Earthdawn Airships in the Sixth World, And other “always on” magical items – how to create them? Options

[JanessaVR]

Foci are useful tools, but they’re also limited to being usable by just a single Awakened character. As of SR4 Artifacts Unbound, p. 7, we actually get a bit of discussion about both the discovery of such Fourth World items, and also how they compare against the more common foci of the Sixth World. Their appearance in this book officially establishes both the functionality and presence of “always on” magical items in the Sixth World.

So how do we make more of them?

“Always On” magical items can (at least some of them) be used by anyone, even mundanes. This could really change the world, but hasn’t been explored very much in canon. Nonetheless, I think the potential of such items should be explored further. Now, in some cases, technology might be the easier and cheaper route to go. For instance, if you wanted a hovering airship, then a helium-filled blimp or zeppelin would probably be much simpler, but if you decided you really wanted some sort of hovering skyship or sky platform, how would you create it? We know it can be done – the Fourth World artifacts prove it.

Consulting the Earthdawn book Magic: A Manual of Mystic Secrets, the primary ingredient for such items seems to be “kernels” of True Elements. Well, as of SR4 Parageology, those have been discovered in the Sixth World as well; we might surmise that a “kernel” is perhaps equivalent to a “Unit” (10 grams) that quantities of Orichalcum are measured by.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the spells and number of Units of True Elements that would be required to construct new “always on” magical items? I’m still trying to decide on what seems like a reasonable approach for this.