FASA Games, Inc.

Throwing out this campaign idea for general consumption.

So, orichalcum is made of the 5 True Elements, though with a special affinity for earth, it seems. As well, it's a perfect material for taking magical enchantments, creating Thread items, etc., right?

And when the Crystal Entity Horror bleeds out it congeals into kernals of elemental earth. Why not other Horrors that leave behind traces of other True Elements?

And therein lies my campaign idea: a quest to kill 5 Horrors to harvest their elemental remains. Another adventure to combine those remains into special orichalcum with a unique anti-Horror property, perhaps using the flames of Death's Sea to imbue it with his domain? This would then be forged with the fire of a Great Dragon into a weapon capable of confronting Verjigorm itself! Well, maybe not him..... Or switch death and the dragon. I don't know which sounds better where.

Also, "Horrichalcum" makes me laugh.

Horrichalcum sounds awesome!

Apathy's Sufferance and Passion's Renewal

Apathy's Sufferance is a barbed sword made from Horrichalcum as above. Passion's Renewal is a censer made the same way, and at the same time, but uses normal True Elements from areas near where the Horrors that provided for the Horrichalcum were slain. The orichalcum censer is then filled with True Fire and True Wood to operate.

At each step along the way, Sufferance and Renewal must be made at the same time. This even means collecting the Elements must be done close together.

Sufferance grants bonuses when battling Passions and their Questors. Renewal does two things, the first of which is to make a Passion mortal and unable to flee. When Sufferance is used to slay a Mad Passion, the Passion stays dead so long as the blade is not removed from the corpse. A ritual with Renewal is then performed, ending with the removal of Sufferance. As the barbed blade is pulled from the dead Passion, creeping darkness and ichor is drawn out along with it. It must then be struck against Renewal, destroying both.

The Passion awakens, no longer Mad.

Used against a non-Mad Passion destroys the sword and censer with the final blow and drives the Passion Mad as the Horror Taint from the blade enters it.

Whelp, I'm going to pack it in. All campaign arcs henceforth will be judged on the Tattered Rags Scale.

That is indeed a really cool concept. I have one question -- how are they.. developed? How do you get the idea for this into your player's, or rather, their character's, heads? Given that the Mad Passions are a totally new thing, there can't be an established history of how to cure them.

I think it has to start with a confirmed finding that weapons forged using True Elements claimed from a Horror are extra effective at fighting Horrors, with benefits (possibly taking some ideas from that coin box you were working on a while ago) depending on the Element in question. Then, if the PCs don't, themselves, think, "Hey, what if you could gather up enough of those to make Orichalcum to use all of them at once?", an NPC might commission something like that.

Meanwhile, the censer... well, clearly, that idea has to be developed in parallel somehow. Perhaps some Questors have learned that while weapons so forged are extra effective against Horrors, they have a way to make Elemental Censers that offer protection against Horrors -- and so, again, either the players or an NPC has to click over to the, "And so... orichalcum, hey?"

...Which is where they find out that together, they have an amazing ability to draw Horror Taint out of things. Maybe, just maybe, even a corrupted Passion.

There'd only be one way to find out!

As my brain never shuts off, and I love sharing my ideas with this community, here's an amendment to the above.

The players should kill a crystal entity and sell the loot, which is the kernels of elemental earth. On this quest they would bump in to another Adept group in the area who was harvesting True Earth in the area. Vestrial had sent the second group to collect the Earth whenever someone finally took care of the Crystal Entity.