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Reflecting 82 of the Epidermal Counter Keratinist

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by

Dale
in
  • Lore: Developed in the sulfuric hot springs and sun-scoured coastal clinic districts of Badarian, this dermic apparatus was engineered by chirurgeons who specialized in treating parasitic scale-rot and invasive necrotic rashes. The original artisan maintained that the dermal layer is not merely a wall to keep the outside world away, but an active, reactive organ meant to forcefully reject foreign afflictions. Drawing upon fluid collection techniques to distill hardened lizard bile and keratin-rich beast sheaths, the maker bonded sympathetic impact runes onto a fitted collar of treated shagreen. Used extensively by boundary wardens traversing venomous brush and caustic fungal forests, the harness gained a fierce reputation: any sharp or bludgeoning puncture that violates the user’s outer tissue immediately causes the harness to vent an inverted sympathetic exfoliation, violently expelling matching trauma into the epidermal layers of all surrounding assailants while searing away infectious surface blights.
  • Description: This apparatus is a contoured, high-necked gorget crafted from flexible layers of calcified shark-skin and boiled bull-hide, finished in an ochre-tinted medicinal balm. Running along the collarbones are miniature brass slide rails holding four pressurized glass ampoules of clarifying tea tree distillates, calamine suspensions, and concentrated lye soap. Set flush against the central thyroid notch is a convex, silvered crystal medallion polished like a dermatologist’s pore-glass, inscribed with minute spiral wards. Thin copper needles weave into the inner leather lining to maintain continuous direct contact with the avatar’s neck skin, sampling dermic health. When struck, the medallion flashes with a harsh, pale yellow glow, accompanied by a sound like dry parchment tearing violently as retaliatory force peels outward through the surrounding atmosphere.
  • 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: 2 pounds
    • Attunement: Requires 1 minute of concentration to lace the skin-probes flush against the throat and calibrate the dermic pores to the crystal medallion.
  • Passive Magic:
    • Sympathetic Desquamation: Whenever the wearer suffers damage from a successful attack, the item releases an omnidirectional, razor-thin shockwave of retaliatory force matching the exact type and numerical value of the damage sustained. This wave strikes all hostile entities within a radius in feet equal to the damage points taken. If another entity within this radius bears an active reflective ward or mirror-retaliation enchantment, a violent harmonic loop triggers instantly, threatening immediate catastrophic vaporization of all life in the vicinity.
    • Keratin Hardening: While the harness has more than half of its total hit points remaining, the wearer gains +1 to saving throws against effects that cause the bleeding condition, contact poisons, acidic sprays, or necrotic tissue rot delivered via physical strikes.
    • Dermic Seal: The wearer is completely protected from sunburn, dry-skin cracking, caustic sap blisters, and minor abrasive scrapes while traversing hazardous wilderness terrain.
  • Activable Magic:
    • Pneumatic Salve Slough: As an action, the wearer depresses a lever on the collar, discharging a pressurized blast of astringent lye and sulfur salve directly into the face of an adjacent enemy while striking. On a hit, this 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 foes out of close-quarters proximity, preventing disastrous harmonic detonations against enemies suspected of carrying counter-enchantments.
    • Blistering Exfoliation Flash: Once per combat encounter as an action, the wearer may channel mana into the pore-glass medallion, releasing a searing, blinding flash of medicinal light. All hostile creatures within 10 feet must succeed on a DC 11 saving throw or become hindered for one turn due to stinging, peeling skin and burning eyes.
    • Clarifying Pores Flush: As an action outside of combat, the avatar can depress the cheek-line vials to mist the face and neck with antiseptic tonic. This cleanses non-magical filth, fungal spores, and mild topical venoms, while restoring 1 temporary health point that lasts until the next exploration phase.
  • Tags: Neck, Gorget, Tier 1, Common, Reflecting Magic, Dermatology, Exfoliation, Kinetic, Force, Warded, Retaliation, Knockback, Chirurgical, Leather, Alchemical, Epidermis, Cutaneous, Keratin, Desquamation, Shagreen, Pores, Medallion, Astringent, Salve, Abrasive, Topical

