Gate of Horn (Item 3)
Appearance:
The gate is formed from some sort of translucent animal horn and appears to have developed as one single growth and is all of one piece. The gate's base is formed of six horn supports that are flattened to make a single supporting base, but that curve upwards into horned spikes; the base is roughly eight feet wide and three feet high. The horn supports fuse together in a mass at the base of the oval gateway. The the oval gateway curves up in a near perfect oval and is fused seamlessly together. It is precisely ten feet from the base of the oval gateway to its top arch and the oval is six feet wide. There are ideographs etched evenly over the surface area, they are of a previously unidentified character.
Background:
According to legend, this gate first appeared three thousand years ago and was consulted by oracles and soothsayers. It is mention is the works of Homer, specifically the Odyssey. It has regularly disappeared, only to resurface elsewhere centuries later. Its appears usually results in a cultural advance or revival.
Current Events: In the autumn of 211 C.E., a hermetic sorcerer has been able to fully analyze the gate, with a ritual rumored to have been created by Hermes Trismegistus.
Parameters
- The ritual to create this gate, was cast approximately 3000 B.C.E.
- The ritual to create this gate is rank eight of Koldunic sorcery.
- The ritual is called ‘Gate of Horn'.
- The common identity of the caster is Triglav, childe of the Tzimisce Ancient.
- The gate is also a body-relic of the Tzimisce Methuselah Triglav.
- Those who use this gate may become 'attuned' to its emanations over time, which can grant basic prescience. But excessive use of the item can lead to false visions, that can in turn lead to derangements.
- On occasion, this gate may show the user something unasked for or undesirable.
- Failures in using the gate have no extra penalties, but botching a roll related to any of its primary powers will result in an automatic derangement - as the vision seen is too horrifying for the user to accept.
- Those who are in the process of using the gate, may not be surprised by an ambush.
Primary Powers
- The user may scry the past in dreams. (Perception + Occult = 6. A single success is one century into the past, each additional success is cumulative.)
- The user may scry the present while dreaming. (Perception + Occult = 7.)
- The user may scry the future through dreams.(Perception + Occult = 6. A single success is one century into the future, each additional success is cumulative.)
Secondary Powers
- While in proximity to this gate, any individual who has used it may sense the approach of danger.
- Those in proximity to the gate, may find their senses significantly heightened.
- While in proximity to this gate, the user may gain epiphanies related to personal issues.
- Those who use the gate often and are in proximity, may sense the emotional state of another person present.
- While in proximity to the gate, the user may gain a sense of another individual's basic destiny, though that person must be present or the user must be scrying him or her.
- Those handling objects while in proximity to this gate may see images of the items past.
- While touching the gate, the user may hear the thoughts of anyone she can see.
Quotation
- "Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn;"
- "Of polish'd ivory this, that of transparent horn:"
- "True visions thro' transparent horn arise;"
- "Thro' polish'd ivory pass deluding lies."
- - Virgil, The Aeneid
