Shard of Betrayal

From: Empathosarium

A jagged, crimson orb that thrums in the hand with a disquieting heat. It carries the searing anguish of shattered trust, the disbelief of a wound dealt by a loved one. Flecks of gold within the red swirl into the shape of a broken promise, a familiar face twisted in hatred.

Expanded Lore — Here are a few possible origins and the disturbing implications of this artifact:

• Moment of Ultimate Despair: The Shard might not be crafted, but a spontaneous creation born during a moment of absolute emotional devastation. This could be the death of a beloved at the hands of a trusted companion, a kingdom’s downfall due to its leader’s treachery, or a similar catastrophic betrayal.
• Malicious Ritual:  The Shard could be the result of a dark ritual by a malevolent Shaper, aimed at weaponizing raw emotional pain. The twisted face within the orb might be the betrayer themselves, their essence bound as punishment or as a focus for the Shard’s power.
• Fragment of a Corrupted Entity: In a world where emotions manifest as potent energy, the Shard could be a piece of a larger entity representing betrayal, deceit, or heartbroken rage. Using it risks forming a connection to this entity, with unpredictable consequences.

Use & Implications — The Shard of Betrayal isn’t merely a historical oddity; it has uses for Tier One characters, albeit risky ones:

• Harnessing Fury: The rage within the Shard could be tapped to fuel a character’s fighting spirit in desperate situations. This carries the risk of losing control to blinding anger.
• Empathy as a Weapon: Understanding the rawest form of betrayal allows a character to better predict deceitful behavior, or to manipulate others by feigning this type of pain. This path leads to cynicism and emotional isolation.
• A Bridge to the Betrayed: Through meditation and great caution, the Shard might allow limited, painful contact with the spirit of the one who suffered the original betrayal. This could be a path to gaining information, laying a spirit to rest, or making amends… but risks being consumed by another’s pain.

Specific Tier One Stats, Skills, Requirements & Tags

• Stats
  • +2 to Charisma (temporary, but potentially overwhelming while channeling the Shard’s rage)
  • -1 Wisdom (while using the Shard, reflecting potential poor judgment)
• Skills
  • Advantage on Deception and Insight checks related to spotting treachery and hidden motives.
  • Ability to unlock a basic “Detect Betrayal” cantrip (usable a limited number of times a day, revealing hints of deceit).
• Requirements
  • Strong Willpower: The Shard’s emotional onslaught could overwhelm the weak-minded.
  • A strong heart: Using the Shard necessitates a deep capacity for both empathy and the ability to control negative emotions.
• Tags: Betrayal, Rage, Heartbreak, Manipulation, Potential Corruption, Willpower Test

Where & How It Might Be Bought and Sold

• Black Market Antiquities: The Shard’s disturbing nature and potential for misuse place it squarely in the realm of clandestine collectors. It would circulate among those who deal in dangerous relics, catering to vengeful individuals, manipulators, or scholars foolish enough to believe they can control such an item. Price would be wildly volatile, based more on desperation and greed than any fixed value.
• Legacy of Tragedy: The Shard may be a closely guarded heirloom, passed down through a family line scarred by past betrayals. Obtaining it could involve winning their trust (nearly impossible), stealing it and incurring their wrath, or finding it abandoned and bearing the weight of its curse.
• Birthplace of Betrayal: If the Shard was created at a specific site of devastation and treachery, it might still be there.  Ruined kingdoms, forgotten battlegrounds, or places consumed by betrayal hold strong emotional resonance. Retrieving the Shard might require facing echoes of the past or the lingering spirit of the betrayed.

Environments for Best Use

• Dens of Intrigue: Courtly balls, political summits, or criminal underworlds are perfect environments for the Shard. It amplifies perception of hidden agendas and simmering resentments beneath a facade of politeness.
• Interrogation: While morally reprehensible, the Shard could be used to break someone’s spirit during interrogation, fueling their paranoia and dredging up past wounds until they are psychologically vulnerable.
• Haunted Locations: Sites tied to betrayal harmonize with the Shard’s energy. Using it there strengthens the connection to any lingering spirits, increasing information gained but also the potential danger.

Roleplaying & Tactics

• Inner Conflict: The Shard forces users to grapple with the darkest side of human emotion. Do they become consumed by rage, exploit the pain of others, or find the strength to overcome the urge for vengeance?
• Weaponizing Weakness: A savvy strategist could turn the Shard against its enemies, preying on any hint of past betrayals to shatter their morale or turn them against each other.
• Seeking Redemption:  Perhaps a character uses the Shard to understand a past betrayal against a loved one. This could lead them on a quest for justice, healing, or even to prevent a similar betrayal from reoccurring.

