like the two hands of a mother holding a child’s chin.

Into the throat of the bronze she seated a round circle of star-water glass that had been cooled inside the belly of a deep-sea serpent. Around the rim of the glass she spun two long whiskers of beaten silver, drawing them upward until their rounded ends brushed the soft flesh behind her ears, where the life-pipes beat their drum. Into the underside of the bronze she stitched the skin of a wild marsh-lamb, boiling the wool in the pungent broth of wild lavender, dried camphor, and the bitter gall of cave-frogs that sleep in limestone cracks. And along the hidden back of the star-glass, where no eye could pry, she scratched the elder mark of the inverted tooth: the sign that commands the rending jaw to turn its sharp bite back into the gums of the biter.

“If the sick man strikes the hand that binds his wound, or if the false leech seeks to steal the listening ear,” whispered Kem into the rising steam of her herb kettle, “let the breath that was drawn to murder become a hammer of bronze upon his own breast.”

She latched the bronze collar upon her throat. The two silver tines reached behind her earlobes like cold fingers, and the azure glass upon her windpipe began to sing with a low, deep drone, vibrating with every gasp of the sick who lay forty cubits off in the ditch. When she laid her bronze breast against a dying spearman, the tines whistled in her ears: three short chimes for the bleeding of the gut, one long shriek for the rot of the lung, and a clear bell-ring where the flesh was yet sound and sweet.

On the night of the High Miasma, when the marsh boiled with yellow fog and the King lay gasping upon his bed of swan-skins, Shulgi-of-the-Loom came into the reed lazaretto with his eight club-bearers. His face was wrapped in seven veils of silk dipped in rose-water, and in his right hand he carried an iron meat-cleaver used for chopping the thighs of dead kings.

“Thou dry toad of the swamp,” snarled the high embalmer through his perfumed veils, “give over the bronze plate that rests upon thy throat, and give over the two silver whiskers! The King requires my wisdom, and I shall not go into the palace carrying the ears of a blind cow. Yield the metal unto my hands, or my men shall hack thy head from thy shoulders and boil thy skull for the grease!”

Kem-of-the-Stanchions did not lift a staff, nor did she flee into the swamp-reeds. She stood beside the bed of a fevered carrier, her neck encircled by the surgical bronze, the azure diaphragm glowing with a cold, pale teal luminescence that made the yellow fog turn to white milk.

“Thy jars are full of rotten fat, and thy mind is a broken cistern,” said the old woman, her voice sounding through the bronze like an ancient bell struck under lake-water. “Thou canst not tell the water of the liver from the vinegar of the spleen, and if thou puttest thy hand to the King’s throat, thou shalt only choke him faster to hide thine own ignorance.”

Shulgi roared with a voice of wounded pride. He forgot the dignity of the dead-houses and the peace of the kingly tools. With both hands clenched upon the hickory shaft of the heavy iron cleaver—a tool heavy enough to sever the spine of a wild marsh-ox at a single drop—the high embalmer swung the cold edge directly at Kem’s throat, seeking to shear through the bronze gorget, the larynx, and the neck-bones in one savage stroke.

The iron cleaver struck the raised rim of the azure diaphragm with a sound like the shattering of forty bronze mirrors upon a mountain of ice.

Yet the old woman’s neck did not snap. Her head was not cast into the mud, nor did her grey hairs fall into the blood of the floor. From the azure diaphragm there burst forth a sheet of blinding, razor-edged teal light that flew outward across the ditch like the skirt of a storm-cloud, accompanied by an acoustic scream so high and pure that the earthenware jars of carbolic ointment cracked from top to bottom.

The fury of the iron cleaver did not touch the old woman’s skin; it turned upon its own path and went backward through the hickory handle like a rushing bull.

