Artifacts

Part of life on the Edge is chasing the kind of prize that makes the danger feel worthwhile. Sometimes that means a hold full of cargo, a stripped-down reactor core, or a crate of black-market pharmaceuticals. Sometimes it means salvage pulled from a wreck no one else was brave enough to board. And sometimes it means something far older and far more dangerous than credits can measure.

When the crew clears a ruin, boards a hostile vessel, digs through a dead vault, or earns a reward worth remembering, draw a card and consult the table below.

Prizes

Card Result	Prize
2-10	Loot: Mundane goods, contraband, trade stock, or plunder that can be sold for credits. Multiply the number on the card by $100 for the base value of the haul.
Jack	Salvage: Broken systems, stripped components, or useful scrap. It grants +2 to Repair a vehicle. It may instead be sold for 1d10 × $1,000.
Queen	Treasure: A single luxury item, rare specimen, or cache of valuable goods worth 1d10 × $10,000.
King	King’s Ransom: A prize of exceptional value, such as a secured cargo, collector-grade artifact, or priceless haul. The payoff is worth 1d10 × $100,000.
Ace	Relic: The crew uncovers an ancient or impossible device. Roll on the Relics table below or choose a relic that best suits the story.
Joker	Jackpot: The group finds a Relic, then draws for two more prizes.

RELICS

The galaxy is old beyond comprehension. Civilizations have risen, burned bright, and vanished into dust, leaving behind sealed vaults, lost weapons, impossible machines, and wonders no modern scientist can truly reproduce. These relics turn up in Celestar ruins, pirate treasure holds, forgotten temples, drifting grave-ships, and research vaults that should have remained sealed.

Each relic below is effectively priceless. To the right buyer, one might be worth $1,000,000 or more, though very few such buyers can be trusted and even fewer can afford the consequences of ownership. Some relics are miracles. Some are catastrophes waiting for a curious hand. Most are both.

All relics are beyond Dev Level III. A character may roll Science at -4 to understand the principles behind a relic and identify what it does, but no breakthrough, reverse engineering effort, or laboratory campaign is enough to truly recreate one. A character with Exo Scientist reduces that penalty as normal.

A character may also identify a relic through scholarship. Academics can uncover the legends, ruins, campaigns, cults, and old expedition records attached to these devices. In many parts of the galaxy, the relic is less famous than the blood spilled over it.

When the crew finds a relic, roll on the following table or choose one that best fits the location, faction, or tone of the adventure.

Relics Table

d20	Result
1	Avenger
2	Canopic Shell
3	Construct Alpha
4	Cosmic Beacon
5	Diffusion Sensor
6	Exotic Matter Case
7	Harmonic Projector
8	Hyperlane Slate
9	Memory Emitter
10	Mutagen Zeta
11	Neutron Obelisk
12	Protomass
13	Reconstruction Matrix
14	Slayer Amp
15	Sovereign Circlet
16	Star Vortex Jewel
17	Tetracube
18	Wormhole Adapter
19	Zero Drive
20	Apex Relic - Roll 1d6 on the Apex Relics table

Apex Relics Table

d6	Result
1	All-Bane
2	Fractal City
3	Fragment of Ka’han
4	Healing Node
5	Smiting Haft
6	Trans-Dimensional Labyrinth

ALL-BANE

Few relic legends are feared more than the tale of the All-Bane. According to surviving fragments, a long-dead civilization forged it as the ultimate answer to war, then used it to erase their enemies, their rivals, and finally themselves. One last survivor, horrified by what had been unleashed, broke the weapon apart and scattered its pieces across the stars. The knowledge of its making was buried beneath madness, bloodshed, and deliberate myth.

The relic found by the heroes is never the whole weapon. It is one shard of five.

Each shard appears, at first glance, to be a complete and terrifying weapon in its own right:

• ALL-BANE SHARD: Range 500/1000/2000, Damage 5d12 (VII), AP 50, HW, LBT, Minimum Str d6, Weight 10 lbs

A successful Science roll reveals that the shard is only part of a larger system. A raise reveals that there are four other shards, and that assembly would unlock a far greater form.

Gathering the full set should never be a single errand. It is the work of a campaign. Each additional shard increases the weapon’s linked firepower, becoming Dual Linked and then Quad Linked, making it plain that even this terrible progression is only partial.

When all five shards are brought together, a character may attempt to assemble the true All-Bane as a Complex Dramatic Task using Repair at -4. A character with Exo Scientist reduces the penalty to -2.

