Tassels of Ahlat

1 Dot Artifact/Blessing

Ahlat sends war aurochs to fight on his behalf. Sometimes they aid other spirits in battle or, rarely, favored mortals. These gods hate cravens, however, and cut down allies who flee from a battle. The brave receive a strange reward. Following great battles, Ahlat sends his aurochs to devour the bodies of dead heroes. In this manner, the war aurochs absorb the mortal’s memories. The war aurochs, in turn, sequesters these memories in a tuft of hair that Ahlat plucks and turns into another tassel for his cloak. Mortals have long misunderstood the war aurochs’ actions, leading to a widespread but quite false myth that war aurochs are themselves slain warriors raised to minor godhood by Ahlat.

Mortals and Exalts can pray for Ahlat to loan them the tassel of a particular fallen warrior. The War God occasionally grants these prayers in exchange for deeds of exceptional courage, performed in Ahlat’s name (for instance, stealing an entire herd of cattle from a dangerous enemy and sacrificing them to Ahlat). Ahlat assigns the quest through a dream. If the warrior succeeds, she wakes the day after its completion with the tassel in her hand. Failing the quest results in cursing through the Scourge Charm.

Holding one of Ahlat’s tassels grants access to all of the dead hero’s memories. In addition to factual and biographical information, the tassel’s owner gains a +1 bonus to two of the following: Archery, Martial Arts, Melee, Thrown or War (to a maximum of 5). Characters with less than three dots of Conviction who make frequent use of a tassel might start to mistake the heroes’ memories for their own. Such a character who exhausts her Willpower points forgets her own identity and believes she is the dead hero until she recovers at least one Willpower point.

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