The hickory shaft splintered into hundreds of sharp wooden needles that drove into Shulgi’s palms and forearms. The high embalmer shrieked with a voice like a pig stuck in the marsh-drain, for the concussive weight of his own two-handed murder-blow rushed straight back into his throat, shattering his clavicle, dislocating both his shoulder-joints, and collapsing his own windpipe with the exact violence he had delivered. The retaliatory ring went outward in an even perimeter: the eight club-bearers who stood with their weapons raised to assist their master were lifted bodily off the damp earth, flung twenty paces backward into the deep sludge of the swamp-trench, their ears bleeding clear fluid and their ribs cracked inward against their lungs.

The shockwave did not stop with the bones of the wicked. It ripped the seven silk veils from the high embalmer’s face, casting them into the fire-pit; and the high frequency of the acoustic tone rushed through the lazaretto, causing every infected boil upon the sick soldiers to burst cleanly open, draining the yellow pus from their limbs and shocking their fevered hearts back into clean rhythm.

Shulgi-of-the-Loom lay upon his back in the stagnant mud of the ditch, his cheeks purple like bruised plums, his perfumed robes soaked in swamp-grease, his throat whistling with a thin, wheezing hiss like a punctured bladder, unable to lift his hands to pull the wooden splinters from his bleeding meat.

Kem-of-the-Stanchions did not spit upon him, nor did she call the watch to run him through. She reached up with calm fingers, touched the silver tines behind her ears to quiet the ringing of the bronze, and looked down through the teal glare at the gasping embalmer. The acoustic tines whispered in her ear: two broken bones at the collar, a severed windpipe, and a soul turned black with the bile of unearned pride.

“The diagnosis is rendered,” said the old healer. “The knife that was swung to take the ear of another has cut the breath of the man who swung it.”

She stepped over the groaning master of the dead-houses, took her kettle of boiled camphor, and walked down the long row of straw mats to wash the brow of a dying ditch-digger whose breath had grown sweet and clean once more.

The later verses of the marsh-scribes sing that the gorget remained in the lazarettos for nine generations of the flood, and no false doctor dared raise a blade against a true physician within the sight of its azure stone; for all who sought to take the healer’s tools by violence found their own breath crushed within their throats, while the secret rottenness of their own hearts was played aloud upon the bronze bells of the sky.

Moral of the Story: He who brings an iron blade to butcher the physician shall find his own throat choked by the weight of the blow he struck.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

Kem’s Diagnostic Resonator

  • Description: A contoured surgical bronze gorget lined with boiled, camphor-infused lambskin, featuring an azure crystal diaphragm centered on the throat and two flexible silver tines resting against the mastoid bones behind the earlobes.
  • Item Type: Unique Relic / Occult Medical Apparatus
  • Magic Points Cost: 2 MP to trigger the reflective retaliatory wave; 1 MP to conduct a comprehensive diagnostic auscultation scan.
  • Sanity Loss: 1 Sanity point upon attuning the acoustic ear-tines; 0/1D4 Sanity points for witnesses observing the concussive acoustic detonation.
  • Armor Check & Passive Protection: Grants +1 point of physical armor against attacks targeting the neck, throat, or upper clavicle. Grants a Bonus Die on CON checks to resist inhaled spores, toxic miasmas, and non-magical airborne pathogens.
  • Diagnostic Auscultation: By spending 1 MP and placing the bronze collar or hand against a patient, the wearer gains a Bonus Die to Medicine and First Aid checks. The acoustic tines translate internal hemorrhaging, necrotic tissue, foreign parasites, and systemic poisons into distinct harmonic frequencies in the wearer’s ears.
  • Sympathetic Trauma-Echo: Whenever the wearer sustains physical damage from an adjacent melee attack or strangulation attempt, the wearer may immediately spend 2 Magic Points as an instantaneous reaction to discharge the diaphragm. The attacker must make an immediate Dodge roll:
    • Failure: The attacker suffers concussive acoustic damage equal to the total hit points inflicted upon the wearer.
    • Success: The attacker partially ducks clear, taking half damage.
    • Resonance Calamity: If the attacking adversary bears an active ward or defensive warding spell (such as Flesh Ward), the conflicting fields trigger a catastrophic harmonic detonation. Both the wearer and the attacker must pass an Extreme CON check or suffer 3D10 concussive damage, and every entity within a 15-foot radius takes 2D10 damage from the shattering shockwave.
  • Triage Disengagement Pulse: The investigator can spend 1 MP to trigger a localized directional acoustic pulse from the throat diaphragm (Fighting: Brawl). On a Regular Success, it inflicts 1D3 damage; on an Extreme Success, the target is slammed backward 1D6 paces by concussive pressure.