Procurement and Trade of the Epidermal Counter-Keratinist

  • Specialized Dermal Apothecaries and Chirurgeon Salons:
    • Located along the busy steam-warmed avenues of trade capitals or nestled in thermal spring quarters, these family-run shops feature shelves lined with ceramic unguent pots, fluid collector vials of refined tree sap, dried beast hides, and distilling retorts. The gorget hangs on a padded bust beside skin-graft needles and lye cakes.
    • Purchasing cost: 110 to 150 silver coins (or 11 to 15 electrum coins). Customers registered with the local Apothecaries’ Union or Chirurgical Guild receive the standard 10% discount per character tier, bringing the price to 99 to 135 silver coins for a Tier 1 patron. Payments are entered into the World Bank ledger via the Mind’s Eye.
    • Selling value: Practitioners evaluate the elasticity of the shagreen and the clarity of the crystal medallion, haggling around 10% of the item’s baseline value per tier of the seller (yielding 11 to 15 silver coins for a Tier 1 character). Payouts are transferred into the seller’s World Bank account, with the shopkeeper recording the sale for review by regional guild inspectors.
  • Frontier Guildhall Armories and Outpost Depots:
    • Operating within fortified Adventuring Guildhalls in municipal seats of five thousand or more souls, these official depots supply expeditionary forces preparing to breach caustic wetlands, fungal forests, or acidic badlands. The collars are kept locked in heavy iron-bound footlockers alongside antidotes and hazard cloaks.
    • Purchasing cost: Exactly 10 electrum coins (or 100 silver coins) for active guild members in good standing, representing an official institutional rate. Unaffiliated adventurers are charged an unnegotiated 120 silver coins, plus any municipal sales tariff of 3% levied by the city.
    • Selling value: Quartermasters purchase returned units strictly as salvage or standard issue surplus, offering a flat 10 silver coins deposited directly into the adventurer’s World Bank account. The acquisition is logged under garrison property manifests, exempt from inner-city transit taxes.
  • Black-Market Alleys and Slum Dispensaries:
    • Hidden behind tanning yards, wharf sewers, or unmarked basement cellars in port cities, these illicit fences deal in unlicensed magical relics salvaged from fallen avatars whose possessions were stripped prior to official retrieval.
    • Purchasing cost: 16 to 22 gold coins (equivalent to 160 to 220 silver coins). Buyers pay an elevated premium for complete anonymity, and transactions must be settled immediately in physical precious metal coin; World Bank transfers and ledger inquiries are barred.
    • Selling value: Black-market brokers offer 20 to 25 silver coins in raw physical coinage if regional patrols have made protective gear scarce, maintaining total secrecy regarding the item’s source. If the seller insists on rapid liquidation while city watches are sweeping the alleys, the broker may drop the offer to 8 silver coins.
  • Wandering Caravan Wagons and Wilderness Tinkers:
    • Transported in covered wagons guarded by hired escort fighters along the military-patrolled highways linking port cities to central capitals, these itinerant vendors cater to rural outposts, miners, and frontier homesteaders who lack easy access to urban guildhalls.
    • Purchasing cost: 13 to 17 electrum coins (65 to 85 silver value), fluctuating based on the road’s proximity to monster nests and the local cost of transit taxes (such as the 5% state border tariff and 1% central hub toll).
    • Selling value: Wandering tinkers maintain limited coin reserves and offer 7 to 9 silver coins, or equivalent value in trade goods such as clean waterskins, dried trail meat, or refined lantern grease. Settlements can be handled through World Bank balances if the tinker carries an attuned ledger focus, or via regionally minted non-metal clay and shell tokens calibrated to precious metal weights.

Tactical Deployments and Cutaneous Roleplay across Environments

  • Caustic Wetlands, Mires, and Mangrove Swamps:
    • Defensive Roleplay: While wading through knee-deep stagnant water choked with predatory leeches, spitting reptiles, and acidic bog flora, the avatar acts as the vanguard guide. When a hidden marsh-predator lunges from the murk to strike at the neck, the jagged fangs bite into the shark-skin collar. The impact causes the throat medallion to flare pale yellow, unleashing an immediate, water-skimming shockwave that peels away the creature’s own outer tissue and drives back surrounding swamp horrors, preventing the avatar’s airway from collapsing.
    • Offensive Roleplay: To suppress swarms of venomous flies and toxic bog leeches clinging to allies, the wearer strides directly into the thickest nest. Grasping the collar’s valve, the avatar triggers the Blistering Exfoliation Flash. The medicinal burst radiates outward in a blinding, stinging wave of light and heat, scorching the chitin of the insects, forcing larger swamp predators to retract their eye-membranes, and leaving them hindered as the rest of the party advances.
  • Subterranean Fungal Forests and Crystal Caves:
    • Defensive Roleplay: In pitch-black caverns blanketed in predatory mold and abrasive spore caps, every step risks disturbing necrotic flora or ambushing troglodytic beasts. When a cavern hunter lands a vicious slashing blow across the avatar’s upper shoulders, the collar instantly absorbs the kinetic shock, discharging a razor-thin concussive ring through the darkness. The retaliatory force violently flays the encroaching pack with their own strike’s power, buying vital seconds for the avatar to adjust their footing without suffering deep arterial lacerations.
    • Offensive Roleplay: In narrow stone choke-points, engaging foes armed with reactive wards carries the lethal danger of harmonic annihilation. Reading hostile arcane signatures through the Mind’s Eye, the avatar uses an action to activate the Pneumatic Salve Slough. Leaning forward, they fire a pressurized spray of caustic lye and sulfur directly into the lead adversary’s faceplate, dealing kinetic trauma and driving the foe five feet backward down the tunnel ledge, breaking proximity before a catastrophic resonance cascade can detonate.
  • Sun-Scorched Deserts and Ash Wastes:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Crossing salt flats under the blazing heat of Helios exposes travelers to blistering winds, alkaline dust storms, and burrowing ambush predators. While mundane travelers suffer peeling skin and sun-blindness, the collar maintains the avatar’s outer tissues in a supple, sealed state. When a giant sand-scorpion erupts from beneath the dunes to hammer its stinger down onto the throat, the collar’s keratin mesh arrests the barb, sending an inverted seismic ripple through the sand that stuns surrounding scavengers.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Against raiders attempting to surround and immobilize the party in open sand, the avatar engages the Blistering Exfoliation Flash during an advance. The intense, concentrated glare reflects off the salt pans, blinding the raiders through their desert goggles and irritating their wind-burned skin with sudden chemical sting, halting their cavalry charge and allowing party spellcasters to pick off the disorganized flanks.
  • Crowded Harbor Docks and Industrial Factory Districts:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Amid towering steam machinery, hot steam vents, and damp cobblestone alleys, cutpurses and gang enforcers favor close-quarters bludgeoning weapons. A heavy blow from an iron pipe or lead cosh delivered to the avatar’s throat merely compresses the internal copper needles against the neck; the medallion ignites with a violent sound like tearing parchment, blasting the assailant and their accomplices backward into harbor crates while the avatar remains upright and uninjured.
    • Offensive Roleplay: To subdue hostile dock brawlers without deploying lethal blades that violate municipal peace accords, the avatar steps into grappling range and triggers the Pneumatic Salve Slough. The concentrated blast of lye soap and astringent tonic hits the target’s chest and chin, knocking them five feet backward into the harbor basin or against a warehouse bulkhead, neutralizing their aggression through physical displacement while leaving the local city watch with no justification for arrest.

