This odd blood charm consists of two oval pieces of highly carved quratz with a bard on one of the flat faces. When both are placed between the neck and shoulders of an Adept, the barb breaks the surface of the skin, drawing blood through the intricate carvings and fueling the magic of the shackles. The barb extends into the shoulder muscle, branching out to anchor the charm into the flesh. At the same time, a thick web of astral threads erupts from the charm and envelops the upper body and head of the wearer of the blood charms.
Once the blood charm is activated, the wearer loses all contact with astral space. No spells may be cast, no threads can be woven, and nothing but complete darkness can be seen. Any spell matrices immediately collapse as the vital trickle of magical energy from the Adept is cut off. Experienced Adepts have some ability to work with the threads while entrapped by them, but the effort is tedious and difficult.
The charms cannot be physically removed until the astral threads surrounding the charms are disabled. This is not difficult for most Adepts who can weave threads. Once the threads are disabled, the charms can be removed -- at great pain to the wearer. If at least one shackle is not removed, the astral net reforms after one hour.

The attachment of the blood charm causes four points of blood damage, unrecoverable until the charms are removed. They prevent any form of astral sight or spell casting (even raw) and cause the collapse of any matrices that are not powered from another source (such as item matrices and armored or enhanced matrices, which draw a slight amount of energy from astral space). Thread weaving is also prohibited, except for attempts to escape the astral shackles. In order to remove the shackles, the entrapped Adept must successfully weave six threads to the astral shackles at a Spell Defense difficulty of 8. However, every attempt beyond the first thread weaving test requires that the Adept sacrafice one recovery test and takes an entire hour. Outside Adepts can free the entrapped wearer by making six successful Thread weaving tests also against a difficulty of 8.
Once the astral net is opened, the blood charm can be removed, but each half of the pair causes one wound (and an amount of strain equal to the wound threshhold) when removed. The 4 points of blood damage cannot be healed until both halves are removed.

Cost: Not legal to sell in Barsaive

A pattern box can be of any size, but it typically appears to be a small coffer made of several exotic types of woods, the pieces of which seem that they should be able to slide open, but they remain locked in place. There is no obvious opening. Astrally viewed, the box is surrounded by a complex web of astral threads that completely encloses the box in a complex knot. The physical box will not open properly unless the tremendously complex astral knot is unwoven to a configuration that opens the box automatically. Any attempt to open the box using violent physical force activates a self-destruct mechanism (usually a combination of explosive True Elements or a fragile vial of acid. The True Elements will cause an explosion that does step 18 damage to anyone within ten feet of the box; the acid simple destroys the contents).
The knot is nearly impossible to untangle (Spell defense 48 against thread weaving) without the aid: a Named spirit that was summoned to create the knot and knows how to untie it. Once created, the box cannot be safely opened without summoning the spirit that locked the box closed. As a result, only someone who knows the Name of the spirit who created the knot and who is capable of summoning that spirit is able to get inside the box.

Cost: 1000 silver and up (depending on the spellcaster who is needed to summon the spirit).

The Voice Spirals consist of several silver rods with a fine groove spiralling from the top to the base and one or two silver orbs with a hole bored through the center to fit snugly on the spirals. Due to a careful interweaving of True Air into the orbs and rods, the Voice Spirals are capable of recording sounds when the orb is set turning down one of the rods. The recorded sounds can later be listened to by running the orb along the rod in the same direction. A rod can be erased by running the orb backwards up the rod.
Several styles of Voice Spirals are known. The most common variations are based on the size of the rods (any where from one inch (one hour of recordable material) to one foot (twelve hours). The orb can also be enchanted to record in a code that only that specific orb (or a duplicate made at the same time) can render the sounds on the rods properly. Other orbs are capable of recording only one voice, filtering out any onther sound.

Cost:
Rods: 100 silver per recordable hour.
Orbs: 300 silver (normal or voice filtering); 1000 silver (encoding orbs).

---Kolovon Ligasmu