Blades in the Dark

Kem’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Item Classification: Rare Arcane Gear (1 Load, worn on the neck/throat).
  • Description: A hinged collar of surgical bronze lined with antiseptic lambskin, mounting a central azure crystal diaphragm and two sterling silver ear-tines that funnel internal bodily vibrations into the wearer’s hearing.
  • Quality: Fine (+1 Quality to diagnostic evaluations, triage medicine, and physiological analysis).
  • Tier: II
  • Chirurgeon’s Ear: When you make a Doctor or Study roll to diagnose illnesses, detect internal injuries, analyze poisons, or determine the physical vitality of a living or dying subject, you operate with +1 Effect level.
  • Special Armor — Retaliatory Trauma-Echo: You may mark your Special Armor (or take 2 Stress) to trigger the gorget’s reactive discharge when you take physical Harm from an adjacent melee strike or throat attack:
    • Effect: The incoming strike detonates outward in a blinding sheet of teal acoustic light. The striking adversary suffers Harm equal in level to the Harm you sustained (e.g., suffering Level 2 Harm inflicts Level 2 Harm onto the attacker).
    • Resonance Hazard: If the attacker possesses an active ghost shield, electroplasmic barrier, or protective occult amulet, the interaction triggers a catastrophic feedback surge: mark 3 Stress, absorb no incoming Harm, and all characters in the immediate area suffer Level 3 Harm (“Shattered Hearing and Crushed Ribs”) from the concussive detonation.
  • Push Yourself (Triage Shove): When you make a Skirmish or Command roll to physically repel, shove, or drive a hostile adversary out of close quarters, spend 1 Stress to gain +1d or push the effect to Great Effect, blasting the target a dozen feet backward with an audible tuning-fork crack.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition, 2024 Revision)

Chirurgeon’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Wondrous Item, Common (Requires Attunement)
  • Item Slot: Neck
  • Armor Class Bonus: While wearing this gorget, you gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class, provided you are not wearing heavy armor that encases the neck in an interlocking plate bevor.
  • Description: A contoured collar of surgical bronze lined with camphor-infused lambskin, featuring a central azure crystal diaphragm and two curved sterling silver tines resting behind the earlobes.
  • Diagnostic Auscultation: You have advantage on Wisdom (Medicine) and Wisdom (Insight) checks made to assess the health, injuries, poison status, and remaining hit point vitality of living creatures within 10 feet. Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws against airborne toxins, inhaled spores, and respiratory diseases.
  • Sympathetic Trauma-Echo: When a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with a melee attack and deals damage to you, you can use your reaction to trigger the diaphragm’s dormant ward. The attacker takes force damage equal to half the damage you sustained from the attack (minimum of 1 damage).
    • Resonance Calamity: If the attacker is protected by a spell or magic item that reflects or retaliates against damage (such as Armor of Agathys, Fire Shield, or a similar ward), both you and the attacker must make a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, both creatures take 3d6 force damage and are pushed 10 feet away from each other; on a successful save, each takes half as much damage and is not pushed.
  • Triage Disengagement Pulse: As an action, you can depress the bronze rim to release a concussive burst of acoustic pressure at an adjacent creature. Make a melee attack roll using your Strength or Dexterity modifier. On a hit, the target takes 1d4 bludgeoning damage, and if the target is Medium or smaller, it must succeed on a DC 11 Strength saving throw or be pushed 5 feet straight away from you.

