Blood Spike

Classification

Iota, Mu, Rho, Xi

Created during the Uruk period of Sumer, the small pendant is a mixture of quartz and iron, somehow the iron material has been melded into the quartz so they are entirely fused so the iron almost turns into a red quartz. The pendant itself is magically hardened and it is known to be impervious to physical strikes as well as magical attack. No known method can destroy the object.

Properties

The pendant creates a bond between two people that transcends the physical body. Using the blood of both people, a person can become a kind of owner or guardian of another person. Once the bond is established it can only be broken by the pendant itself being purified. Until then the pendant ties the essence of each individual to each other and the material plane. Pendants work in pairs, each person must have a pendant.

The generated bond allows the two people to speak to each other over great distances, there us usually a dominant and a submissive in terms of power in the bond. The dominant person will receive the ability to direct the submissive party, is more able to initiate contact, and tends to gain a feeling of euphoria associated with the submissive person obeying orders. The submissive will gain the ability to draw strength from the dominant and is always aware of the dominant though finds it more difficult to initiate contact. They also gain a sense of euphoria associated with doing as they are told. Both parties gain this euphoric sense when orders are given by anyone to the submissive. It is likely the euphoria the submissive feels bleeds over to the dominant when they obey orders given.

Some rare cases allow both parties to be on nearly equal footing, according to some myths regarding similar artifacts.

Usage

A bond is created when the person wishing to be the dominant party first pierces their skin using the pendant and speaking an incantation. This begins the bonding process. The second pendant then pierces the skin of the second person. The procedure is painful and requires a lot of blood. Once each pendant has bonded with its host, they are switched and inserted again into the opposite person. Another incantation is spoken by the dominant, it helps if the submissive accepts but it is not required. The sharing of blood fuses both pendants to each person. After completion the pendant serves as a focal point, but the bond remains even when the pendant is not present.

Notes report that each person feels some variation of there being a kind of mental door which when opened allows them to contact the other party. They can communicate through the bond, thoughts and emotions sent through the bond are significantly more powerful than thoughts and feelings perceived in other ways. There are several pages of notes on how some subjects are overwhelmed by the feelings and emotions of the other party.

Purification

Purification is a relatively simple matter the elements of Earth and Water are used to clean the pendants and pull out the fused blood from them. Once this is done, an incantation of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire is used to prepare the pendants for future use. Notes suggest that even after the pendants are purified the parties remain strongly bonded. The strength is relative to the amount of time the bond has existed.

History

Originally discovered in the mid 1920's by English archeologists, the artifact is a stone-work box made of soapstone which contains two pendants of this type. Text found with the pendant purported it was a punishment, a way to bind fallen warriors to the cause of those who conquered them. The text also spoke of several being made by the Goddess Innana. The artifact were held in storage for a number of years until it was later studied in the 1930's.

The artifact was later sold into a private collection pertaining to the occult. The businessman paid the university which owned the pendant a large sum of money as an endowment to further research, in exchange for several artifacts of interest. Later the pendant found its way to America following a chain of private collectors. The powerful nature of the artifact wasn't discovered until 1943, while the exact method of study is not recorded, the owner kept detailed journal on his work in the occult.

These journals detail how the owner, one William Spencer Johnston III, used the pendant to bind himself to his wife on the eve of her filing for a divorce on the grounds of adultery. His wife, Scarlett Ivy Johnston made no further attempts to secure a divorce and by all accounts withdrew from those friends which William believed to be "troublesome" without another word. The journal describes how William used the pendant to accomplish this goal.

Later when both parties eventually died, the pendant went to an estate sale as they had no living heir to the estate. The pendant was sold several more times until ending up in the hands of one Arnold McCormick around 1962. The journals and artifact were in his possession until he was committed to an asylum claiming the pendant was haunted, bringing with it the ghosts of William and Scarlett whom both wished him to destroy the pendant and free them. After several attempts failed, Arnold was severely injured when he tried to use an industrial smelter to destroy the pendant. Arnold suffered 2nd degree burns over most of his body and 3rd degree burns on his hands.

The pendant again was put into storage until Arnold's death in 1965 where the US Government obtained the pendant as part of a project to study occult artifacts for possible weaponization. Government records indicate that the pendant had the effect of summoning the spirits of both William and Scarlett whenever it was worn. Seeing little purpose in this the pendant was put into storage pending study.

Research on the pendant continued to trace legend and myth until 1992 when new artifacts discovered in Rome which indicated some similar artifacts had made their way to Rome and been used by the Roman Empire. Documents obtained there described methods to cleanse such a pendant and to even use the artifact to drive people insane. The US Government compiled all the research they could find and the pendant remained in their hands until it vanished from the records during the 3rd world war, around 2150-2155.