Note: Using the Shard of Betrayal should have lingering consequences. Even the most well-intentioned use leaves its mark on the user’s soul.

Sensory and extra-sensory experiences triggered by the Shard of Betrayal:

• SIGHT
  • What is Perceived: The crimson orb pulses with an angry glow. The face within shifts and distorts, but always bears a hateful expression. Flecks of gold form and reform into symbolic betrayals: a dagger in the back, a whispered lie, a false oath.
  • Description: The images are disturbingly vivid, evoking feelings of violation and profound loss.
  • Positives: May reveal details that identify the betrayed or the betrayer (clothing, items, etc.), providing clues to the orb’s origin.
  • Negatives: Obsessing over the images can stoke white-hot rage, blurring the line between the user’s emotions and the Shard’s influence.
• SOUND
  • What is Perceived: A muffled scream of anguish echoes within the orb, overlaid with a whispered recitation of accusations, curses, or broken vows. Sometimes a sobbing plea breaks through the vitriol.
  • Description: The voices overlap, rising and falling in intensity, mirroring the chaotic pain of betrayal. Identifying a specific voice may be possible with focus.
  • Positives: Could offer clues about the betrayal, and the relationship between the people involved.
  • Negatives: The onslaught of emotional pain is deeply unsettling, causing disorientation and making rational thought difficult.
• TOUCH
  • What is Perceived: The orb is unsettlingly warm to the touch, the heat mirroring the simmering rage within. Its jagged surface feels strangely fragile, as if it might shatter from the intensity.
  • Description: The heat amplifies the emotional impact, making it harder to resist the Shard’s pull. The fragility hints at the precarious state of a heart filled with the desire for vengeance.
  • Positives: The physical sensations create a visceral understanding of the pain the orb contains.
  • Negatives: Prolonged contact could become physically painful or trigger a reckless need to shatter the orb (and release its full power).
• EXTRA-SENSORY: Emotional Resonance
  • What is Perceived: Overwhelming rage, a heartbroken sense of despair, and deep distrust wash over the user like a scalding wave. Echoes of the betrayed person’s specific emotional state spike in intensity.
  • Description: The emotions aren’t merely felt, they threaten to consume the user entirely, replicating the raw pain of the betrayal.
  • Positives: Provides unparalleled understanding of how betrayal can destroy a person, fueling determination to avoid that fate or seek justice.
  • Negatives: The emotional overload could trigger a rage blackout, incite violence, or cause the user to see ill intent even in innocent actions.
• EXTRA-SENSORY:  Lingering Spirit
  • What is Perceived: Faint presence of the betrayed individual clinging to the shard. Their essence feels fractured – despair, rage, sometimes a thirst for vengeance.
  • Description: Contact is fragmented, more like emotional imprints than coherent communication. Strong empathy might pick up flashes of their final betrayal.
  • Positives: Could be the start of a quest to help the betrayed spirit find peace, thus limiting the Shard’s influence.
  • Negatives: The spirit’s pain is infectious. There’s a risk of becoming obsessed with their vengeance, or even of the spirit attempting to possess the user.

Recipe for Binding Betrayal: A Recipe for Misery

• Materials Needed:
  • Blood of the Betrayed & Betrayer: Ideally drawn willingly at the moment of betrayal, symbolizing the ‘breaking’ of their bond.
  • Crimson Crystal: A large, flawless crystal to contain the emotional energy. The redder, the more resonant it is with rage and pain.
  • Object of Symbolic Significance: An item representing the broken promise, trust, or love. This becomes the emotional focus of the Shard.
  • Ashes from a Site of Betrayal: Enhances the dark resonance, especially if the betrayal impacted many people (ruined city, battlefield strewn with bodies of the deceived, etc.).
• Tools Required:
  • Ritual Blade: For drawing blood if not obtained during the betrayal itself.
  • Enchanter’s Implements: Tools for channeling, shaping, and binding emotional energy into the crystal.
  • Altar or Focus: A dedicated space imbued with negativity. A desecrated shrine, or a place where a betrayal occurred, strengthens the ritual.
• Skill Requirements:
  • Advanced Blood Magic or Necromancy: Requires understanding of how to manipulate life force and bind echoes of spirits or intense emotions.
  • Proficiency in History/Lore: To research past betrayals for potential sites and relics that enhance the ritual.
  • Absolute Lack of Empathy: Crafting this artifact requires inflicting or exploiting suffering deliberately, without remorse.
• Crafting Steps:
  • The Blood Pact:  The blood of both parties must be spilled onto the symbolic object. If unwillingly obtained, a ritual of torment might be needed to infuse it with anguish.
  • Infusion of Pain: The object, still wet with mingled blood, is placed upon the crystal. The crafter channels the emotional devastation of the betrayal into the growing Shard.
  • Whispers of Hate: Incantations drawn from the ashes of the betrayed land are spoken. Each curse amplifies the negative resonance and binds the echoes of pain to the crystal.
  • Containment: If the crafter possesses even a shred of sanity, they will create a warding case for the Shard, using materials antithetical to its nature (holy symbols, silver infused with protective runes, etc.).
• Cautionary Notes:  Even attempting this ritual is likely to attract entities that feed on pain, and the crafter themselves risks being consumed by the rage and despair they have forged.