Knave (2nd Edition)

Kem’s Healer-Gorget

  • Item Slots: 1 Item Slot (Neck/Throat, counts toward carried encumbrance).
  • Item Armor: +1 Armor Check (AC 12 when combined with standard unarmored defense of 11).
  • Quality/Durability: 3/3 Quality.
  • Description: A fitted neck-collar of surgical bronze lined with scented leather, mounting a blue crystal diaphragm at the throat and twin silver acoustic tines behind the ears.
  • Anatomical Sight: Grants the wearer Advantage on Wisdom and Intelligence checks made to diagnose poisons, spot structural bodily injuries, and evaluate the remaining hit points of dying allies or monstrous beasts.
  • Trauma Rebound: When an adjacent enemy hits the wearer in melee and deals HP damage, the wearer may test Constitution (rolling a d20 + Constitution bonus vs. DC 15) as an immediate reaction:
    • Success: The gorget discharges an ear-splitting ring resembling a bronze tuning fork shattering upon rock. The attacker suffers damage equal to the damage dealt to the wearer, and the gorget loses 1 point of Quality.
    • Failure: The ward fails to discharge; the wearer takes damage normally without reflection.
    • Resonance Shatter: If the striking target has an active protective spell or magical armor enchantment, the collision destroys the optic: the gorget drops to 0 Quality (broken), the target’s ward unravels, and both combatants take 2d6 direct concussive damage.
  • Triage Repulsion: Once per combat encounter, the wearer may use their combat action to make a Strength check against an enemy’s Strength defense to fire an acoustic shock-pulse from the collar. On a success, the foe is knocked back 10 feet and loses their next movement action as they recover balance.

Fate (Fate Condensed)

Kem’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Aspects:
    • High Concept: Surgical Bronze Gorget of Kinetic Retaliation
    • Trouble: Lethal Harmonic Cascade Risk
    • Additional Aspect: Biometric Diagnostic Ear-Tines
  • Stunts:
    • Sympathetic Trauma-Echo: Once per conflict, when you defend against a close-quarters physical strike or constriction attempt using Fight or Athletics and succeed with style, instead of taking a boost, you may inflict physical stress on the attacker equal to the incoming shift value prior to reduction. If invoked with a Fate point when suffering physical stress from an adjacent melee blow, the striking opponent immediately suffers a physical hit with shifts equal to the stress you sustained.
    • Resonance Hazard: If an opponent possesses an active mystical barrier, reactive armor, or kinetic deflection stunt, any triggered backlash forces both you and the attacker to immediately defend against a Great (+4) Fair-wide concussive eruption. Everyone in the zone takes shifts of physical stress on a failed defense.
    • Diagnostic Auscultation: You gain a +2 bonus to Notice or Lore when actively examining living, diseased, or wounded subjects to diagnose internal hemorrhaging, physical ailments, systemic toxins, or biological structural flaws.
    • Triage Disengagement Pulse: You gain a +2 bonus to Overcome or Create an Advantage using Physique when shoving, clearing, or driving an adversary back out of close combat range using the collar’s acoustic concussive pulse.

Numenera & Cypher System

The Chirurgeon’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Level: 3 (Artifact)
  • Form: A contoured neck collar of cold-rolled surgical bronze lined with camphor-infused lambskin, featuring a central azure crystal diaphragm and two flexible silver tines resting against the skin behind the ears.
  • Depletion: 1 in 1d20 (checked upon triggering the reflective trauma-echo).
  • Armor: Adds +1 to Armor against physical attacks targeting the neck, throat, or upper chest.
  • Effect:
    • Reactive Trauma-Echo: Whenever the wearer suffers physical damage from a melee strike or strangulation attempt within immediate range, the throat diaphragm releases a concussive acoustic ring resembling a bronze tuning fork shattering on stone. The attacking creature or adjacent hostile target immediately suffers physical damage (ignoring Armor) equal to the raw damage points dealt to the wearer.
    • Harmonic Calamity: If the striking opponent is shielded by an active force field, personal energy shield, or defensive warding esotery, the harmonic interference causes an immediate overload: the artifact depletes automatically, the opponent’s defensive field collapses, and all creatures within short range suffer 6 points of ambient kinetic damage.
    • Diagnostic Transducer: The wearer gains an asset on all Perception and healing tasks involving the diagnosis of biological diseases, internal trauma, hidden bone fractures, and physiological poisons.
    • Triage Disengagement Pulse: As an action, the wearer may spend 1 Might point to discharge a directional burst of acoustic shock-force. On a successful Might attack roll, an adjacent target suffers 3 points of damage and is knocked back an immediate distance.

