Artifact: Large Shield

By William J. Keith

**Flaming
Feather**

Corporeal Artifact/1
Unbreakable: +5
Automatically Detectable: -3

Boom, 2-point artifact. (I'd say 5 points in GURPS.) No nasty problems with it being on the wrong plane for you to track if it gets lost, or being hideously expensive. And what does it do? It's a shield. An unbreakable shield. That's what the ideal shield would be, no? (Well, skip notions of ablation or whatnot - in most combat, you want something permanently sturdy.)

While this could presumably be applied to a small shield, it's really best if it's large enough to crouch behind. After all, we're talking about something that can stop a grenade blast or a gunshot. Oh, there'll still be some knockback, but that's a lot better than having it all concentrated on you.

With the simplicity and usefulness of this artifact, there could be quite a few of them out there. The automatic detectability, of course, is to cheapen the artifact and get it out there for people to use -- presumably the traditional angelic versions are all silvery and decorated with icons, and demonic versions are black iron carved with flames and blades and so on. Ethereal versions would probably differ according to the Ethereal. I could see, for example, a giant turtleshell being thus modified. In modern days, one might use a full-body riot shield, to admirable effect.

Naturally, you get the usefulness of the item without the Detectability, it's just more expensive in terms of character points. On the other hand, if you *really* wanted to knock one off fast, you could make the artifact's connection to its ownder "loud": add the Tracking feature (celestials can track owner with the shield, as per Cherubic resonance), and make it a 1-pointer. (Even in GURPS; this "cheap" version would normally have 0 points.) Demons would probably have a ball with such versions, especially Vapulans who like their gadgets cheap and plentiful, regardless of the bugs.

**Flaming
Feather**

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