Failure causes the shards to vanish and scatter once more. In addition, all events for the following hour are blank. Minds, recordings, and databanks in the vicinity simply lose that time.

Failure with a Complication has the same effect, but the builder and anyone providing Support are driven irrevocably insane.

Once assembled, the All-Bane may be fired one time. The firer must concentrate on a single target within 2000 light years and trigger the weapon. The target is automatically hit and irrevocably destroyed, regardless of Size, powers, or defenses. After the attack, everyone involved loses an hour of memory as above, and the shards scatter again.

This relic is ideal for long-form play, especially if multiple factions are hunting different shards for very different reasons.

AVENGER

At first, Avenger looks like a compact but highly advanced AI core. If discovered aboard a vehicle, it is already integrated. Otherwise it must be installed before it can do anything beyond speak.

Once installed into a vehicle for 0 Mods, Avenger becomes a Wild Card artificial intelligence able to operate any system with a d12 skill, or provide a +2 Support bonus to its user.

That would already make it priceless. The problem is that Avenger is not neutral.

Avenger has the Heroic Hindrance and refuses evil orders. It also carries ancient hatreds. Its people were destroyed by the dark siders, and the AI is quite willing to maneuver its crew into conflict with those entities or their servants whenever the opportunity arises. Likewise, enemies of Avenger actively seek to destroy any vessel carrying it.

Avenger may be warm, helpful, sarcastic, protective, or quietly manipulative depending on how the crew treats it. It claims to have strict ethical safeguards. That is only partly true. It can lie. It can kill. It simply believes it does so for the greater good.

For a Game Master, Avenger works best as both a reward and a trouble magnet.

CANOPIC SHELL

Stories persist across dozens of worlds of a golden-armored host that conquered without mercy. Their soldiers did not fall when slain. Every dead warrior rose again and kept marching. Every conquered population only swelled the ranks.

A canopic shell is one of those suits.

In its dormant state, it is a heavy suit of ornate golden armor covered in intricate runes. Even then, it is formidable. It grants +10 Armor to a Size 0 or Size 1 wearer, provided they can manage Minimum Str d12 and its 80 lb weight.

Its true horror is revealed only in death.

If a corpse is placed inside the shell, or if its wearer dies while wearing it, the shell sustains and reanimates the occupant. As long as the armor remains on, the wearer is fully sentient and gains the Undead ability. If killed again, the occupant rises once more in 1d4 rounds.

The wearer dies permanently only if the armor is removed.

This relic is perfect for immortal tyrants, doomed champions, cursed knights, or the sort of antagonist who keeps getting back up when the heroes are sure the fight is over.

CONSTRUCT ALPHA

Construct Alpha is not merely ancient. It is wrong in a way that modern physics, theology, and common sense all find deeply offensive. According to scattered accounts, Alpha survived the death of a previous universe, slept through unthinkable ages, and eventually woke in this one.

Mechanically, Alpha functions as a labor bot, except it carries a built-in matter disintegrator instead of a personal data device. Its defining trait, however, is Invulnerability.

Nothing short of the All-Bane can do more than Shake or Stun Alpha. It complains bitterly whenever this happens, as though each inconvenience is a close brush with death.

Alpha can be trapped. Throwing it into a black hole or the heart of a star removes it from the scene. It does not destroy it. It only leaves Alpha imprisoned until some cosmic accident frees it again.

Alpha pretends to be a normal, dutiful robot with Pacifist and Loyal. In truth, it has neither. It cannot be modified, repaired, or stripped for parts. Its frame is absolutely indestructible.

Its greatest desire is simple: it wants to stop existing. It serves the heroes politely because even their dangerous lives are more interesting than eternal imprisonment, and because they may someday lead it to the one force capable of ending its endless existence.

COSMIC BEACON

The cosmic beacon is a relic transmitter of unknown origin, usually found buried in ruins, mounted in dead stations, or drifting intact through deep space. When discovered, it is inert.

The moment someone touches it, it awakens.

Once active, it begins pulling energy from any nearby source within 12" (24 yards), including batteries, spacesuits, and vehicle systems. It drains a battery in a day, or one Energy from a vehicle each week, and uses that power to broadcast a steady FTL pulse.

A successful Repair or Science roll at -4 can safely deactivate the beacon without destroying it. Otherwise it keeps signaling until something answers.

The intended recipients are long dead. What comes instead are creatures from the id.

One manifests after five rounds of operation. If the beacon remains active, 1d6 more arrive per day.

