Item:Oceanic orichalcum ouroboros
| oceanic orichalcum ouroboros | |
|---|---|
| Look: | The ouroboros has about 500 uses of metallic dust remaining. The sinuous serpent's phthalo-blue scales are punctuated by warm, red-gold specular highlights that reflect fragments of their surroundings. Its long, slender body is coiled into a perfect circle, with its tail grasped firmly in its mouth. |
| Weight: | 2 stones |
| Metal: | Yes |
| Uses: | 500 |
| Appraised Cost: | 3,937,500 Kronars3,150,000 Lirums <br />2,841,300 Dokoras <br />3,937.5 LTBpoints <br />3,937.5 Tickets <br />3,937.5 Scrips <br /> |
| Properties: | This is jewelry.
|
| Dimensions: | 3 length x 1 width x 1 height |
| Sources: | Source is Limited Treasures (6) |
You recognize that the ouroboros is a ritual focus. It's a tool that assists in harnessing the mana required to cast ritual spells, if it is invoked while the spell is being prepared.
In particular, this is a supply of mana-reactive metallic dust. Mana-reactive materials are enchanted in such a way that they react to mana shortly after being exposed to the open, quickly accumulating a charge of spell energy before burning out. Drawing on a technique the Moon Mages invented, it is possible to draw a ritual pattern that reflects the two-dimensional "shadow" of the nascent spell. If this is done quickly and accurately, the burst of energy has been shaped to channel itself safely into the spell pattern.
The mana manipulation done through ritual foci are crude and often sharply limited by the design of the enchantment. Most ritual foci are limited to being useful only to a specific book of magic, though foci designed with incredible skill can be more broadly useful. No known ritual focus is fine enough to work at a level above the blunt strokes of empowering a ritual, much to the relief of their users' job security.
You focus your magical senses on an oceanic orichalcum ouroboros. While the orichalcum ouroboros is nothing special, the metallic dust inside it appears to be enchanted to serve as a ritual focus. The focus has been enchanted with sublime care and reinforced with an Analogous Patterns sub-enchantment. It should be compatible with any ritual. While the magical nature of the focus is clear enough, you will need to study it more carefully to recollect how they function.