It was carved from the first frost that formed in the world by the hands of the personifications of Time and Death. The Ice Sickle at first glance seems like nothing more than a curio for a gentleman’s display case: a small harvesting sickle barely one foot in diameter, made seemingly out of glass with a handle of stone. In truth, the “stone” handle is permafrost and the blade is the purest ice as clear and strong as diamond. Both ice and permafrost is kept eternally frozen by the powers of the Ice Sickle itself.
Following on from the attributes of its creators, the Ice Sickle’s powers revolve around the use of time. It can accelerate it to a gallop, slow it down to a crawl, stop it entirely to keep the realm as frozen as itself, or even reverse it to change the course of fate. None of these godly powers come for free. Time gave the Sickle a blessing; Death gave it a curse. As much as the wielder uses it, the more he will age. The more power he draws from the Sickle, the faster his own hourglass will empty. The closer he moves to Time, the closer he moves to Death.
Name: Ice Sickle
Type: Tool
Blessing: Its crudest use as a weapon would make it a Light Melee Weapon. Its true powers come in 4 types and 2 classes. It can accelerate time, slow it, stop it entirely, or reverse it; and this can be done for the world as a whole, or just for one item or character. For all four types of uses, for how long they are active, or the scale of what they affect is measured in turns/narrative-actions, encounters/scenes, or whole sessions.
Curse: Each use of the Ice Sickle costs some of the wielder’s own time. The greater or longer the effect, the more time it steals.
- Haste: Turn: 1 hour. Encounter: 1 day. Session: 1 week. Double this effect for each doubling of standard time that is being accelerated.
- Slow: Turn: 1 day. Encounter: 1 week. Session: 1 month. Double this for every halving of normal time that is being slowed.
- Stop: Turn: 1 week. Encounter: 1 month. Session: 1 year.
- Reverse: Turn: 1 month. Encounter: 1 year. Session: 1 decade.
If the effect is only being used against a specific item or character, then the ageing effects on the wielder is counted as one step less severe (one row higher above). For Haste this becomes Turn: 1 minute. Encounter: 1 hour. Session: 1 day.