Or you know, 240 rings for best army ever. Just sayin…
I didn’t realise that artefacts have roleplaying effects. That makes even low-grade artefacts significantly cooler than I thought.
Just 10 rings of ilium to make your Apprentice Blade give you goals of defeating great beasts and becoming a knight!
Or, you know, of making the person holding it really subserviant. Same difference =D
Can we save this for the field?
The field is not really the place to be discussing mechanics and rules
That’d be a bit mean: make a weapon that’s useless (or at least no more use than a plain steel one) against “great beasts” give you an ambition of defeating them…
Arguably, the weapon is great in the right hands and being a permanent weapon with a roleplaying effect attached to it makes it cooler.
If I ever put “excalibur” in there’s a 50/50 chance it’ll be an apprentice’s blade.
Agreed,
Some rituals just won’t give a return with illium within the lifetime of the player, others possibly would given the the initial cost of the illium, but that really depends on who you buy it from and which ritual you do…
A Permanent magic item strikes me as the coolest thing to do with it because of the added fun of the extra roleplay effects (and the slightly less fun never having it expire thing).
The potions that have illium as an ingredient just seem more expensive than they’re worth… Crystal Mana is cheaper than illium regardless of where you buy it, and the bottled hero points can be made without illium for a return of some, if not all of your HP for just a few herbs!
So unless you have more personal mana / HP than most are ever likely to use in one day already, the others work out better value for money.
So yeah, posh ritual or posh item!
But if you do have half a dozen hero points and you use them all and still need more then getting another seven then and there in one go is very desirable and it can only be done with an ilium potion. It’s situational but potions keep and when you need it you really need it. I can’t think of a reason why you’d need an item to be an artifact enough to justify the far greater amounts of ilium required.
Not against monsters that don’t take Cleave, it’s not. Or, as I said, no better than a plain iron blade. If you’re going to be a Monster Slayer, you want more hits, or some sort of protection or healing that works on you.
It’s the specific combination of RP effect and weapon that I was talking about.
And excalibur would be fine as an apprentice blade; Arthur Pendragon fought men, not monsters, by and large, and was Heroic as fuck.
Surely all you need when fighting a monster is a plain iron blade.
On the other hand, an Apprentice’s Blade is surely the thing you need to help you get ahead of your fellow squires when it comes to getting to a big monster by carving through it’s minions.
I mean, there will always be minions… Marshlings exist purely so that Marshwalkers have minions, it says so in the design brief.
discussing items and effects
so that’s really cool if you make an artefact it has a roleplaying effect who decides what that it is? I watched a anime once where a guy picked up a magic sword in a shop every time it was unsheathed it has to taste blood and if it didn’t it made you swing wildly like a madman that would be fun. I know you get to name the item yourself which is also cool. I think magic weapons vs monsters is a good idea quick clean kills but I would think say a perment armour that gives extra hits would be more useful
can anyone summarise all the uses for ilium?
cheers mike
Makes a ritual permanent, at extreme cost. The ritual must have a duration of ‘Season’ or longer to be made permanent. It is theorised that permanent rituals come with hilarious roleplaying effects.
Required for certain high level rituals, notably Serpent’s Stone (which is the only cure for some mega-curses and plot poisons)
Makes an item permanent. It is known that permanent artifacts come with hilarious roleplaying effects. The two that I’ve handled, one caused an obsession with cleanliness and one caused creeping paranoia.
Required for certain powerful potions.
Sold to Eternals, many of whom prize it.
From quick search of the wiki - The three main uses are:
Make a ritual enchantment/curse permanent, make a permanent magic item (an artefact) or two powerful potions.
** Make an Enchantment or Curse permanent **
profounddecisions.co.uk/empi … e_of_ilium
Cost of Illium: 3x Magnitude of Ritual in rings of Illium (minimum 10 rings)
Only enchantments and curses with a duration of Season or Year can be made permanent in this way.
Effects that lower the magnitude of an effect do not change the amount of ilium it requires to make it permanent. The ilium must be consumed when the ritual is performed; an existing enchantment cannot later be made permanent with ilium
Make an Artefact - permanent magic item
profounddecisions.co.uk/empi … /Artefacts
Cost of Illium: One ring of Ilium for each ingot and measure required to make the item (minimum of 10 rings).
The ilium must be imbued into the item at the same time it is crafted; it’s not possible to make an existing magic item into an artefact.
The creator gives the artefact a unique name when they craft the item, which appears on the item ribbon; they may choose to imbue the item with a roleplaying effect. Such roleplaying effects usually reflect the nature of the artisan, or the purpose for which it is intended.
Some Potions:
Elixir of Exalted Puissance - Restores all spent heropoints and grants an extra 1 temporarily.
profounddecisions.co.uk/empi … _Puissance
The Elixir of Empyrean Art - Restores all spent personal mana and gain an extra 2 personal mana.
profounddecisions.co.uk/empi … pyrean_Art
As has been noted, Distil the Serpent’s Stone is the big use of Ilium that isn’t a permanency effect.
Well, few weapons make any difference to Large Creatures; you’re almost entirely looking for Extra Hero Points for healing or resisting Roleplay Effects, or things like repairing things or mending your limbs.
Apprentice Blade is pretty darn awesome if you don’t have Cleaving Strike =D Your Stay With Me and Get It Together focused support chap suddenly becomes combative
Serpent’s Stone is by far the best use of Ilium; super prestige item right there!
It’s not the ilium that makes serpent’s stones expensive, it’s the mag 70 ritual and all the other ingredients.
Just for a Ref call:
Artefact construction; is there options for this in Downtime, or do you specifically have to contact PD for it
Is the Roleplay effect free reign for the artisan, then “interpreted” by PD, or from a list of BOARD APPROVED ROLEPLAY EFFECTS FOR EMPLOYEES
There’s an email address for ref queries - empire.rules@profounddecisions.co.uk - I know people sometimes answer them on the forum too, but you actually go in a queue for a proper response if you email in rather than relying on people having too much time on their hands to prowl the forums 
.
Thank you for your suggestion; there’s also an entire forum for it over at the-rules/
However, we have the benefit of a topic discussing the matter which has had comments from PD Staff; so rather than clogging up the queue, I’ll just leave this here for them to read when they are next discussing the topic of Ilium and its uses with us.