Perception of Activation:

  • User’s Perspective:
    • Sight: A sudden, pale yellow-white coronal flare detonates directly beneath the chin as the crystal medallion ignites, casting harsh upward shadows across the face while fine, web-like luminous veins race along the shagreen leather collar.
    • Hearing: A sharp, acoustic snap resembling dry parchment tearing violently beside the ear canals, followed by a resonant, hollow hum as kinetic energy is redirected away from the throat cartilage.
    • Smell: The immediate surrounding air fills with the sharp, medicinal stench of vaporized calamine, sulfur wash, hot lye soap, and singed keratin.
    • Taste: A dry, astringent bitterness coats the palate, carrying the chalky, drying sensation of pulverized zinc oxide and evaporated tea tree distillates.
    • Touch: The internal copper needles lightly pinch and prickle against the throat as they monitor skin tension, accompanied by a rapid tightening of the leather collar that grips the neck like a supportive brace without restricting the windpipe.
    • Extra-Sensory Perception (Mind’s Eye): Quantified diagnostic values flare into internal focus, displaying the incoming wound magnitude alongside an instantaneous, calculated spherical damage perimeter radiating outward from the collar.
    • Extra-Sensory Perception (Arcane Pressure): A localized drop in ambient mana density sends an icy prickling sensation down the avatar’s spine as ambient ether is pulled into the medallion to invert the kinetic vector.
  • Observer’s Perspective:
    • Sight: The attacker’s weapon strikes the avatar’s neck, but rather than tearing flesh, the blow lands on the throat medallion, which flashes with a blinding, ring-shaped ripple of harsh ochre light that races outward along the ground and walls.
    • Hearing: Nearby witnesses hear a whip-like report followed by the sound of scythes slicing through dry reeds, echoing painfully in the ears of anyone caught within the perimeter.
    • Smell: A heavy, stinging cloud of herbal astringent, ozone, and burnt bone powder billows into the nostrils of surrounding foes, causing sudden sneezing or coughing.
    • Taste: Surrounding combatants experience an unpleasant, alkaline dryness on the back of their tongues caused by the rapid ionization of the local air.
    • Touch: Opponents within the blast radius feel an instantaneous, physical shockwave hammer into their chests and extremities, matching the exact weapon force dealt to the wearer, staggering their balance and shivering their joints.
    • Extra-Sensory Perception (True Sight): Arcane observers perceive a dense lattice of ultraviolet and amber threads detonating outward from the neckpiece, forming a dome of retributive energy that tethers the incoming strike directly to the life force of adjacent foes.
    • Extra-Sensory Perception (Tremorsense): Subterranean beings detect a sharp, radial tremor vibrating through the ground surface, spreading outward in concentric ripples from the avatar’s stance.
  • Positives:
    • Area Deterrent: Transforms a potentially fatal throat wound into an instantaneous omnidirectional counter-strike that harms all adjacent enemies without requiring an action.
    • Throat and Airway Defense: The hardened shagreen structure prevents tracheal collapse, neck fractures, and arterial bleeding from blunt or slashing trauma.
    • Tactical Disruption: The acoustic crack and stinging chemical vapor break enemy coordination, giving party members an immediate opportunity to maneuver.
  • Negatives:
    • Sensory Overload: The close-proximity flash, stinging sulfur vapor, and acoustic report can leave the wearer temporarily disoriented with a ringing in the ears.
    • Lethal Resonance Hazard: If an enemy within the burst radius carries an active reflective enchantment, the intersecting wards will trigger a harmonic feedback loop capable of instantly vaporizing all creatures in the vicinity.
    • Compromised Stealth: The bright yellow flare, strong medicinal odor, and loud tearing sound instantly alert all nearby hostile creatures in the area to the avatar’s exact location.

