Gleaming Girdle
The Gleaming Girdle is a complex work of artifice dating from the days immediately following the Usurpation of the Solar Exalted by the Dragonblooded. It resembles a large, wide belt, forged of Bronze, a huge central plate embossed with a scene of five warriors, each reminiscent of a Terrestrial Aspect, striking down a demonic figure surrounded by a sunburst.
The myths born of the early Shogunate spoke that when the Dragonblooded rose against the Solar Exalted at the Calibration Feast, the fierce energies of that battle not only wiped the Solars from Creation forevermore, but swept across their gilded fineries, melting gold and Orichalc in rivers of liquid metal. When these cooled the remaining metal was no longer gold but purified bronze.
Whether this myth was based in any truth is impossible to say, for it has long since faded. What is true is that certain essence-empowered bronzes, dubbed Gleaming Bronze, said to have been sourced from those transmogrified Solar baubles, served as an Exotic Component in many early Shogunate artifacts, and that through the Shogunate Era to this day the use of bronzework remains popular in the fashions of the Dragonblooded as a symbol of martial triumph and potent victory.
One of the most significant artifacts born of Gleaming Bronze was the Gleaming Girdle, forged by the Dragonblooded who had served at the feet of the great Solar artificers of the Golden Age before turning upon their masters for the good of Creation. With the fall of the Solars, many (including great numbers in the Dragonblooded Host itself) openly believed that Creation would never see the heights of artifice it had under Celestial rule. The Dragonblooded who forged the Girdle did not agree, and set out to banish such doubts through their great works.
The owner must commit two motes to attune the Girdle. While worn, the Girdle fills its bearer with confidence, adding +2 to Presence rolls and allowing them to count their Conviction as if it were two dots higher. Even more significant is the certainty the belt conveys to its bearer, allowing them to treat all Intimacies as if they were Motivations, and allowing them to invoke a Virtue roll in place of spending any amount of willpower to resist mental influence.
The belt was originally intended to gird the first Shogun of the Dragonblooded Shogunate, but political disputes saw its makers instead bestow it upon the god Parad, who treasures the Girdle within his panoply to this day.