Pathfinder (Second Edition Remaster)

Gorget of the Chirurgeon’s Rebound

  • Item 3, Uncommon, Invested, Magical
  • Price: 55 gp
  • Usage: Worn collar (occupies the neck slot); Bulk: L
  • Diagnostic Auscultation: The wearer gains a +1 item bonus to Medicine checks to Treat Disease, Treat Poison, and Recall Knowledge regarding anatomical wounds or physiological ailments, and a +1 item bonus to Perception checks to Sense Motive or assess the physical condition of creatures within 10 feet. The wearer also gains a +1 item bonus to saving throws against airborne pathogens, inhaled toxins, and respiratory diseases.
  • Sympathetic Trauma-Echo (Reaction):
    • Trigger: An adjacent creature hits the wearer with a melee Strike and deals physical damage.
    • Frequency: Once per day.
    • Effect: The central azure diaphragm flares with a blinding teal luminescence and emits an ear-splitting tuning-fork chime. The triggering creature must attempt a DC 18 basic Fortitude save:
      • Critical Success: The creature takes no damage.
      • Success: The creature takes force damage equal to half the damage dealt to the wearer.
      • Failure: The creature takes force damage equal to the full damage dealt to the wearer.
      • Critical Failure: As failure, and the creature is pushed 5 feet directly away from the wearer.
    • Arcane Resonance Hazard: If the triggering creature is protected by an active reactive warding spell (such as fire shield or retributive strike), the colliding energies trigger a violent resonance rupture. Both the wearer and the attacker take 2d8 sonic damage, and the gorget is rendered non-functional until repaired with a DC 18 Crafting check.
  • Triage Disengagement Pulse (Single Action):
    • Frequency: Once per 10 minutes.
    • Effect: The wearer makes an Athletics check to Shove an adjacent enemy using the collar’s acoustic discharge. On a success, the target is pushed back 5 feet; on a critical success, the target is pushed back 10 feet and falls prone.

Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition – SWADE)

Kem’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Classification: Minor Arcane Device (Worn, Neck/Throat)
  • Min Strength: d4
  • Weight: 1 lb
  • Cost: $1,200
  • Armor Bonus: Provides +1 Armor to the Neck, and grants a +2 bonus on Vigor rolls to resist inhaled toxins, gas hazards, and airborne respiratory diseases.
  • Diagnostic Ear: The wearer gains a +2 bonus to Healing and Notice rolls made to diagnose biological trauma, detect internal hemorrhages, identify natural venoms, and assess the Wound status of living subjects.
  • Sympathetic Trauma-Echo:
    • Whenever the wearer is struck by an adjacent melee attack and suffers at least one Wound or Shaken result, the throat diaphragm immediately discharges.
    • The attacker must make an instantaneous Agility roll at -2.
    • Failure: The target suffers the exact amount of raw damage (matching dice roll and total) delivered to the wearer.
    • Success: The target partially avoids the blast and takes half damage.
    • Resonance Calamity: If the attacker is protected by the arcane protection, barrier, or deflection powers, a catastrophic harmonic loop triggers. The device suffers an immediate Malfunction, extinguishing its enchantment, and generates a Medium Blast Template centered on the wearer that inflicts 2d6 damage to all targets within.
  • Triage Push:
    • The wearer may use the device to execute an unprovoked Push maneuver without incurring a multi-action penalty. On a success, the opponent is driven back 1″ (2 yards); with a raise, the target is driven back 2″ (4 yards) and knocked Distracted.