Crafting Recipe: The Epidermal Counter-Keratinist Gorget

  • Materials Needed:
    • One Tier 1 magic crystal (coin-sized and coin-weighted, harvested from a slain creature to act as the internal arcane power battery).
    • One square foot of cured shark-skin shagreen (providing the coarse, abrasion-resistant outer dermal layer).
    • One square foot of boiled, vegetable-tanned bull-hide (forming the structural inner framework and retention collar).
    • One convex silvered crystal glass medallion (two inches in diameter, free of flaws, to function as the reflective kinetic focal lens).
    • Four small tempered glass apothecary phials fitted with threaded brass collars and atomizing delivery nozzles.
    • Three ounces of calcified fossil powder (ground beast horn, scales, or petrified coral to act as the keratin-binding catalyst).
    • Two ounces of refined tea tree extract, calamine suspension, and liquid lye soap.
    • Twelve fine copper acupuncture needles (to construct the internal dermic monitoring lattice).
    • One ounce of silver brazing wire and flux (for embedding warding spirals into the crystal medallion mounting).
    • One leather-sheathed bone comb or scraper (sacrificial tool component consumed during crafting to transfer desquamation and scraping properties into the collar).
  • Tools Required:
    • Leatherworking awl, hole punch, edge beveler, and bone folder.
    • Heavy shears capable of cutting cured shagreen and thick leather.
    • Jeweler’s saw, mini-mandrel, and brass bezel-shaping pliers.
    • Fine steel engraving burrs and a magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe.
    • Mortar, pestle, and a fluid collector syringe for precise measurement and injection of alchemical compounds.
    • Small charcoal brazier or alcohol spirit lamp for heating metal wire and melting waxes.
    • Waxed linen thread and heavy saddler’s needles.
  • Skill Requirements:
    • Leatherworking / Armor Crafting: Minimum Skill Level 5.
    • Alchemical Crafting / Chirurgical Medicine: Minimum Skill Level 4.
    • Arcane Inscription / Mind’s Eye Calibration: Minimum Skill Level 3.
  • Crafting Steps:
    • Step 1 (Patterning and Leather Shaping): Measure and cut the boiled bull-hide into a contoured, high-standing neck gorget designed to shield the thyroid cartilage and cervical spine. Wet-form the leather over a wooden collar mandrel to ensure an ergonomic fit around the lower throat, then bevel and burnish all edges smooth.
    • Step 2 (Shagreen Lamination): Skive the edges of the cured shark-skin shagreen to prevent bulkiness. Apply a thin layer of waterproof tree-resin adhesive to laminate the shagreen securely across the exterior face of the bull-hide gorget. Clamp the layers firmly until set, then stitch along the structural perimeters using heavy waxed linen thread.
    • Step 3 (Sacrificial Tool Decomposition): Place the sacrificial bone comb into a crucible over the spirit lamp, dusting it with calcified fossil powder. Heat the material until the physical structure breaks down into a fine ash, channeling its latent scraping and dead-layer removal magic into the brass mounting ring of the gorget, permanently infusing the frame with desquamating properties.
    • Step 4 (Reflective Medallion Inscription): Using the fine steel scribe and magnifying loupe, engrave a continuous, concentric spiral ward onto the reverse silvered backing of the crystal medallion. Heat the silver brazing wire and flow it into the etched grooves, sealing the sympathetic kinetic reversal pattern directly behind the glass.
    • Step 5 (Battery and Core Assembly): Seat the Tier 1 magic crystal into the hollow center of the brass throat-plate casing. Mount the inscribed silvered medallion directly atop the crystal, rolling the brass bezel tightly over the rim to lock the crystal and glass in direct physical contact.
    • Step 6 (Pore-Probe and Ampoule Integration): Drill twelve minute guide holes along the inner neckband. Insert the fine copper needles through the lining so their blunt tips rest flush against the wearer’s skin, wiring them back to the crystal housing to monitor epidermal tension. Secure four brass retaining clips onto the collar wings, fill the four glass phials with the calamine-tea tree-lye mixture, and snap them into the clips with the atomizing nozzles pointed forward.
    • Step 7 (Final Calibration and Testing): Fasten the adjustable closure straps and brass buckles to the rear struts. Strike the front medallion with a padded wooden mallet while observing through the Mind’s Eye, verifying that the magic crystal absorbs the force and the mirror radiates a pale yellow glow. Apply a finishing coat of ochre medicinal balm over the leather and store the finished Tier 1 gorget in a sealed velvet wrap until ritual attunement begins.

Seven Scabs and Neck-Pot of Woman Sura

Read now the ancient words that were turned over twice by the blind scribes of the muddy water, who knew not the signs of the red clay before the high stars were fixed into their seven turnings. In the dry years when the moon Saṃsāra had not yet grown its hair of green trees, and the great salt-mud was full of crawling things that had neither ears nor names, there was a woman of the ditch named Sura. Sura did not walk behind the bull-carts of the kings, nor did she blow upon the long silver horns of the cloud-houses. She was a scraper of the yellow rot, one who dwelt by the smoking pools where the ground vomited hot water that smelled like bad eggs.

In those seasons, the red sun Helios was angry in the middle sky, and its face did burn the people until their skin cracked like sun-dried river mud. Worse than the sun were the creeping scale-ticks that swam through the hot dust. These ticks had many little feet of copper, and they would bore through the leather clothes of the hunters to bury their heads inside the soft flesh of the throat. When a tick did bite, the neck of a man would swell into a purple gourd, and his hide would peel away in wet sheets until his meat dried out and he became food for the flies.

Now the master of the clay huts, whose name was inscribed as Kark-the-Thick-Hide, had taken for himself seven wives and four fields of salt-grass. Kark was a man of terrible pride who rubbed his limbs with the fat of dead turtles to make his skin like iron plates. But a grey tick from the deep fen did fall upon his collar while he slept, and it did drink of his thick throat. In two days, the great neck of Kark was covered in boiling sores that wept black oil. His throat grew so wide that he could not swallow his roasted meal, nor could he shout his orders unto the spear-boys.

The house-folk ran to the sulfur hollows and pulled Sura by her mantle, saying: “Come quickly with thy scraping-shards and thy bitter grease! For the bull-man Kark is strangling upon his own black hide, and if his breath stops, his brothers will cast all the women of the ditch into the salt pit!”

Sura took her scraping-knife made of smoothed ox-horn, and she took her clay pots of boiled tree-sap and white lye-dust. She entered into the low grass-house where Kark lay on his belly, his eyes rolling like a hog under the butcher’s rope. She knelt upon the dirt and touched his hot throat with her cool fingers to see where the mother-tick was buried. But Kark was full of fear and fever-demons. He thought that her fingers were the claws of a swamp-cat coming to tear his pipe, and with a roar like a cracking hill, he swung his heavy stone axe sideways.

