Ink Mantis
Artifact: 2 Magical Material: varies. Commitment: 1 mote.
These astonishing automata of the First Age were once friends to many Exalted scribes and sorcerers. It is unknown who first created the Ink Mantis, but the design was copied many times with numerous materials and variations. The Perfect of Paragon is known to own one, as do several of the masters at the Heptagram and Spiral Academy. These Artifacts are unassuming at a glance, but surpassingly useful for those Exalts of a poetic or scholarly disposition. They are relatively uncommon in the Age of Sorrows, their delicate mechanisms vulnerable during the great upheavals of the Usurpation and Great Contagion, their complexity difficult to replicate in current times.
When quiescent, the Ink Mantis appears to be a large, stylish fountain pen inlaid with one of the five Magical Materials. When active, the pen extends long, delicate legs and stands up, appearing to be a metallic Praying Mantis or similar stick insect. Within its mandibles appears a sharp point glistening with ink.
One mote of Essence is required to attune an Ink Mantis. The artifact functions very simply: it transcribes what is dictated to it by its owner, by tipping its head down and writing with the pen point in its mandibles. When the pen is needed, its owner simply charges it with 2 motes of Essence and it will operate for the rest of the scene. The mantis pen is equally at home with normal speed dictation or high-speed Charm-assisted dictation, and can be used without penalty in conjunction with any Charm related to writing or copying. It can write in any language in which its owner is literate (or fluent), and will write in very fine script similar to its owners. The mantis pen leaves no fingerprints or traces of itself on the parchment. If the Ink Mantis runs out of paper, it will seek out further sheets if they are available, and though its range is limited the small automata are known for cleverness and determination in reaching the materials it requires.
The Magical Material used in its construction also has a particular effect. Normal rules for attuning the Magical Materials apply.
Orichalcum: Orichalcum Ink Mantes are most often a long, narrow rods of shining gold, tiny gears shifting along their length as they move. The ink they produce is either a uniform yellow-gold or a shifting liquid incorporating all the colors of the sunset. When utilizing a document written with such a device, a character may add three dice to all Performance rolls made to convince others to join her cause. "Utilizing a document" can mean brandishing it at an angry mob, submitting it as evidence in a court case, or even speaking to a crowd who has read it in recent days.
Moonsilver: Moonsilver Ink Mantes are most often curved, sometimes even spiral in shape, movements almost liquid. They produce ink in luminous cobalt, shining argent, or beguiling, bruised violet, depending on the whim of their owner. When a character utilizes a document written with a Moonsilver Ink Mantis, she may add three dice to all Presence rolls made to deceive another. "Utilizing a document" can take the form of secret love letters, personal notes slipped into a mark's pocket, or even crude messages scrawled upon a window.
Jade: Jade Ink Mantes are the largest of their kind, and also the least graceful, though they are still intricate and graceful by mortal standards. The colour of their ink can very artifact to artifact, but always of a shade corresponding to the colour of jade from which they have been carved. All bureuacratic documents written with these Artifacts add one die to their owner's Bureaucracy pool, backed by the elemental authority of the Five Dragons. In addition, any document written with a Jade Ink Mantis can be pre-programmed to self-destruct one minute after a designated target has read it, dissipating in a puff of its appropriate element.
Soulsteel: Soulsteel Ink Mantes are secret, black and midnight creations, looking like a dead man's finger wrought from dark metal. Their ink is not ink at all; they instead write in blood, tears, or bile, at their owner's discretion. By utilizing such a dread document, the exalt may add three dice to all Socialize rolls made to cast doubt or shame another party. "Utilizing a document" can mean anything from reading a condemnation of a person before an assembly, writing seditious letters to authority figures, to secret correspondences between conspirators.
Starmetal: Starmetal Ink Mantes are arcane devices, tubes of meteoric iron and coloured laquer. Once, these brushes were more similar to their brethren of the other Magical Materials, conveying their Sidereal owners caligraphy in perfect beauty and precision, of particular use in Sidereal Astrology where the prayers and requests they composed were much beloved by the Pattern Spiders (adding 3 dice to related rolls).
Heavenly artificers are uncertain as to the exact mechanism, but when the Sidereal Exalted engineered the Usurpation of the Solar Exalted, the Starmetal Ink Mantes changed. No longer did they take their owner's dictation in a precise version of their handwriting, no longer did their writing please those who tended the Loom of Fate. Instead, Starmetal Ink Mantes now take dictation from anyone present, cleverly representing different speakers in different hands and colors (even making appropriate associations such as shades of gold for Solars, silver for Lunars, and so on), though they cannot identify people who conceal their identities. The Mantes effectively communicate mood and motive in their calligraphy, allowing readers to discern these with a (Perception + Linguistics) roll at a difficulty of half the speaker’s (Manipulation + Socialize), rounded up (or a minimum of 2). Starmetal Ink Mantes require an additional mote above that of their cousins to activate for a scene (for a total of three).
Source: Adapted, edited, expanded, and merged from material in Oadenol's Codex (particularly the Audient Brush) and other sources including OhJames' Quill on the unOfficial Exalted wiki.
