The Blackwood Fetishes

A pair of wooden figurines worn smooth with age, each with a whitish shaft driven into the crown of its head and eyes and forehead rust-stained with old blood. They cannot be broken by any mundane harm — strike them and they hold fast.

The Fetishes are bait, and a prison. Within them sleep Astor and Halix, two ghosts who in life were lovers and traitors, and who in death remain shackled to each other and to whoever masters the figurines. A wielder who learns their names and the sign that calls them forth can summon them as bound followers — but neither spirit wants to obey. Astor wants to be honored, Halix wants to be entertained, and both carry the lingering taste of an old betrayal that has had centuries to sour. The cost is paid in the spaces between commands: malicious compliance, second-guessing, and a hatred with nowhere to go but toward the hand that holds the leash.

Tags · magical · indestructible

When you mark a figurine's eyes with blood and likewise mark your own eyelids, You see through the eyes of that figurine whenever you close your eyes, for as long as the blood remains.

When you anoint a figurine with your own blood and then sleep in its presence, On a 10+, you dream lucidly of the spirit in the figurine — it speaks an archaic but intelligible dialect and might be persuaded to reveal its name, the name of its fellow, or the method of calling them forth. On a 7-9, the dream is fleeting, strange, and disorienting — ask the GM what you learn of the spirit. Each time you learn one of the bound spirits' names or the sign that calls them forth, mark 1 (of 3). When you make the last mark, the mysteries of the Fetishes open and you may use Call Forth and Command.