The stone axe caught Sura directly across the collar and the throat. The blow did not shear her head away, but it broke her bones inward, and she flew across the hearth, her chest full of blood and her mouth tasting of ash. The kin of Kark laughed with ugly mouths, shouting: “Behold the wise woman who cannot keep her own skin upon her ribs! Throw her out into the prickly bush that the wolves may lick her meat!”

They dragged her through the thorn bushes and left her upon the red stones by the boiling spring. But Sura did not die in the thorns. Her spirit was hard like the flint of the high ridges, and her hatred for the thick-hided man was like the fire that does not quench under water. For fifty turnings of the moon, she lay in the white steam of the sulfuric rocks. The wild sharks that lived in the salt-bay came up to the edges of the pool and died upon the hot mud; Sura took their coarse grey skin and dried it in the smoke until it was like a cuirass of emery.

She scraped the hide thin with a sharp shell, shouting words into the steam that made the water-bugs turn upside down. She took the boiled hide of a mountain cow that had been choked by snakes and stitched it behind the shark-hide with the dry sinews of wild dogs. Over the place where her throat-bone had been crushed by the stone axe, she fixed a round mirror of cast silver, which she had stolen from the tomb of an old priestess. Upon the dark side of the silver, she scratched seven coiled snakes, each biting the scruff of the other until there was no beginning and no end.

She bored twelve little holes through the lining and thrust through twelve long needles of beaten copper, so that their cold points rested upon the flesh of her own neck. Then she filled four small hollow tubes of river-crystal with the white dust of burned oyster shells, the bitter yellow juice of the sulfur vents, and the boiled grease of the soap-tree.

“If the master of the huts loves to strike the throat that would heal him,” whispered Sura through her clenched jaws, “then his own skin shall be torn from his ribs like an old shirt.”

She buckled the coarse shark-skin collar around her bruised windpipe. The twelve copper needles bit into her flesh like the teeth of an adder, and the pain made her eyes bleed tears of yellow bile. But when the blood touched the needles, the silver medallion upon her throat began to glow with a sick, oily luminescence like a rotten fish in the dark. The collar clamped tight, and her broken throat was held as firm as the trunk of an ironwood tree.

She walked out from the steaming ditch and went up into the village of Kark. Her feet made no noise, for she was light from hunger, but her collar hissed like a pot on the coals. The watchmen saw her come and shouted: “Lo, the ditch-woman has returned with a grey shark upon her neck! Does she bring more bitter pots to sell?” But Sura gave no answer, for her throat was bound in the tight hide and she kept her teeth shut.

She walked into the enclosure where Kark sat upon his bench. The chieftain’s face was like a rotting melon; his wives sat in the dirt throwing sand upon their heads, for the black sores had spread unto his chest, and his skin was sloughing into his lap. When he saw Sura stand before him with the silver circle flashing upon her breast, his fever-fury flared up once more.

“Dost thou come to mock my rottenness, woman of the ditch?” he gurgled through his ruined windpipe. He rose up with his two-handed club of black basalt, bound with strips of raw ox-leather. Gathering all the weight of his giant thighs, he swung the stone club with both hands, aiming directly at the silver mirror upon her throat to smash her into the red clay forever.

The basalt club struck the silver medallion with a crack like the thunderbolt that splits an elder cedar.

The woman Sura did not yield an inch of dirt. Her knees did not bend, nor did the shark-skin collar give way beneath the black rock. But from the silver mirror there leaped a circle of pale yellow fire, thin as the edge of a razor and screaming with the sound of a thousand hide-scrapers grating against dry bone. The concussive wrath of the basalt club did not penetrate the woman; it turned upon its own belly and rushed backward along the stone haft.

The thick arms of the chief Kark were peeled clean of their hide in a single breath, the skin rolling upward unto his shoulders like boiled onion skins. The shockwave expanded outward in an even circle, thirty paces wide. Every warrior and wife of the house who stood within the circle felt the wind of the mirror slap their bodies: their robes were shredded into lint, and the outer skin of their faces, chests, and hands was stripped away in a single terrible peeling, leaving them red and weeping upon the ground like skinned calves.

The great basalt club of the chief did not break; instead, the shockwave went straight through Kark’s own throat. The black pustules upon his neck burst inward with a sickening sound, and the mother-tick that had nested in his marrow was thrown out through his mouth, dead and blackened like a charcoal coal. Kark fell upon his bloody knees, his raw meat shuddering in the cold air, screaming with no voice because his lips had been scraped away into the sand.

The warriors who were not dead of the shock threw their stone knives into the bushes and crawled upon their raw bellies into the river to cool their flayed flesh, believing that the sun-god had descended in the shape of a shark to eat their hides.

Sura stood in the middle of the red circle. She did not raise a hand, nor did she speak a curse. She reached down with fingers of bone, stepped upon the dead tick with the heel of her boot, and walked out of the stockade into the wilderness of the moon.

The old songs of the coastal road say that Sura walked for four hundred seasons through the deep forests where the necrotic vines crawl like serpents. Wherever the wild beasts or the spear-men leaped at her throat to choke her life away, the silver disc did catch their fury and cast it back upon their own skins, flaying the bears and peeling the raiders until their bodies were as red as the clay pits of Badarian. She never took the collar from her throat, and in the end, her flesh and the shark-skin grew together into a single coat of stone that neither tooth, nor claw, nor axe could ever mark.