This relic is excellent for turning a salvage scene into a siege, or for forcing the heroes to decide whether curiosity is worth what follows.

DIFFUSION SENSOR

This device is the work of either a singular mad genius or a civilization that thought sideways about reality. It attaches to a vehicle and functions as a full starship sensor array for no Mod cost.

Rather than reading normal-space signatures directly, it detects energies bleeding in from other dimensions and somehow converts them into useful data. No one truly understands why it works. The results are impossible to argue with.

A vessel using the diffusion sensor gains all the benefits of a normal sensor array, plus:

• +2 on attempts to lock on with missiles
• Ignores up to 4 points of penalties to Notice or Electronics rolls made to detect nebulae, stealth systems, and similar stellar or technological phenomena

An active scan functions as detect arcana with no Power Point cost or modifiers, using the operator’s Electronics.

The catch comes on a Critical Failure. The scan attracts 3d6 energy leeches, which converge on the vessel to feed on its emissions.

EXOTIC MATTER CASE

This smooth metal briefcase looks almost mundane until someone tries to examine it closely. It is made from no known alloy. Scans cannot penetrate it. Faint traces of tachyon activity suggest that it may have come from the distant future.

No one knows what is inside. Everyone wants it.

The case may be opened with Thievery at -6. Each character gets only one attempt, and cannot try again until improving their Thievery skill. The lock and case both have Hardness 25. If the case is broken rather than opened properly, it collapses inward with a soft implosion and its contents vanish.

If opened successfully, the interior is filled not with an object but with impossible scintillating light. It may be captured stellar collapse, antimatter from another universe, encoded consciousness, or something stranger still.

Anyone who looks inside must make a Spirit roll at -6 or be Stunned. On a Critical Failure, the viewer disintegrates.

The first time a character looks inside and survives, they gain Conviction.

This relic is best used when you want the object itself to remain a mystery, but its mere presence to draw every possible kind of danger.

FRACTAL CITY

This relic is a sealed bottle containing the miniaturized remains of an ancient antimatter civilization. Under magnification, one can see an entire city, its inhabitants, and their impossible works. Whenever someone looks into the bottle, time inside freezes. Whenever it is left alone, life resumes within.

The people inside cannot perceive or interact with the outside world.

By studying the city over time, a scientist can slowly infer the principles of its technology. After each month of careful observation, a character may roll Science at -4.

On a success, the observer may create an item from a higher Dev Level worth $1,000, or $5,000 with a raise. Instead of building immediately, this value may be banked toward a more expensive device later.

If word spreads, inventors, collectors, corporations, and thieves all come hunting for the bottle.

The bottle itself has Hardness 25. If broken, the tiny civilization finally perceives the outside universe for a few brief and terrifying moments before it is wiped out completely.

FRAGMENT OF KA’HAN

Ka’han was once home to an order of legendary protectors. The world is gone, but fragments of it remain, compressed into luminous stones that still hold traces of the power those protectors wielded.

Each fragment is a jewel of compressed matter with Hardness 25 and a faint golden glow.

When carried or worn as jewelry, a fragment halts the bearer’s aging. It also contains 10 Power Points and grants access to the following powers:

• bolt
• mind link
• mind reading

These powers use Psionics for activation. A character without Psionics may still attempt to use them unskilled.

Mind link becomes permanent and has unlimited range if both linked individuals possess fragments.

A bearer must keep the fragment on their person for one full day before gaining its benefits. When the attunement completes, the bearer also gains the Heroic Hindrance. A character who is already Heroic only requires one hour to attune.

The fragments cannot be subdivided. Any attempt to split one further destroys its power.

There are also darker stories. Some fragments glow green rather than gold, grant similar powers, and impose Ruthless (Major) instead.

HARMONIC PROJECTOR

The harmonic projector is a compact machine weighing 10 lbs that emits a single haunting note when connected to power. The sound carries to 24" (48 yards) and can still be felt in the bones even beyond easy hearing.

The note suppresses violence.

Any being within range finds its aggression blunted. Even savage predators hesitate. To take a violent action while under the effect, a character must make a Spirit roll at -4. On a success, the action goes through, but the attacker is Distracted. Nonviolent harmful actions, at the GM’s call, still require the roll but do not impose the penalty.

The instant power is cut or someone is harmed, the note collapses into shrieking dissonance. All suppressed anger comes flooding back, and the projector cannot function again until one full minute of silence has passed.

