Briar flare items

Briar flares are specialty flares created by GM Xynwen that are available in three tiers; they were first offered at Ebon Gate 2010.

All briar flare weapons should be TAPped to retract the thorns before putting the weapon away. Expect pain if this is forgotten.

Briar flare weapons can have both a long description and a show description.

Blood Siphoning

When one takes hold of the weapon and the thorns dig in, the weapon will dig into the wielder and slowly siphon a health point (HP) off of them, 1 HP every 30 seconds. The collected stored HP is referred to as "influence" (not related to the statistic). Having enough blood points stored in its greedy vines will allow a flare to go off that has a chance of injuring the target and poisoning it. Each flare costs a seemingly random amount of influence--approximately 15 to 25--and the flares won't work against creatures that don't have blood.

Briar flares at all tiers will provide an attack strength (AS) boost when RAISEd, only when the weapon is full, and which will drain it of all stored HPs. The AS boost varies from tier to tier and lasts for one minute.

You remove a base sword from in your velvet box.
As soon as the base sword is in your hand, several vines of briar and thorn slither out of the top of the blade and twine about your wrist. Droplets of crimson blood are quickly absorbed by the writhing vines.

You feel a slight prick as the briar imbedded in your wrist digs a little deeper. The vines writhe briefly, veins of crimson pulsing within the viridian vegetation.

As you strike the giant, droplets of blood are sucked from it to your base sword, running up the blade to be absorbed by the vines wrapped around your wrist.

Tier 1

• Fluff verb traps
• Maximum influence of 50
• +5 AS bonus for one minute upon RAISE

Tier 2

• Additional fluff verb traps
• Maximum influence of 100
• +10 AS bonus for one minute upon RAISE

Tier 3

• Additional fluff verb traps
• Increased maximum stored HP level
• +25 AS bonus for one minute upon RAISE

You swing a base sword at a frost giant!
AS: +466 vs DS: +215 with AvD: +9 + d100 roll: +2 = +262
 ... and hit for 21 points of damage!
 Minor puncture to the right leg.
As you strike the giant, droplets of blood are sucked from it to your base sword, running up the blade to be absorbed by the vines wrapped around your wrist.
Vines of vicious briars whip out from your base sword, raking The giant with its thorns. The giant looks slightly ill as the glistening emerald coating from each briar works itself under its skin.
... 30 points of damage!
Hard shove to the chest staggers the frost giant.
It is knocked to the ground!
The frost giant is stunned!

Verb Traps

VERB	FIRST	THIRD
RAISE	As you raise your base weapon, the briars imbedded in your flesh release their stored blood in a massive pulse of power that you can feel in the core of your very being. The vines lose all crimson hues, and strength courses through your blood.	XXXX raises his base weapon and suddenly looks stronger. The red-veined briars imbedded in his flesh pulse with power then fall quiescent, losing all crimson hues and reverting to a normal, dark green state.
STOW without TAP	As the base weapon leaves your hand, the vines of briar and thorn viciously rip themselves from your wrist, leaving a bloody mess behind. ... 5 points of damage!

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Loresong

You sing gently to the base weapon, and a tiny vine winds its way out of the blade. Nothing else happens.

You focus your voice on a base weapon and its thorns pulse in time to your voice. A haze of crimson covers your eyes. When it passes, you see a young girl dressed in a clean, but ill-fitting, rough homespun dress. She plays happily with a few well-dressed children until a band of town guards runs them away. The vision skips a bit, catching up with the girl and her friends standing outside a vine-covered wall. The children look a bit frightened, and they keep jostling one another, pointing at the vines and making challenges. No one gives into the peer pressure, however, and what is behind the wall remains unseen.

The vision flashes forward, showing numerous occasions of the children standing outside the garden daring one another to climb the wall. None do.

You take a deep breath then softly begin to sing to a base weapon. Once again, the briars imbedded in your wrist dig in deeper, and veins of pulsing crimson run through the vines. The pain is bearable, however, and your singing is rewarded quickly as a vision wavers then solidifies in front of your eyes.