Tear of the Broken Oath

In the age before memory, when blood pacts were more binding than graven stone, there walked a Shaper of twisted heart. Her eyes, the color of dying embers, saw not kinship or valor, but the hidden knives sheathed beneath smiles. Upon a battlefield born of whispers and lies, she knelt amidst the sundered shields, and from the blood of two brothers unjustly slain, her malformed art began.

A shard of crimson crystal she took, a vessel unmarred. On it fell those mingled bloods, a king betrayed by his own shield-kin. With chants that blistered the tongue, she drew forth the echo of his final cry, his broken oath a curse upon the crystal’s heart.

Thus was the Tear born, some tell. Others say it was a gift bestowed by a shadowed power drawn to such misery. Kings bartered fortunes for it, seeking to root out traitors in their midst. Yet, each who gazed into its depths saw their own sins mirrored back, and the blade meant for the guilty soon drank innocent blood.

The Shaper, they say, met a fitting end. Consumed by spite, unable to trust her own reflection, she shattered the Tear, only to bleed out amongst its fragments. Some claim those shards yet lie scattered, whispering promises no mortal heart should heed.

Moral of the Story:  Trust is a blade easily turned in the hands of the desperate.  Seek truth not in the anguish of others, but in the steady beat of your own true heart. For even in victory born of betrayal, it is the victor who lies forever wounded.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu

Name: The Crimson Eye of Betrayal

• Description: A jagged, blood-red shard pulsing with a malevolent heat. It projects visions of a betrayal and whispers accusations with chilling clarity.
• Sanity Cost: Holding and focusing on the Eye inflicts 1/1D6 Sanity loss as the user experiences the pain, rage, and paranoia of the betrayed.
• Knowledge Gain: A successful Cthulhu Mythos or Psychology roll reveals details about the betrayal, the people involved, and potentially lingering psychic wounds left in the wake of the event.
• Corruption: Prolonged use breeds obsession with seeking out betrayal (real or imagined). Sanity loss becomes permanent, reflecting the character’s fracturing psyche.

Blades in the Dark

Name: The Echo of the Broken Oath

• Tier: Unique, likely Tier II or III given the danger of its use
• Type: Occult Artifact
• Claim: Acquiring the Echo could be a crew score centering around a heist at a vengeful noble’s manor, a con where the crew exploits the fear of betrayal, or an inheritance from a paranoid occult scholar.
• Effect: Provides bonus (+1D) on Insight actions where spotting deceit, hidden agendas, or old grudges is key. Can inflict Trauma as the Echo exposes painful truths characters might rather suppress.
• Corruption: The Echo breeds cynicism and paranoia. Characters may gain the “Obsessed” or “Haunted” Trauma conditions, becoming convinced even allies harbor ill intent.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition)

Name: Shard of the Betrayer’s Heart

• Rarity: Legendary
• Type: Wondrous Item (requires attunement, strong-willed character suggested)
• Stats: +2 to Charisma (Insight) checks, the user gains advantage on saving throws against being charmed or deceived.
• Insight: Allows a character to cast “Zone of Truth” centered on the Shard (limited uses per day).
• Flaw: The Shard’s whispers are intrusive. Disadvantage on Wisdom saves to resist urges towards paranoia or violence. Each use risks psychic backlash (1d8 psychic damage upon a failed Wisdom save).

Knave

Name: Splinter of the Broken Bond

• Material: Blood-red crystal
• Traits: Unique, Cursed, Fragile
• Use: Provides a +2 bonus when scrutinizing others for ill intent, or unraveling a plot based on deceit.
• Corruption: Each use inflicts a temporary point of Stress. Accumulated Stress could manifest as physical symptoms mirroring the betrayal (open wounds, fever), attracting hostile spirits drawn to despair, or an inability to trust anyone.

Fate

Name: The Betrayal Echo

• Aspect: A Shard of Heartbreak and Rage
• Invoke: Gain a bonus when scrutinizing someone for signs of deceit, unraveling a plot based on betrayal, or tapping into the Shard’s rage to fuel a desperate act. This could be a +2 bonus, or creating a temporary “Whispers of Betrayal” Aspect on the scene.
• Compel: The Shard is a constant source of temptation and destructive emotion. Compels could involve succumbing to blinding rage, seeing betrayal in innocent actions, or becoming obsessed with past betrayals (real or imagined).