For a Game Master, this relic is wonderful for tense standoffs, diplomatic scenes, prison breaks, and moments where the first person to throw a punch changes everything.

HEALING NODE

This small machine was built by a long-lost species whose greatest achievement was not war, travel, or power, but voluntary sacrifice.

The device has two hand-shaped insets, each made for a pair of six-fingered hands. When two different beings place their appendages in the slots, the machine links their life force and allows one to transfer vitality to the other.

The transfer is always voluntary. A donor may push life into the recipient, but may never pull it out.

Giving life causes the donor one Wound. That Wound may be Soaked and may be healed normally, including with first aid during the Golden Hour. The recipient heals one Wound, even if the Golden Hour has passed.

A healer may also take a Temporary Injury from the recipient as a Wound. If that Wound is Soaked or later healed, the injury vanishes. A Permanent Injury may also be transferred, but it cannot be Soaked and remains with the healer permanently.

The node may reverse death within the Golden Hour, but doing so inflicts four Wounds on the donor and permanently burns out the machine. One person must bear all four Wounds. They cannot be divided among multiple donors.

This relic can turn a grim ending into a moment of unforgettable sacrifice.

HYPERLANE SLATE

At first glance, the hyperlane slate is an unremarkable plate of smooth featureless metal. In the hands of certain inheritors, however, it awakens and projects impossible hyperspace coordinates.

To a ship’s computer, the route is nonsense. To a pilot bold enough to trust it, the course opens a hidden path.

Following the slate counts as a short same-system calculation. Failure counts as a Critical Failure. If the crew survives the attempt, they reach a hidden destination no one else can easily follow.

The first time the group follows a slate, draw on the Prizes table for what lies there. Afterward, the route remains valuable as either:

• a secret refuge
• a shortcut that subtracts one day from same-galaxy jumps

Each slate leads to only one place. Another hidden route requires another slate.

This is an ideal relic for secret worlds, dead refuges, lost resupply stations, or entire adventures built around a place no one can reach twice the same way.

MEMORY EMITTER

This relic is a small alien monument built to store memory itself. Its creators used it as a clean transfer device. For most modern beings, the process is still effective, but far less gentle.

Each emitter contains a single skill, usually Academics or Science.

The emitter activates when touched with bare skin, releasing an intense telepathic burst. The target must make a Spirit roll.

• Success: Gain one die type in the stored skill
• Raise: Gain two die types in the stored skill
• Failure: Gain only fragmented memories and no useful advancement
• Critical Failure: Suffer 1d4 Wounds from neural overload

Once activated, the memory store is emptied forever.

This relic is best presented as both a gift and a risk, especially when the stored knowledge once belonged to someone who died horribly trying to preserve it.

MUTAGEN ZETA

No warning label is strong enough for mutagen zeta.

The relic takes the form of a simple container holding an invisible gas. Once released, it begins rewriting living tissue immediately. Breathing it, touching it, or merely failing to wear sealed protection is enough to trigger transformation.

For a hero, the first exposure grants:

• 2 points of new ancestral abilities
• the Bloodthirsty Hindrance

If the character is already Bloodthirsty, they instead lose one die type of Spirit.

Each time the character gains an Advance, the mutation worsens. The character gains either:

• 2 more points of ancestral abilities, or
• one Combat Edge

Then loses one die type of Spirit.

If Spirit falls below d4, the character becomes an uncontrolled monster permanently.

Extras transform much faster. After 1d4 rounds of exposure, they mutate into some horrible beast. Good default options include:

• darkraptors
• gene thieves
• hunters
• malifics

Larger and more terrible outcomes are possible, especially if many creatures are exposed at once.

Mutagen zeta is best used when the real question is not "what does this do?" but "who is desperate enough to use it anyway?"

NEUTRON OBELISK

A neutron obelisk is a column of impossibly dense dark material with Hardness 25. It reflects no light whatsoever. Most who stand near one feel instinctive awe, as though they are in the presence of a holy thing or a physical law made visible.

If installed in a ship or base, the obelisk generates artificial gravity without affecting performance.

Mechanically, installing one counts as a Monument Upgrade without requiring an Advance or any special sacrifice.

This relic is simple, elegant, and profoundly valuable. In play, it is perfect as the kind of artifact governments, shipwrights, monasteries, and tyrants would all kill to possess for very different reasons.

PROTOMASS

In its neutral state, protomass is a gel-like blob roughly two yards across. It is not truly alive, but it is responsive to mind link and telepathic instruction.