The young girl is slightly older and dressed in the same garment, now even more ragged and instead of hanging loosely, it is obviously too small. The girl walks by the group of children from your previous vision, but this time, she is trying hard not to be noticed. Her attempts are in vain, however, and cruel teasing ensues. A few rocks are thrown, one hitting its mark and knocking her into the dirt. Her hand closes on a scrap of metal, and you can feel pain in the palm of your hand mirroring her own as she squeezes it tightly enough to draw blood. She waves it at the largest child looming over her, and a small thorn shoots from the metal and bounces off the boy's shirt.

The vision cuts forward to the girl at home, an impoverished but loving mother tending her bleeding hand. The girl explains animatedly what happened, but it is obvious from the look on her mother's face, that she does not quite believe her daughter's story. However, when the girl refuses to give up her scrap of metal, the mother smiles indulgently and is rewarded with an impulsive hug.

A single stab from a briar in your wrist pulls you out of the vision.

The first note of your song is barely out of your mouth when the base weapon jabs viciously at you, its briars turning dark crimson. The vision is immediate and crystal clear.

The young girl hovers on the edge of adolescence and is running desperately away from a gang of well-dressed children. The leader is bleeding from a cut on his cheek, and he is screaming epithets at her in a murderous rage. She clutches the same shard of metal in one hand, a tiny thorny vine imbedded in her palm. She outruns them momentarily, finding herself once again at the vine-covered wall. She hesitates a moment, but the shouts of the bloodthirsty gang make her decision for her, and she scrambles up the vine and drops quickly over the wall.

The child gazes around at an amazing sight. She has landed next in a garden, located just behind a cottage, filled with bright-colored roses, a small pond filled with waterlilies, and more. An old woman, hunched over and dressed all in black, looks startled at the child's arrival, but just then, the screams of the gang leader can be heard. The woman mutters something under her breath as her unnaturally bright emerald eyes grow wide with understanding. She murmurs something soothing to the young girl, and they walk together toward the cottage.

The vision becomes erratic suddenly, and all you can see are flashes of happiness as the girl spends more and more time at the cottage, safe from the well-to-do children who would make her life miserable. Once, she reaches as if to pluck a rose, and the old woman calls out in near panic, stopping her. She shakes her head and admonishes the girl, who bows her head contritely and promises never to pluck a rose.

In a haze of rose petals, the vision stops.

Vines writhe across your vision as you sing to a base weapon. The erratic vision you ended on coalesces into something more substantial. The old woman and young girl work on together on the shard of metal you have seen in visions past. A sense of mentorship permeates the scene, and you realize the woman is teaching the girl to enhance her obviously innate magical talents.

Time moves forward in snippets of visions:

The woman takes the girl to a metalsmith who teaches her to work the metal, and she quickly eclipses his talents.

The woman and the girl work in the garden among the roses, metal and vine, blood and rose and magic.

The girl blossoms into young womanhood, and her talents in metal put food on her home table.

Unseen by either, a young man lurks in several of these scenes. The faint scar on his cheek mark him as the ringleader from the young woman's earlier years. In one scene, he smirks triumphantly as he watches the young woman's mother scrub the floors of his elegant manor.

An overwhelming sense of foreboding hangs over the vision, which abruptly cuts off.

The vines of a base weapon tighten around your wrist as you sing to it, and your vision comes swifty.

Several years have passed, and the young woman is now in her early twenties. She moves throughout the old woman's small cottage, but it is quickly evident the old woman is no longer here and that the young woman calls the cottage home.

Every so often, the woman leaves the scene, and a pretty ebon cat strolls through.

Sorrow and regret tinge your vision until the young woman enters a gem shop and meets its proprietor, a handsome man about her age. Love suffuses the scenes that now flash you by, as the young man and woman court and marry, making the cottage with its bright rose garden their home.

In an unusual scene, the pretty ebon cat strolls along the top of the stone wall surrounding the garden, watching the man carve gemstones.

You are about to stop singing on this happy ending when a jab from the briar in your wrist jerks you forward. The couple argue about the woman's semi-frequent disappearances, and doubt suffuses the scene. You can feel the woman's panic at losing the love of her life undercut with a sense of helplessness.

Another jerk forward, but this time, all you can see is dark green water around you and the shadows of water lilies above. Hands are around your neck or is it the young woman's? Reality and vision blur for an instant, and it takes the burrowing of several briars into your wrist to pull you out of your magical weavings.

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