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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9062701" data-attributes="member: 6790260">For my part, "artifact" is generic, "relic" is specific. An "artifact" is any extremely powerful magic item that either can't be made anymore, would take an enormous effort to create today, or is the direct product of incredibly rare materials/forces/divine boon/etc. "Relic" is a specific subtype of "artifact," which is either truly unique (e.g. there can be many truly-bottomless Bag of Holding artifacts, but only one Hand of Vecna) or from a very small set of similar things (e.g. perhaps there are only and exactly three Holy Avengers, like Esperacchius, Fidelacchius, and Amoracchius), and which has a strong and identifiable story/history to it. So, Thor's Hammer would be a relic, but a vorpal sword might be "merely" an artifact.I like to build up to them, but still present them. Here are some examples I have provided in my Dungeon World game:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A living wood staff, which turns out to be the haft of a Druid artifact, intended to have a scythe blade. The choice of material for the scythe blade matters; the Druids of the Sun used sunstone, while the Druids of the Moon used moonstone. If our party Druid had used blood obsidian for his blade, that would have had...mythological implications.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A cloak that allows the wearer to blend into natural surroundings (the Druid, who spent most of his time in shapeshift form, called it a "cloak of natural smells.") Not quite an invisibility cloak, per se, more like the classic D&D "cloak of elvenkind." Except this is part of a set, which I would collectively consider a relic, though the individual pieces are not: the Panoply of the First Sultan. Our party Ranger, who is descended from the First Sultan through two different bloodlines (a rare occurrence in this context, for social reasons), has collected three pieces of the Panoply (spear, bow, cloak), and as he collects more, the power of all of the items increases. Hence why I consider the full set a Relic (as only the First Sultan himself ever had a full set, even though others did carry parts of a set.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Our party Battlemaster's leaf-bladed greatsword. It is preternaturally light and easy to wield; despite being a greatsword, he uses dexterity for his attacks. But its greater powers are that it can absorb the powers of weapons it "defeats" (meaning, enemies it attacks and overcomes)...and that it is one of the three "keys" needed to bring back the ancestors of his people (the long-lost "El-Adrin"), who sequestered themselves in a pocket-plane bubble because the world was "changed" somehow, long ago, which would have made their society fail due to the specific magic it was dependent on. Three sets of three keys were made: the blade, the mirror, and the gem. He started with the blade (inherited from his mother), and received a gem from a friend, and is now hunting for the mirror.</li> </ul>I love artifacts, especially ones that are incomplete or broken or just the first part of a bigger puzzle, because they make AMAZING adventure hooks. Everyone likes shiny loot, but shiny loot that leads to more story, or pushes new objectives, or adds depth to a character? At least in my experience, it's a big hit.</blockquote>

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