space opera - Vault of the Ni`er Queyon Errata p1

ARTifacts

To an average person from the PCs civilization, the works in the Vault galleries would seem to be arranged in totally random order. A person not familiar with the Library of Congress sorting system would have similar troubles in the average university library. To simulate this wild collage, the following tables are provided to spur the imagination of the GM.

General Category: Roll 1d10
Roll	Type
1	Painting
2	Statuary
3	Kinetic Art
4-5	Embellished Artifact (Clothing, Weapons)
6-7	Scent, Taste or "Other" sensory display.
8	Recording of an art form, ranging from a black and white movie of a primitive dance to a direct-sensory hookup mental projection of a mind-bending trans-dimensional artform.
9	Recording of a history lesson, important event or biography, other non-entertainment subject.
10	A "working" artifact, a wonder, a gizmo. This type of item is more than a "mere" object of purely esthetic interest. The "Milky Way, Under Glass" and the Map-Globes are examples.

Description of object represented by Piece: Roll 1d10
Roll	Description
1	A Queyon (A "Porcine" race).
2-3	Other sentient species; roll a d8. 1-Humanoid 2-Other Mammal 3-Reptilian 4-Avian 5-Icthyoid 6-Invertebrate 7-Plant 8-Weirder Still
4	An animal, or plant.
5-6	A landscape, natural or artificial.
7	An abstract representation of one of the above; Roll a d6 to find the subject.
8-9	Totally Abstract, meaning debatable.
10	Roll a d8 and see above; but the object is as seen from an extradimensional angle and very difficult to comprehend.

Artifact Type: Roll 1d10
Roll	Description
1-3	A weapon, ranging from a club of petrified wood decorated with a complex geometric designs to a sophisticated beam weapon enameled with scenes of primitive hunters killing game. All are non-functional, but may be analyzed.
4-5	Clothing, from a brocaded toga to power armor.
6-7	Jewelry or other body decoration.
8	Simple tool, such as hammers, scissors, a spoon, or pore-reamer.
9	A complex tool: Sensors, Pocket Radios, Power Saws. Things that need power and have many parts.
10	HUH!?! An oddity, quite beautiful but totally obscure. This could be a grooming tool used by a silicon beings, underwear for a transdimensional creature, or an object created by an advanced species with little in common with primitives like the PCs.

Materials & Colors

Some materials will be encased in plastic or kept in helium-filled cases. Roll a d10 for color and material. If indicated, roll on the Precious Material column.

Roll	Color	Material	PreciousMaterial
1	Black	Ceramic	Copper/Nickel
2	White	Metal	Silver
3	Red	Precious	Gold
4	Orange	Flesh	Platinum
5	Yellow	Wood	Iridium
6	Green	Fabric	Stelt
7	Blue	Light	Psionite*
8	Violet	Mineral	Crystals
9	Metallic	Crystalline	Collapsium
10	Natural	Other	Other

* Psionite: First encountered in PK Crystals, this material may be a sort of petrified energy, or concentrated essence of THE FORCE, or perhaps the protrusion into this spatial volume of a super-dimensional material. It comes in many textures, colors, and properties.

Working Artifact Function

Examples; roll 1d10

Roll	Object
1-2	Weapon: or other dangerous object.
3	Information gathering/dispensing device: Like the "Hero" statue or the "Milky Way" sphere. Scope ranges from 1 (subatomic) to 100 (Galactic).
4-6	Psionic Device: This artifact can dampen, block, enhance and/or bestow psionic powers. PK crystals and though screens are basic examples; these are more specialized and most are more powerful.
7-8	A Sentience: Toward the End, the Ni`er Queyon had developed cybernetics to a fine art, literally. The artifact found contains an artificial sentience, usually highly specialized and esthetically pleasing. To the PCs, it may seem to be crazy, naive or obsessed. Roll 2d20 for the thing's Intelligence, 3d6-3 for its Empathy, 3d6 for its Intuition.
9	Dimensional Manipulation: This artifact has an effect on the fabric of space-time. It could be a FTL drive that the Queyon thought had nice lines, a tap into energy-rich DeSitter space, or a highly advanced device designed to probe spaces unknown to modern science.
10	???!!!?#%?@?: A "Whuzzaht?" or "Thingy" or a "Gizmo". The device will emit, with or without stimulus and in random patterns, sounds, light, EM waves, and cute little tweaks in the fabric of the space-time manifold. Chances are that even the Queyon shrugged at this one. It does SOMETHING, though, quite beyond our comprehension.