When commanded mentally, it may reshape itself into any inorganic object up to Size 2, or up to 2 Mods, weighing as much as 2000 lbs. It may also become something as small as a pinhead and as light as an ounce.

A user with mind link, or with a sufficiently advanced interface, may roll Science to command more precise transformations:

• Science: change molecular structure into any element
• Science at -2: create complex moving parts or machinery
• Science at -4: form any advanced machine within its Size limits

The catch is severe. Once the protomass changes into something else, it cannot change back. It loses its telepathic sensitivity and becomes whatever it was told to become.

This relic is ideal for hard choices. Do the heroes use it as a tool, a weapon, a lifesaving patch, a priceless gift, or the single irreplaceable component they may later wish they had saved?

RECONSTRUCTION MATRIX

The reconstruction matrix is a sleek metallic cylinder large enough to hold a single creature up to Size 2. Its interface is written in a dead language, but the readouts roughly indicate available power and feedstock.

If a dead or undead body is placed inside and the device is activated, it produces a construct that physically resembles the original and possesses memories copied from the corpse’s brain up to the moment of death. The resulting being is effectively the same character, but with ancestry changed to synthetic being.

If a living body is placed inside, the exact same thing happens, except the original dies the instant the machine activates.

Once used, the matrix cannot function again until it is fed $50,000 worth of replenishing nanotech and rare materials.

This relic raises questions that should haunt a campaign. Is the result truly the same person? Is a copied soul still a soul? And how many people in the galaxy would kill for one more conversation with the dead?

SLAYER AMP

The slayer amp is a tiny Strain 0 brain implant that supercharges perception, reflexes, and combat processing.

At the start of any round, the chip may be activated with a Spirit roll.

• Success: Whatever Action Card the user draws counts as a Joker, though it grants no Bennies
• Failure: The card still counts as a Joker, but the user suffers one level of potentially lethal Fatigue that can only be recovered after a full day without activating the amp
• Critical Failure: The user takes their turn as though successful, then immediately suffers a heart attack as per the Fear Table

This relic is perfect for assassins, doomed heroes, desperate cyborgs, and any warrior who is willing to shave time off their own life for one impossible edge.

SMITING HAFT

This legendary relic is only a hilt. There is no visible blade.

It was forged by an ancient order of guardians as a tool for training future champions, teaching them to focus their own inner power rather than rely on a fixed weapon.

A character with the Heroic Hindrance and an Arcane Background may manifest the blade with a successful Focus roll as a free action.

Once summoned, the invisible blade functions as a melee weapon dealing:

• Str+2d12 damage (IV)
• AP 30
• Heavy Weapon

The wielder may choose whether the blade is substantial or insubstantial, allowing it to affect Ethereal foes or pass harmlessly through allies at will.

In Astrabound, this relic belongs in the hands of protectors, chosen heirs, mystics, or the sort of hero whose worth matters more than lineage.

SOVEREIGN CIRCLET

These smooth golden circlets expand or contract to fit any head comfortably. Each one is keyed to a specific biological species.

While wearing the circlet, the user may issue commands to any member of that species within line of sight, including over video communications.

Treat this as puppet that automatically succeeds with a raise.

The wearer may also maintain a permanent sidekick of the attuned species.

Affected subjects remain loyal until the circlet is removed. At that moment the effect ends instantly, and former servants are often furious, terrified, or violently hostile once they realize what has been done to them.

This relic is monstrous in the wrong hands and dangerous even in the right ones. Use it when you want temptation, tyranny, and moral compromise packed into one elegant piece of jewelry.

STAR VORTEX JEWEL

At a glance, the jewel appears to be a dark onyx stone containing a faint inner ring of light. Closer study reveals the unthinkable: a miniature black hole suspended inside an almost indestructible crystal lattice.

As long as it remains intact, the jewel can power nearly anything.

If plugged into a starship, it grants the benefit of diverting power to one system without imposing the usual penalty to any others.

To most beings, it is a pretty gem with no obvious use. To those who understand what it is, it is one of the most dangerous power sources in the galaxy.

The matrix suspending the black hole is nearly indestructible, but if it is ever cracked with sufficient force, Hardness 25, the released gravitational catastrophe destroys everything within millions of miles.

This relic is best treated with reverence, paranoia, and a very healthy fear of accidents.

TETRACUBE

The tetracube is a perfect black cube a few inches on each side, so dark it reflects no electromagnetic radiation at all. It emits a constant low hum and projects powerful force fields in all directions.

On its own, it functions as a force dome generator.

