Artifacts are magical legacies from an earlier age of Middle-earth. These relics can come in many forms, including rings, wands, weapons, armour, as well as in other more esoteric items. The acquisition, or loss, of some of the powerful artifacts has changed the course of Middle-earth’s history, no item more so than the One Ring itself, greatest of the Rings of Power.
Some artifacts may be specifically aligned to good or evil, whilst others are not aligned at all. If an artifact is aligned, only characters of nations with the same allegiance as the artifact’s alignment can use the artifact. Those artifacts that are of no alignment have no such restrictions and can be used by any character, not just those of neutral nations. Regardless of an artifact’s alignment, however, any character may possess any artifact, although they may not be able to gain any benefit from it. Artifacts with no alignment are sometimes referred to as neutral, though this is somewhat misleading as characters of both Good, Evil and Neutral nations can use them.
Skill ranks adjusted upward by artifacts will appear in parentheses next to the base skill rank. For example, a character with a command rank of 50 bearing an artifact that adds 10 to command rank will be shown as command 50 (60) on the result-sheet. If a character has a skill rank of 0, an artifact cannot increase this rank, but as stealth is not a skill rank, if they have a stealth rank of 0 then this can be increased through use of an artifact. In addition, artifacts which increase a character’s mage skill also increases their individual spell casting ranks. (In this case, the bonus is not added to the individual spell ranks on the turn sheet, but included in brackets before the spell list.) Skill ranks adjusted by artifacts can exceed the normal 100 limit. The adjusted skill rank of a character affects the chance of success for an order, but only the ‘natural’ skill rank of the character affects the effects of the order where applicable. (This will be explained in the section on orders.)
Artifacts are carried by characters, and transferred between characters. The maximum number of artifacts any one character may carry is six, although you can only use one combat artifact (weapon) at a time. Combat artifacts in use appear with a √ or * beside them in the character section of the results sheet. A character will automatically use the first combat artifact they pick up. If they then gain a second combat artifact and want to use that instead, they must either issue the Use Combat Artifact order to swap artifacts, or transfer the first artifact to another character, at which point they will automatically use the second one (or, if they have more than two remaining artifacts, the most powerful one).
There are two types of artifact which relate to spells. The first type allows access to a lost spell, or lost spell list. Only a character with mage rank can use these, and, when they have them in their possession, research the specified spell or spells. The second type allows a character to cast a specific spell, regardless of whether or not they have any mage rank. This is the only instance where the prerequisite of an order (that only characters with mage skill can issue spell-casting orders) can be ignored.
Artifacts may be gained when a character kills or captures a character from another nation who holds artifacts, stolen from another character, or gained from an encounter. Alternatively, they can be searched for, though even if you know where an artifact is there is no guarantee that your characters will necessarily be able to find it. Artifacts may be dropped (hidden) in any hex, or at a population centre, at which point they are lost to your nation, although you can search for them again. The character who drops the artifact will have a higher chance of recovering it than other characters. In addition, if the artifact was dropped at a population centre, characters belonging to same nation as the population centre will also have a higher chance of recovering it.
The results sheet describes most artifacts as ‘latent’. This means that they are not combat artifacts, so you always gain their benefits.
See the Artifacts Page.