Moral of the Story: He who uses an axe to answer the medicine shall have his own skin peeled away to show the meat beneath.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

Sura’s Desquamating Shagreen Collar

  • Description: A rigid, high-necked gorget constructed from abrasive sharkskin over hardened hide, lined with twelve fine copper pins that pierce the skin of the throat. A silvered glass medallion is mounted over the thyroid notch, flanked by brass brackets containing vials of sulfurous astringent.
  • Item Type: Arcane Relic / Surgical Protective Device
  • Magic Points Cost: 2 MP to trigger the reflective ward upon receiving an attack; 1 MP to discharge the pneumatic spray.
  • Sanity Loss: 1/1D4 Sanity points to lace the needle-lined collar against the throat; 0/1D3 Sanity points for witnesses seeing the retaliatory flaying shockwave.
  • Armor Check & Passive Protection: Grants +1 point of physical armor against attacks targeting the neck, throat, or upper torso. The wearer is entirely immune to non-magical skin parasites, blistering rashes, abrasive terrain scrapes, and contact necrosis.
  • Sympathetic Desquamation: When the wearer is struck by a melee weapon, claw, or natural strike, the wearer may immediately spend 2 Magic Points as a reaction to reflect the kinetic trauma. The attacker must make an instantaneous Dodge roll:
    • Failure: The attacker suffers concussive and lacerating damage equal to the total hit points inflicted upon the wearer.
    • Success: The attacker dodges the primary concussive ring, suffering half damage.
    • Resonance Calamity: If the attacking entity possesses an active barrier or reactive spell (such as Flesh Ward), both the attacker and wearer must make an immediate Hard CON roll. If either fails, a catastrophic harmonic rupture occurs, dealing 3D10 kinetic damage to every creature within a 15-foot radius.
  • Pneumatic Salve Slough: The wearer may spend 1 MP to discharge an atomized stream of caustic sulfur and lye (Fighting: Brawl). On a Regular Success, it deals 1D3 damage; on an Extreme Success, the blinding concussive burst forces an adjacent human-sized opponent backward by 1D6 paces.
  • Dermatological First Aid: Adds a Bonus Die to Medicine or First Aid rolls made to treat severe burns, neutralize flesh-eating toxins, or excise necrotic tissue in field conditions.

Blades in the Dark

Sura’s Exfoliating Gorget

  • Item Classification: Rare Arcane Apparatus (2 Load, counts as Heavy Armor when layered over existing breastplates or heavy coats).
  • Description: A brutal, close-fitting neck collar of sandpapery shagreen, backed by internal skin-probes, miniature chemical misting phials, and a silvered convex focus lens etched with serpentine wards.
  • Quality: Fine (+1 Quality to physical defense against beasts, slashing attacks, and hazardous biological environments).
  • Tier: II
  • Armor Trait: You may mark your Armor box to resist harm targeting your neck, throat, or skin, reducing the incoming harm level by one step.
  • Special Armor — Retaliatory Flaying: You may mark your Special Armor (or suffer 2 Stress) to trigger the collar’s reactive ward when suffering physical Harm from a melee or close-quarters strike:
    • Effect: The incoming kinetic violence reverberates outward in a sharp, abrasive ring. The attacking opponent suffers Harm equal in level to the raw Harm inflicted upon you (e.g., suffering Level 2 Harm deals Level 2 Harm to the attacker).
    • Resonance Hazard: If the attacker possesses an active ghost shield, electroplasmic ward, or occult defensive barrier, the interaction triggers a harmonic detonation: mark 3 Stress, clear zero incoming Harm, and all characters in the immediate area suffer Level 3 Harm (“Severe Skin Lacerations and Concussive Rupture”).
  • Push Yourself (Astringent Shove): When making a Skirmish or Wreck roll to push a close foe back or clear personal space, spend 1 Stress to gain +1d or push the effect to Great Effect, blasting an adjacent target backward out of melee reach with a pneumatic hiss of lye vapor.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition, 2024 Revision)

Epidermal Counter-Keratinist 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 full heavy armor that covers the throat.
  • Description: Crafted from raspy shark-skin shagreen over thick boiled leather, this high collar features twelve internal copper skin-probes, four miniature brass-capped reagent vials, and a central convex silvered crystal medallion sitting over the throat.
  • Cutaneous Fortitude: You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned by contact toxins, suffering the blinded condition from caustic dust, or contracting skin-rotting diseases and parasites. You are immune to sunburn and non-magical abrasive hazards.
  • Sympathetic Desquamation: 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 medallion’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.
  • Pneumatic Salve Slough: As an action, you can depress the collar’s manual release to fire an abrasive spray of lye and sulfur 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 directly away from you.

Knave (2nd Edition)

Sura’s Flaying Gorget

  • Item Slots: 1 Item Slot (Neck/Throat, counts toward worn encumbrance).
  • Item Armor: +1 Armor Check (AC 12 when combined with unarmored base of 11).
  • Quality/Durability: 3/3 Quality.
  • Description: A stiff collar of cured shark-skin lined with boiled ox-hide and fine copper tacks that rest on the throat. A polished silver mirror rests over the windpipe, flanked by small vials of bitter lye tonic.
  • Desquamating Rebound: When an adjacent enemy hits the wearer in melee and inflicts HP damage, the wearer may test Constitution (rolling a d20 + Constitution bonus vs. DC 15) as an immediate reaction:
    • Success: The mirror discharges an acoustic tearing crack. 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 invert the blow; the wearer takes damage normally without reflection.
    • Resonance Shatter: If the attacking foe has an active protective ward or magical armor enchantment, the conflicting energies detonate: the gorget drops to 0 Quality (broken), the enemy’s ward unbinds, and both combatants take 2d6 direct damage.
  • Caustic Push: Once per combat encounter, the wearer can spend an action to make a Strength check against an enemy’s Strength defense to trigger the collar’s pneumatic lye jet. On a success, the foe is knocked back 10 feet and loses their next movement action.
  • Wilderness Immunity: Grants the wearer Advantage on Constitution saves against environmental poisons, caustic mires, stinging insects, and necrotic flora while exploring wild terrain.

