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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gamerprinter" data-source="post: 6657022" data-attributes="member: 50895">While artifacts are normally very rare items to encounter in most Pathfinder games, a multitude of powerful and very evil artifacts distributed throughout the Gothic Western lands is partly why corruption and dark magicks are so prevalent there. The oldest artifacts were created by powerful Aztec and Anasazi priests honoring some of their deities, which were actually ancient and powerful beings from some alien epoch of unknown origins. Their presence and influence is still felt, as those artifacts are buried in hidden sites across the west. However, in preColumbian America (early 15th century), Knights Templar from Europe brought a horde of vile artifacts from Europe with the intent to hideaway from civilization, came to the desert mountains of what is now New Mexico and elsewhere abroad to hide them in secret caches within natural caves. The coexistence of these artifacts has altered the fabric of existence, imposing a taint onto the land, beasts and peoples of the western territories.In the upcoming Horror on the Gila Express one-shot module, the PC heroes are in pursuit of an agent of the Order of Oblivion, Doctor Jacob Ballantine, a practicing phrenologist and occultist (cabalist sorcerer) is delivering the Jack of Spades from Archambault's Deck to a cell of the Order in Yuma, with the Ace, King, Queen and Ten of Spades, in order to join them into a full royal flush.Here's the description for an evil artifact being carried by the villain on the train of Horror on the Gila Express, which the PCs must stop the villain from reaching his intended destination with the artifact, recover the artifact, and safely place under security. However, just being in its presence confers 1 point of corruption per day, while actually handling it for more than a few hours confers 1d4 corruption damage, and its not even a complete artifact...Archambault's DeckSaid to have been the pupil of the legendary French cartomancer Jean Baptiste-Alliete, the occultist Gilbert Archambault created this deck of cards at some indeterminate point in the 1860s near the end of his very long life, reputedly basing his designs off certain ancient Egyptian writings long since lost. The cards – which resemble a standard 52 card deck of playing cards – bear macabre illustrations that shift and change when shuffled: the images are never quite the same. Inevitably, though, the faces of the Kings, Queens, Jacks, and Jokers bear twisted expressions of madness, horror, pain, or obscene delight. Unusual hieroglyphic marks corresponding to no known alphabet adorn the backs of the cards; these also seem to change subtly when no one is looking.In most hands, the cards of Archambault’s Deck are simply ordinary playing cards, though when dealt they often generate very unlikely results and seem to have a whimsical will of their own. When placed in certain esoteric configurations, however, the cards have uncanny power. Not only can they be used to divine past and future, they can actually be manipulated to open rifts through time and space to primordial ages long past and black futures yet-to-come, calling forth the consciousnesses of the aberrant denizens of unknown epochs. The unfathomable inhabitants of those alien aeons can possess the bodies of those near to the cards, sometimes at the behest of a deft dealer of the deck – an unskilled dealer will often find himself or herself the host, being the nearest target. As the parasitic consciousness takes hold, it begins to reshape the body of its host as well, warping it into a form closer to its own. Different configurations of cards open different conduits, piercing the ragged veil of reality. Even Archambault himself had not discovered them all. Some have speculated that certain arrays may open permanent rifts to other times and even other universes.Fortunately, Archambault’s Deck is no longer intact but is scattered amongst occultists, demonologists, magicians, and scholars. Eliphas Levi reputedly collected a full suit of hearts, only to have them stolen in London; Marie Laveau is rumoured to have acquired the Queen of Clubs. The location of most of the cards remains unknown.</blockquote>

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