Numenera & Cypher System

Name: Fractured Echo of the Oathbreaker

• Type: Artifact
• Level: 6+ (higher if the betrayal is tied to a major campaign element)
• Effect: Reduces the difficulty of tasks related to deception, spotting hidden intentions, and fueling actions with rage by two steps. Allows the user to use Intellect to project the Shard’s psychic energy, potentially causing visions in a chosen target.
• Depletion: 1 in 1d10 chance per use – upon depletion, the user suffers an Intrusion. This could be psychic damage, attracting attention from a creature drawn to despair, or temporarily losing control to the Shard’s bloodthirsty whispers.

Pathfinder (2nd Edition)

Name: Crimson Fragment of the Broken Heart

• Rarity: Unique
• Category: Wondrous Item
• Level: 10+
• Traits: Magical, Evocation, Cursed, Emotional
• Activation: Interact (concentrate)
• Effect: Grants a +2 circumstance bonus to Sense Motive, Perception checks focused on deceit, and Intimidation checks fueled by righteous fury. Allows the casting of a twisted version of “Know the Enemy” centered on weaknesses born of past betrayals.
• Corruption: Each use inflicts a stacking negative Emotion condition (Enfeebled from grief, Frightened due to paranoia). Prolonged use without purification rituals could lead to permanent alignment change towards Evil.

Savage Worlds

Name: The Liar’s Glass

• Arcane Background: (Optional): Could be linked to a new “Betrayal Sense” Edge
• Powers:
  • Detect Lies (Novice): The Shard amplifies the user’s ability to spot deception, represented as a bonus to Notice rolls.
  • Fear (Seasoned): The user can project the Shard’s anguish to inflict the Shaken condition on nearby foes.
  • Visions of the Past (Veteran): Allows limited, painful glimpses into the betrayal linked to the Shard.
• Hindrance: The Shard breeds a Major Hindrance representing its corrupting influence (Obsessed, Paranoia, Bloodthirsty, etc.).

Shadowrun

Name: The Betrayer’s Echo

• Type: Awakened Focus (Blood Magic)
• Rarity: Highly Unique, Forbidden
• Effect: : +2 dice pool to Social tests based on Deception, Intimidation, and spotting signs of betrayal. Allows limited astral projection of the Shard’s energy, causing disturbing visions of a past betrayal to manifest in a target’s mind.
• Drawback: The Shard is a beacon to vengeful spirits and toxic emotions. Using it increases the chance of Drain, especially if the user lacks the Willpower to resist its pull. Prolonged use causes social stigmas (“Cold”, “Repulsive”), and may make the character a target of those who traffic in emotional pain.

Starfinder

Name: Psychic Shard of the Oathbreaker

• Type: Hybrid Item (Technological and Mystical)
• Level: 10+
• Effect: Grants +2 to Sense Motive checks, Intimidate checks based on exploiting past hurts, and Culture checks related to analyzing a civilization’s history for patterns of betrayal. Can be used as a focus for a Mystic’s abilities related to emotional manipulation or telepathy (limited uses per day).
• Origin: The Shard could be a fragment of a precursor race’s psychic weapon, or a relic created by a cult devoted to a deity of vengeance and broken oaths.

Traveller (Mongoose Edition)

Name: The Crimson Tear

• Tech Level: TL15+ if the Shard is salvaged from an advanced race/cult, otherwise, a relic of unknown origin.
• Effect: +2 DM to Intimidation, Streetwise, or relevant social skills when leveraging distrust or past wounds. A successful Education or Broker roll could provide tantalizing clues about its origin and the nature of the betrayal it contains.
• Risk: The Shard makes the user a target for those who manipulate others, potentially leading to Social Stigmas or the “Enemies” disadvantage. Obsessing over the Shard could inflict mental Conditions reflecting its negative influence.

Warhammer (Fantasy or 40K)

Name: The Soulsplinter of Treachery (Fantasy) / Shard of the Shattered Oath (40K)

• Lore: Corrupted by Chaos (Fantasy), or a fragment of a shardblade of a xenos race known for their cruelty (40K). It whispers temptations and fuels hate.
• Effect: Grant a bonus to Fear-causing attacks, Intimidation rolls, and Corruption tests against falling to despair or bloodlust. Offers visions filled with betrayals (real or fueled by paranoia) that could provide clues or intentionally mislead the user.
• Corruption: Each use increases Corruption points. Characters may develop disturbing mutations mirroring their shattered psyche, lose all sense of trust, or attract the gaze of entities drawn to suffering (daemons, Enslavers, etc.).