Fate (Fate Condensed)

Sura’s Desquamating Throat-Guard

  • Aspects:
    • High Concept: Shagreen Gorget of Sympathetic Cutaneous Inversion
    • Trouble: Catastrophic Harmonic Detonation
    • Additional Aspect: Sealed Keratin Skin Armor
  • Stunts:
    • Sympathetic Desquamation: Once per conflict, when you defend against a close-quarters physical attack with Fight 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 a melee strike, the attacking foe suffers an immediate physical hit with shifts equal to the stress you suffered.
    • 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 kinetic eruption. Everyone in the zone takes shifts of stress on a failed defense.
    • Astringent Lye Jet: You gain a +2 to Overcome or Create an Advantage using Physique when bull-rushing, grappling, or forcing an opponent back out of close combat range using the pressurized collar jets.
    • Dermic Immunity: The wearer cannot have aspects created against them related to blistering sun, caustic mire burns, skin parasites, or contact poisons.

Numenera & Cypher System

The Cutaneous Retaliator Collar

  • Level: 3 (Artifact)
  • Form: A rigid, high-standing neck gorget fashioned from calcified sharkskin shagreen, backed by internal copper dermal probes, a silvered convex focus medallion, and four pressurized glass phials filled with sulfurous white paste.
  • Depletion: 1 in 1d20 (checked upon triggering the reflective detonation).
  • Armor: Adds +1 to Armor against physical attacks directed at the neck, throat, or upper chest.
  • Effect:
    • Reactive Desquamation: Whenever the wearer suffers physical damage from a melee or hand-to-hand strike within immediate range, the throat medallion discharges an abrasive shockwave. The attacking creature immediately suffers physical damage (ignoring Armor) equal to the raw damage points dealt to the wearer.
    • Harmonic Rupture: If the striking opponent is protected by an active force field, personal energy shield, or esotery of warding, the interaction triggers a disastrous harmonic surge: the artifact immediately depletes, the enemy’s shield is extinguished, and all targets within short range suffer 6 points of ambient kinetic damage.
    • Pneumatic Salve Blast: As an action, the wearer may spend 1 Might point to activate the collar’s pneumatic chemical jets. On a successful Might attack roll, an adjacent target suffers 3 points of damage and is knocked back an immediate distance.
    • Dermatological Utility: Grants an asset on any healing or task attempting to treat caustic chemical burns, neutralize flesh-eating parasites, or dress necrotic lacerations.

Pathfinder (Second Edition Remaster)

Gorget of the Flaying Rebound

  • Item 3, Uncommon, Invested, Magical
  • Price: 55 gp
  • Usage: Worn headwear (occupies the throat/neck area); Bulk: L
  • Cutaneous Fortitude: The wearer gains a +1 item bonus to saving throws against environmental toxins, contact poisons, and caustic acid, and is immune to non-magical abrasive hazards and sunburn.
  • Sympathetic Desquamation (Reaction):
    • Trigger: An adjacent creature hits the wearer with a melee Strike and deals physical damage.
    • Frequency: Once per day.
    • Effect: The convex medallion on the collar flashes pale yellow and unleashes an abrasive concussive wave. 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 has an active reactive warding spell (such as fire shield or retributive strike), the energy destabilizes. Both the wearer and the attacker take 2d8 sonic damage, and the gorget cannot be activated again until completely repaired with a Crafting check (DC 18).
  • Astringent Salve Shove (Single Action):
    • Frequency: Once per 10 minutes.
    • Effect: The wearer makes an Athletics check to Shove an adjacent enemy using the collar’s pneumatic 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 from the concussive spray.

Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition – SWADE)

Sura’s Keratin Retaliator

  • Classification: Minor Arcane Device (Worn, Neck/Throat)
  • Min Strength: d4
  • Weight: 2 lbs
  • Cost: $1,200
  • Armor Bonus: Provides +1 Armor to the Neck area only, stacking with breastplates that leave the throat uncovered.
  • Epidermal Ward: The wearer gains a +2 bonus to Vigor rolls made to resist the effects of contact poisons, caustic acid splatters, environmental heat, and flesh-rotting infections.
  • Sympathetic Backlash:
    • Whenever the wearer is hit by an adjacent melee attack and suffers at least one Wound or Shaken result, the throat medallion immediately triggers.
    • The attacker must make an instantaneous Agility roll at -2.
    • Failure: The attacker suffers the exact amount of raw damage (same dice roll and total) that was inflicted upon the wearer.
    • Success: The attacker dives partially clear and takes half damage.
    • Resonance Calamity: If the attacker is protected by the arcane protection, barrier, or deflection powers, a violent harmonic occurs. The device immediately suffers a Malfunction, disabling its magical ward, and detonates a Medium Blast Template centered on the wearer that deals 2d6 damage to everyone within.
  • Pneumatic Salve Shove:
    • The wearer may use the device to execute an unprovoked Push maneuver without taking a multi-action penalty. On a success, the opponent is shoved back 1″ (2 yards); with a raise, the target is pushed back 2″ (4 yards) and knocked Distracted.