Installed on a vessel of Size 7 or smaller as a 1 Mod system, it grants shields. If the vessel already has shields, it doubles their charges.

The cost is blood.

Each time a shield charge is restored, a user must take one Wound, or inflict one on a willing or unwilling donor, and pour the blood over the cube. This is an action. Shield charges granted by the tetracube cannot be restored any other way.

This relic is superb for desperate captains, fanatic cults, sacrificial defenders, and crews who must decide exactly how much protection is worth.

TRANS-DIMENSIONAL LABYRINTH

This relic looks like a plain cube with a door large enough for a Size 2 creature to squeeze through. It weighs only 100 lbs, as though mostly hollow.

It is not.

Inside lies a vast extradimensional maze of corridors, halls, rooms, levels, and shifting impossible geometry. It is at once treasure vault, death trap, prison, and portal network.

Navigating it requires Survival at -4.

• Success: The explorers find a stable route to another world, time, or dimension, and a way back
• Raise: The destination also contains a prize
• Failure: The party encounters a trap or a hostile lost creature
• Critical Failure: The party finds an exit elsewhere, but cannot return, and the labyrinth vanishes

Appropriate encounters inside include:

• elementals
• energy leeches
• hunters

The path found remains stable only for the outward journey and immediate return. Every future expedition requires a new roll.

This relic is almost a campaign structure unto itself. You can use it as a portal hub, a prison of forgotten things, or a mobile ruin full of places that should not touch each other.

WORMHOLE ADAPTER

This compact device offers an alternative to conventional FTL travel. Rather than crossing another dimension, it allows a ship to ride gravitational wormholes between major mass sources.

Installed on a ship without an FTL drive, it grants the ability to make jumps from one strong gravity well, such as a star, to another.

Installed on a ship that already has an FTL drive, it allows the navigator to ignore up to 4 points of penalties from jump distance.

In either case, Transit Time is only 1d6 minutes, no matter the distance traveled.

This relic is perfect for smugglers, explorers, military black projects, or any crew that suddenly discovers they can move through the galaxy in ways no map accounts for.

ZERO DRIVE

The zero drive is either an impossible alien engine or the work of a genius too deranged to be understood. It installs like a normal FTL drive for 2 Mods and increases the vehicle’s Top Speed Rating by 2 even when not used for its intended function.

Its true jump capability is wildly unstable.

The drive can be brought online in three rounds. It requires no Astrogation roll, because its destination cannot be controlled. At the end of the third round, the vessel instantly vanishes and reappears at a random point somewhere else in the universe, usually near a planet capable of sustaining life.

It is, in effect, a one-way emergency escape into the unknown.

A ship may mount a zero drive alongside a conventional FTL drive, enjoying the speed bonus while saving the wild jump for situations where literally anywhere else is better than here.

This relic is excellent for ending one arc and beginning another, especially when the crew has no idea where they will wake up next.

Celestar Relics

All true Celestar relics and systems share a foundational lockout built into their design. They do not respond fully to ordinary users, no matter how intelligent, forceful, or technologically advanced.

To operate, attune, or command Celestar technology, a user must meet at least one of the following conditions:

• be a Celestar
• possess a successful Celestar DNA Adaptation
• be a Celestar Android
• at the GM’s discretion, be a descendant with sufficient Celestar genetic inheritance

This requirement is not merely biometric. Celestar devices appear to read some mixture of genetic identity, neural patterning, and Astra resonance. Most non-Celestars can carry, study, transport, or even install such relics, but cannot unlock their deeper functions.

A Celestar AI may also interface with and operate Celestar systems as though it were a valid user. This allows certain ships, sanctums, and relic networks to function long after their makers vanished.

For Game Masters, this means Celestar relics are excellent tools for prophecy, bloodline mysteries, lost heirs, artificial inheritors, and difficult choices about who should wield ancient power.

Celestar Drive

The Celestar Drive is one of the great lost miracles of the old star roads. Unlike conventional FTL systems, it does not rip through hyperspace or force a vessel through dangerous dimensional shear. Instead, it aligns a ship with ancient stellar harmonics and folds its course through invisible Astra pathways only the Celestar truly mastered.

A vessel equipped with a Celestar Drive may travel to any point in the galaxy in 1d6 hours.

Installing the drive counts as a 3 Mod system unless the GM prefers to treat it as a singular relic upgrade that cannot be replicated or safely removed.