Shadowrun (Sixth World)

The Chirurgeon’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Item Classification: Foci / Neck Accessory (Gorget Mount)
  • Availability: 4 (R)
  • Cost: 8,500¥
  • Karma Binding Cost: 6 Karma
  • Defense Rating: +1 to Defense Rating against close-quarters attacks targeting the head, neck, or torso; grants a +2 dice pool bonus on Toxic Resistance tests against inhaled chemical agents, aerosol pathogens, and biological toxins.
  • Sympathetic Trauma-Echo:
    • Whenever the wearer is struck by an opponent in Close combat or targeted by a strangulation attack and takes Physical or Stun damage after the Damage Resistance test, the azure crystal diaphragm discharges a concussive acoustic shockwave.
    • The attacking opponent (or nearest hostile target within a number of meters equal to the unresisted damage sustained) must immediately make a Damage Resistance test against an equal value of Physical damage matching the damage inflicted upon the wearer.
    • Resonance Hazard: If an affected adversary is shielded by an active barrier, defensive warding spell (such as Armor or Physical Barrier), or active kinetic dispersion cyberware, the harmonic interference causes an immediate rupture. Both the wearer and the target take 6P damage (AP -2) from the concussive burst, and the focus is deactivated until rebound during downtime.
  • Biometric Diagnostic Auscultation:
    • By placing a hand or the collar near a patient, the silver ear-tines funnel biological frequencies directly into the wearer’s inner ear. The wearer receives a +2 dice pool bonus to Biotech and Perception tests made to diagnose diseases, identify systemic poisons, assess internal trauma, and evaluate an subject’s remaining Condition Monitor boxes.
  • Triage Disengagement Pulse (Minor Action):
    • The user expends a Minor Action when making an Unarmed Combat attack to trigger the gorget’s pressurized acoustic spring-pulse.
    • If the attack connects, the target takes standard Unarmed damage, is pushed directly back 2 meters, and must pass an Athletics + Agility (2) test or fall prone.

Starfinder (Second Edition)

Chirurgeon’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Item 3, Uncommon, Tech, Worn
  • Price: 1,400 credits
  • Bulk: L
  • Usage: Worn (neck/collar)
  • Armor Class Modifier: +1 item bonus to Armor Class against melee Strikes targeting the wearer’s head, neck, or upper torso.
  • Antiseptic Filter: The wearer gains a +2 item bonus to saving throws against airborne pathogens, inhaled toxins, and respiratory environmental hazards.
  • Diagnostic Acoustic Sensor: The wearer gains a +2 item bonus to Medicine checks to Treat Disease, Treat Poison, and administer First Aid, as well as Perception checks to assess the physiological condition of creatures within 30 feet.
  • Sympathetic Trauma-Echo (Reaction):
    • Trigger: An adjacent creature hits the wearer with a melee Strike and deals kinetic, piercing, or slashing damage.
    • Frequency: Once per 10 minutes.
    • Effect: The azure crystal diaphragm flares with teal luminescence and releases an ear-splitting acoustic chime. The triggering target must attempt a DC 18 basic Reflex save:
      • Critical Success: The target takes no damage.
      • Success: The target takes force damage equal to half the damage dealt to the wearer.
      • Failure: The target takes force damage equal to the full damage dealt to the wearer.
      • Critical Failure: As failure, plus the target is pushed 5 feet directly away from the wearer.
    • Energy Shield Resonance: If the striking opponent is shielded by an active kinetic barrier, personal force field, or defensive energy matrix, the feedback cascade causes both the target’s shield and this gorget to overload. Both creatures take 2d6 sonic damage, and the shield/gorget is rendered inactive for 1 minute.
  • Triage Disengagement Pulse (Single Action):
    • The wearer triggers the collar’s acoustic discharge to make an Athletics check to Shove an adjacent enemy. On a success, the target is pushed back 5 feet; on a critical success, the target is pushed back 10 feet and becomes off-guard until the start of its next turn.