Shadowrun (Sixth World)

The Shagreen Dermal-Shield

  • Item Classification: Foci / Armor Accessory (Neck/Gorget Mount)
  • Availability: 4 (R)
  • Cost: 8,500¥
  • Karma Binding Cost: 6 Karma
  • Defense Rating: +1 to overall Defense Rating against close combat strikes; grants the wearer the minor quality Sealed Dermis (complete immunity to contact vector toxins, abrasive skin burns, and blistering biological spores).
  • Sympathetic Exfoliation Ward:
    • Whenever the wearer is struck by an opponent in Close combat and takes Physical or Stun damage after the Damage Resistance test, the attuned gorget releases a razor-thin concussive shockwave.
    • The attacking opponent must immediately make a Damage Resistance test against Physical damage equal in value and type to the unresisted damage inflicted upon the wearer.
    • Resonance Hazard: If the attacking adversary possesses an active protective barrier spell (such as Armor or Physical Barrier) or an active kinetic impact dispersal matrix, the colliding wards cause an instantaneous harmonic rupture. Both the wearer and the attacker suffer 6P damage (AP -2) from the concussive burst, and the focus deactivates until rebound during downtime.
  • Pneumatic Salve Jet (Minor Action):
    • The user expends a Minor Action during an Unarmed Combat attack to trigger the high-pressure lye and sulfur chemical nozzles.
    • If the attack successfully hits, the opponent is shoved directly back 2 meters and must succeed on an Athletics + Agility (2) test or fall prone.
  • Chirurgical Utility:
    • Contains micro-vials of dermic salves, calamine, and extraction lancets. Grants a +1 dice pool bonus to Biotech / First Aid tests involving chemical burns, necrotic lacerations, or skin-borne pathogen decontamination.

Starfinder (Second Edition)

Retaliatory Shagreen Gorget

  • Item 3, Uncommon, Tech, Worn
  • Price: 1,400 credits
  • Bulk: L
  • Usage: Worn (neck/throat)
  • Armor Class Modifier: +1 item bonus to Armor Class against melee Strikes targeting the wearer’s neck or upper torso.
  • Cutaneous Integrity: The wearer gains a +2 item bonus to Fortitude saving throws against effects that inflict the sickened, blinded, or enfeebled conditions caused by contact toxins, acidic splashes, or abrasive biological hazards, and is immune to environmental sunburn.
  • Sympathetic Desquamation (Reaction):
    • Trigger: An adjacent creature hits the wearer with a melee Strike and deals kinetic, slashing, or piercing damage.
    • Frequency: Once per 10 minutes.
    • Effect: The convex crystal throat medallion flashes with pale amber light, discharging an abrasive concussive wave. The triggering attacker must attempt a DC 18 basic Reflex save:
      • Critical Success: The attacker takes no damage.
      • Success: The attacker takes force damage equal to half the damage dealt to the wearer.
      • Failure: The attacker takes force damage equal to the full damage dealt to the wearer.
      • Critical Failure: As failure, plus the attacker 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.
  • Pneumatic Salve Slough (Single Action):
    • The wearer triggers the collar’s chemical mist 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 Cutaneous Reactive Gorget

  • Tech Level: 12
  • Mass: 1.0 kg
  • Cost: Cr 4,500
  • Armor Value: +1 Armor to the Neck location (stacks with soft combat suits and open vacc-suit collars).
  • Power Requirements: Powered by a micro-fusion battery cell (rated for 50 combat activations).
  • Piezoelectric Desquamation Ward:
    • Whenever the wearer is hit in close combat (Brawling or Melee) and suffers damage past their armor, the gorget’s throat-mounted piezoelectric crystal discharges inverted kinetic energy into the assailant.
    • The attacker immediately takes concussive damage equal to the total points of damage dealt past the wearer’s armor (the attacker’s armor protects against this reflected blow normally).
    • Resonance Calamity: If the opponent is equipped with an active personal deflector screen or TL13+ reactive barrier, the harmonic interference triggers a catastrophic field surge. The unit’s battery burns out, destroying the gorget, and an explosive wave inflicts 3D6 damage to all targets within 2 meters.
  • Pneumatic Chemical Shove:
    • As a combat action, the user engages the high-pressure lye mist nozzles 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 being knocked prone.
  • Dermatological First Aid:
    • Equipped with pressurized canisters of clarifying antiseptics and burn salves. Grants DM+1 to any Medic check performed to neutralize toxic chemical burns, decontaminate corrosive spray, or suture neck wounds in the field.

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay (Wrath & Glory)

The Cleansing Chirurgeon’s Shagreen Gorget

  • Value: 4 (Rare)
  • Keywords: IMPERIUM, ADEPTUS MINISTORUM, CHIRURGEON
  • Item Type: Headgear / Specialized Neck Protection
  • Armor Rating: +1 Resilience against melee attacks directed at the neck or throat.
  • Blessed Epidermal Sanctity: The wearer gains +1 bonus die to Defiance checks against suffering the Poisoned, Blinded, or Bleeding conditions resulting from caustic bile, virulent mold spores, or lacerating claw attacks to the neck.
  • Mirrored Desquamating Retribution:
    • Whenever the wearer takes 1 or more Wounds from a melee attack delivered by an enemy within Engagement range, the silvered throat reliquary erupts with a searing hiss of pale light.
    • The striking enemy 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 conflicting forces cause 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 shockwave.
  • Pressurized Salve Shove:
    • The wearer can make an unprovoked melee attack using the pressurized lye dispensers 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 knocked 2 meters out of Engagement range.
  • Surgical Utility:
    • The gorget features dermal lancets and alchemical astringents. Grants +1 bonus die on Medicae (Int) tests made to decontaminate biological blights, excise parasitic infestations, or dress caustic chemical burns on injured allies.