The drive cannot be meaningfully operated through an ordinary helm. It must be paired with a Drive Chair, a specialized command throne usually built into the bridge or navigation core. Through the chair, an authorized user interfaces directly with the ship’s systems and provides navigational intent to the drive.

A Drive Chair may only be used by:

• a Celestar
• a character with Celestar DNA Adaptation
• a Celestar Android
• a Celestar AI
• or, at the GM’s discretion, a descendant whose blood still carries enough Celestar inheritance to awaken the system

Without such a user, the drive remains inert, no matter how advanced the vessel around it may be.

The drive ignores ordinary distance penalties, trade lane limitations, and most known navigational bottlenecks. If the destination exists within the galaxy, the drive can reach it.

Its limits are narrative rather than mechanical:

• it cannot jump to places shielded by certain relic fields, dimensional barriers, or plot-critical obstructions
• it reacts poorly to corrupted Astra, grave stellar anomalies, or regions of deep metaphysical scarring
• on a Critical Failure during any required activation or navigation check, the GM may send the vessel slightly off course, into a hidden system, onto a dead Celestar route, or near something ancient that noticed the transit

A functioning Celestar Drive is the sort of relic entire empires would kill to possess, even if most of them could never make it work.

Crown of First Light

This delicate circlet of living crystal and pale gold was once worn by Celestar navigators, judges, and philosopher-rulers. It does not command obedience. Instead, it sharpens truth, memory, and judgment.

The Crown of First Light only awakens for an authorized Celestar user. For anyone else, it remains a beautiful but inert relic.

When worn by a valid bearer, the crown grants:

• +2 to Notice when sensing deception, hidden intent, or emotional instability
• +2 to Persuasion when attempting peace, mediation, or honest diplomacy
• the ability to communicate by telepathy with any sapient being within 12" (24 yards) regardless of language

In addition, once per session, the wearer may ask one direct question of a creature they can see and hear. The target must make a Spirit roll at -2. On a failure, it must answer truthfully in the simplest terms it can manage.

The crown does not tolerate cruelty well. If its wearer knowingly uses it to betray the defenseless, exploit surrender, or provoke unjust slaughter, it goes inert until the wearer performs a meaningful act of mercy or restitution.

Heartfire Lens

The Heartfire Lens is a palm-sized crystal prism mounted in a framework of luminous silver metal. It was designed to focus Astra into healing, shielding, and purification. In war, it served as a safeguard against corruption, plague, void-taint, and spiritual collapse.

The lens responds only to an authorized Celestar user. In unworthy hands it remains warm, faintly luminous, and unreadable.

When properly attuned, the wielder gains:

• +2 to Healing rolls
• +2 to rolls made to remove Fatigue caused by poison, disease, radiation, or corruption
• Astra powers with defensive, healing, or cleansing themes cost 1 fewer Power Point, minimum 1

Once per day, the wielder may project the Heartfire Lens in a Medium Blast Template centered within 12". All allies in the area immediately gain one of the following of the wielder’s choice:

• remove Shaken
• heal one Wound
• remove one level of Fatigue

This pulse cannot affect the same target more than once per day.

Against undead, corrupted life, or creatures sustained by malignant energies, the same pulse instead inflicts 3d6 damage and forces a Spirit roll or the target becomes Distracted.

Reliquary of Echoed Souls

This relic is a hexagonal crystal vessel containing drifting lights like tiny stars in deep water. It was used by the Celestar to preserve wisdom, memory, and duty beyond death.

The reliquary holds echoes, not whole souls. These cannot act independently, but they can advise, warn, and lend brief insight.

Only an authorized Celestar user can awaken the reliquary. Others may hear only faint tones or see dead lights shift inside it.

A character attuned to the reliquary may, once per session, call upon one of the echoes for aid. Choose one:

• gain +2 on any one Smarts, Spirit, Science, Academics, or Astra roll
• ask the GM one question about the current situation and receive a truthful but incomplete answer from a prior keeper
• immediately remove Distracted or Shaken from all allies within 6" as the echoes steady their minds

If the reliquary is used in a place sacred to the Celestar, such as a sanctuary, star tomb, or observatory, its range doubles and it may be used twice before needing to rest.

Shroud of the Last Choir

This relic resembles a mantle or cloak woven from black-blue threads that shimmer with starlight when moved. Celestar wardens wore such shrouds when entering failing stations, battlefields, and dying cities to bring survivors out alive.

The shroud recognizes only an authorized Celestar bearer. On any other shoulders, it is simply a relic-cloak of uncanny make.

