View source for Item:Sanguine thealstone Bloodworm comet haloed in star sapphires

{{Item
|noun=comet
|look=Tiny bits of crimson moonsilver are flecked over the milky white stone to enhance the stone's natural pale glow and give it an ominous silvery-red hue.  More tendrils of the luminous metal are worked throughout the comet's tail, trailing behind its fist-sized body as if caught in the wake of its gravity.  Completing the design, lustrous star sapphires are polished into exquisite cabochons and suspended around the comet on blackened moonsilver spikes to form the constellation of the Mongoose.
|MTag=thealstone, star sapphire, crimson moonsilver, blackened moonsilver
|ptype=other
|verby=No
|atmos=No
|type=ritual focus
|metal=no
|weight=8
|appcost=20,000,000
|lsize=3
|wsize=2
|hsize=2
|enchanted=No
|sourcetype=-
|fname=No
}}
Universal focus

You recognize that the comet 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 directly assists in harnessing mana.  When activated, the comet will accumulate energy from mana streams that pass through it, stored within a core of specially enchanted cambrinth.  The enchantment is designed for fluid discharge rather than lifespan, so the magician must skillfully direct the spell energy within moments of reaching the desired charge.

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.