Traveller (Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition)

TL12 Diagnostic Auscultation Gorget

  • Tech Level: 12
  • Mass: 0.5 kg
  • Cost: Cr 4,500
  • Armor Value: +1 Armor to the Neck and Torso against close-quarters strikes (stacks with cloth and mesh armor).
  • Power Requirements: Powered by a rechargeable micro-power cell (rated for 50 combat activations or 24 hours of diagnostic monitoring).
  • Diagnostic Bio-Sensors:
    • The dual silver acoustic pickups act as high-sensitivity ultrasonic transducers. The wearer receives DM+1 to Medic checks made to diagnose internal organ trauma, hemorrhaging, foreign contaminants, and metabolic toxins, as well as DM+1 to Recon checks to detect concealed biological heartbeats within 10 meters.
    • Integrated filtration in the lining grants DM+2 on END checks against airborne toxins and spore contaminants.
  • Piezoelectric Trauma-Echo:
    • Whenever the wearer is hit in close combat (Brawling or Melee) and takes damage through armor, the collar’s central transducer discharges inverted kinetic energy outward.
    • The triggering adversary immediately takes concussive damage equal to the total points of damage that penetrated the wearer’s armor (the target’s armor protects against this reflected strike normally).
    • Resonance Calamity: If the opponent is equipped with an active personal deflector screen or TL13+ energy defense field, the harmonic overlap causes a catastrophic field surge. The unit’s micro-cell burns out, destroying the gorget, and an explosive wave inflicts 3D6 damage to all targets within 2 meters.
  • Directional Acoustic Pulse:
    • As a combat action, the user triggers the diaphragm to discharge a directional shockwave against an adjacent opponent.
    • The user rolls Melee (unarmed) with DM+1. On a success, the target is driven back 3 meters and must pass an Athletics (dexterity) check of 8+ to avoid falling prone.

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay (Wrath & Glory)

The Chirurgeon’s Auscultation Gorget

  • Value: 4 (Rare)
  • Keywords: IMPERIUM, ADEPTUS MEDICAUS, ADEPTUS MECHANICUS
  • Item Type: Specialized Neck Armor / Field Chirurgeon Gear
  • Armor Rating: +1 Resilience against melee strikes targeting the neck or torso; grants +2 bonus dice to Toughness tests to resist airborne contaminants, toxic gases, and inhaled bio-weapons.
  • Diagnostic Auspex Array: The wearer gains +1 bonus die to Medicae (Int) and Awareness (Int) tests made to diagnose biological afflictions, assess physical trauma, identify xenos toxins, and detect vital signs.
  • Mirrored Trauma-Retribution:
    • Whenever the wearer suffers 1 or more Wounds from a melee attack, the azure crystal diaphragm detonates with an acoustic crack like a shattered bronze bell.
    • The striking enemy (or nearest hostile within Engagement range) immediately suffers Shock equal to the total Wounds inflicted upon the wearer.
    • Perils of Resonance: If the attacker is protected by an active Rosarius, Refractor Field, or psychic barrier (such as Fiery Form or Psychic Shield), the colliding energies trigger a violent warp-resonance spike. The user gains 1 point of Wrath or triggers a Minor Perils of the Warp roll, and both combatants suffer 1d3+3 Mortal Wounds from the uncontained kinetic detonation.
  • Triage Repulsion Pulse:
    • The wearer can make an unprovoked melee strike utilizing the collar’s acoustic pulse with their standard Melee pool.
    • On a hit, it inflicts 5 +1ED damage, and if the target fails an opposed Strength check against the user, the target is shoved 2 meters out of Engagement range.