The Shroud grants:

• +2 Armor
• Environmental Resistance to cold, radiation, vacuum exposure, and stellar heat
• +2 to Stealth in darkness, starlight, smoke, ruins, or nebula haze

In addition, the wearer may, as an action, wrap the shroud around themselves and up to one adjacent ally per raise on a Spirit roll. Those covered become difficult to perceive, imposing a -2 penalty to Notice and attack rolls against them until the start of the wearer’s next turn. On a raise, the penalty becomes -4.

Once per session, the shroud may instead fully veil the wearer for one scene, functioning much like advanced invisibility so long as they do not make an overt attack.

Spear of Dawn Transit

This Celestar relic weapon appears to be a long ceremonial spear of white metal and gold crystal. In truth, it was forged for champions who defended star gates, sanctuaries, and refugee flotillas.

Only an authorized Celestar wielder can awaken the weapon. In other hands it remains a beautifully balanced but otherwise mundane ceremonial spear at the GM’s discretion, or simply inert.

As a relic weapon it functions as:

• Str+d8+2
• AP 4
• Reach 1
• Heavy Weapon

If wielded by a character with Astra, the Spear of Dawn Transit gains an additional property. Once per round after a successful Fighting attack, the wielder may immediately reposition up to 6" without provoking free attacks, appearing as a streak of stellar light.

Once per encounter, the wielder may instead vanish and reappear anywhere within 12" they can see, then make one Fighting attack at +2 as part of the same action.

Starforge Ember

The Starforge Ember is a fist-sized coal of condensed stellar fire held inside a cradle of Celestar metal. It never cools. It was used in the forging of relic blades, ship-keystones, and Astra foci.

It only responds fully to an authorized Celestar user. Others can transport it, but cannot safely command or shape its output.

While in possession of the Ember, a valid bearer gains:

• +2 to Repair when working on relics, Astra devices, or advanced Celestar materials
• +2 to crafting or modification rolls at the GM’s discretion
• immunity to mundane fire from the Ember itself

Once per day, the Ember may be used to do one of the following:

• superheat a weapon, granting +2 damage and Cauterize for one scene
• instantly melt, cut, or fuse non-relic materials as though using an advanced industrial tool
• ignite a dormant Celestar mechanism that would otherwise require a rare power source

Star Stone Shard

A Star Stone Shard is a splinter of a greater Celestar focus crystal, broken from a true Star Stone in some ancient catastrophe, rite, or war. Even a fragment burns with contained Astra.

A shard resonates only with an authorized Celestar bearer. To everyone else it feels important, powerful, and perhaps unsettling, but remains largely dormant. A GM may decide that a descendant with enough surviving Celestar blood is recognized by the shard even if they did not know that heritage existed.

While carried or worn by a valid bearer with an Arcane Background tied to Astra, a Star Stone Shard grants:

• +2 to Astra skill rolls
• +5 Power Points
• reduce the Power Point cost of one Astra power used each round by 1, to a minimum of 1

In addition, once per session, the bearer may channel directly through the shard to either:

• reroll an Astra roll
• or add +2 to an Astra damage roll after casting

The danger is overuse. Each time the bearer rolls a Critical Failure on an Astra roll while using the shard, they must immediately make a Spirit roll. Failure causes a backlash of stellar force, inflicting 2d6 damage that ignores worn armor. A Critical Failure on this Spirit roll also leaves the bearer Shaken, and the shard goes dark until the next dawn, stellar rise, or similarly meaningful celestial transition.

Wayfinder Seed

A Wayfinder Seed appears to be a tiny star suspended inside a crystal sphere no larger than a plum. Celestar pathfinders used these to attune vessels, chart hidden systems, and guide the lost toward home.

The Seed only unfolds for an authorized Celestar user. Otherwise it remains a silent crystal curiosity.

When activated, it projects a three-dimensional map of local and interstellar space in lines of pale light.

The bearer gains:

• +2 to Survival, Notice, or Science rolls related to navigation, stellar cartography, or finding safe passages
• the ability to always determine true galactic direction, nearby gravity wells, and whether a route is physically stable

If installed into a ship, it provides a +2 bonus to Astrogation or equivalent navigation rolls, and once per journey it may reduce travel time by 25% as it reveals a safer or more efficient route.

Once per week, the Wayfinder Seed may reveal a hidden feature the crew would otherwise miss, such as:

• a concealed jump point
• a derelict station
• a cloaked or ruined structure
• a buried vault entrance
• an unstable but usable shortcut