The Ancient and Irreplaceable,
Treasure Recovered from a World Forgotten
Below detailed are those especially precious items which the Doctor has recovered from ages past, often through painstaking effort and at great cost. Each and every one is priceless and irreplaceable should it be lost, the true crowning gems of his collection. Woe betide anyone who brings harm to any of them.
The Keys of Pluto
A heavy but unassuming iron ring sporting nine numbered skeleton keys, though the size of the ring, not dissimilar to a jailer's, and the break in its join suggest that it once held many many more. Of the nine remaining keys five are black and corroded whilst the remaining four are still lustrous and silvery.
In reality they are an artifact of antiquity with great power over space, named for their believed association with the god of the underworld who was said to have used them in creating an unsolvable labyrinth with which to torment the damned. The doctor has since debunked such a terribly cliche story of origin and linked them to the palace-temple of King Solomon after retrieving two of their lost number from that same locale.
These keys, which can fit any lock, can be used to link together doors, causing them to share a spatial frame and eliminate all distance between them. To do so requires merely that both doors be locked with the same key, rendering their real and intended keys useless in the process.
When a key is so used it blackens and corrodes rendering it unable to be used on another pair of doorways. In this state it no longer fits into any locks except those of the two doors it joined, and the possession of the key or ring acts as a voucher of passage so that the locked doors treat the carrier, and no one else, as though they were not locked at all. In this manner it is possible for up to two parties to use the door, by way of removing the key so it and the ring are possessed by separate parties.
Should both doors become unlocked re-using the key, or either of the two doors destroyed, its luster returns and it can again be used to pair new doors together though the duration of the link is elsewise indefinite.
In reality they are an artifact of antiquity with great power over space, named for their believed association with the god of the underworld who was said to have used them in creating an unsolvable labyrinth with which to torment the damned. The doctor has since debunked such a terribly cliche story of origin and linked them to the palace-temple of King Solomon after retrieving two of their lost number from that same locale.
These keys, which can fit any lock, can be used to link together doors, causing them to share a spatial frame and eliminate all distance between them. To do so requires merely that both doors be locked with the same key, rendering their real and intended keys useless in the process.
When a key is so used it blackens and corrodes rendering it unable to be used on another pair of doorways. In this state it no longer fits into any locks except those of the two doors it joined, and the possession of the key or ring acts as a voucher of passage so that the locked doors treat the carrier, and no one else, as though they were not locked at all. In this manner it is possible for up to two parties to use the door, by way of removing the key so it and the ring are possessed by separate parties.
Should both doors become unlocked re-using the key, or either of the two doors destroyed, its luster returns and it can again be used to pair new doors together though the duration of the link is elsewise indefinite.
The Envoy's Scepter of Authority
The cane that the Doctor always carries is at first glance a tangle-y mess of twisted and knotty silver wire just a little over three feet long. Despite this appearance is in fact an incredibly old magical artifact in disguise, one that the doctor went to great lengths to procure given its ties to the sunken city of Atlantis and its association with the fallen angels.
At its owners will the wires, which are the Doctor's own addition to conceal the artifact itself, can be manipulated, usually peeling back, swirling and forming an incredibly intricate rapier-style basket guard and quillions to protect the hand as they expose the true form of the object laying beneath.
The exposed core of the cane is a very dense black crystal spire with six sides. Intricate Enochian script is gouged out of the surface of the crystal and is in turn inlaid with the mythical metal Oricalcum, the likes of which has not been seen since the days before the great city sank. This gold-like script along its jet-black surface speaks of a covenant between heaven and earth, declaring the holder of the relic an envoy between the two who acts with the blessing of the almighty.
The spire tapers to a fine point which is capped with an incredibly sharp spike of the aforementioned metal, and this combined with the reinforcement's along its length make it an incredibly solid weapon for either thrusting or bludgeoning in the same manner as an estoc. In being used for such a purpose the crystal and its embedded oricalcum act as an incredibly efficient conduit, allowing for magics to be channeled into the blade to enhance its own form or be discharged on contact or as a projectile. This latter application implies that it was likely designed to be a wand and not an instrument of physical trauma, but efficiency should not be overlooked.
Given the script it is not likely a coincidence then that not only the crystals physical form but also any magic's channeled through it are especially effective against those entities from a higher plane, whose very nature is usually resistant to mortal contrivances.
At its owners will the wires, which are the Doctor's own addition to conceal the artifact itself, can be manipulated, usually peeling back, swirling and forming an incredibly intricate rapier-style basket guard and quillions to protect the hand as they expose the true form of the object laying beneath.
The exposed core of the cane is a very dense black crystal spire with six sides. Intricate Enochian script is gouged out of the surface of the crystal and is in turn inlaid with the mythical metal Oricalcum, the likes of which has not been seen since the days before the great city sank. This gold-like script along its jet-black surface speaks of a covenant between heaven and earth, declaring the holder of the relic an envoy between the two who acts with the blessing of the almighty.
The spire tapers to a fine point which is capped with an incredibly sharp spike of the aforementioned metal, and this combined with the reinforcement's along its length make it an incredibly solid weapon for either thrusting or bludgeoning in the same manner as an estoc. In being used for such a purpose the crystal and its embedded oricalcum act as an incredibly efficient conduit, allowing for magics to be channeled into the blade to enhance its own form or be discharged on contact or as a projectile. This latter application implies that it was likely designed to be a wand and not an instrument of physical trauma, but efficiency should not be overlooked.
Given the script it is not likely a coincidence then that not only the crystals physical form but also any magic's channeled through it are especially effective against those entities from a higher plane, whose very nature is usually resistant to mortal contrivances.
TheArs Goetia-
King Solomon's Grimoire of Wicked Spirits
An obviously ancient book of some considerable thickness, bound in crumbling velum with faded silver clasps and branded with a six sided star cradled within two rings. It is by and far the most treasured object in the Doctor's collection, and one he went to absolute incredible lengths to obtain it for it is one of the three true grimoire of King Solomon penned by his own hand- albeit rebound from its original state as a collection of scrolls.
While many reproductions exist throughout the ages, translated and re-translated again and again as they lose more and more of their root's power, the original contains fathoms of knowledge that can be found nowhere else. Even those former holders of the tome foolish enough to transcribe its dangerous lore elsewhere knew better than to record the volume in full, and so within are contained innumerable feats of sorcery beyond the mere naming and describing of of the seventy two demons which can be found in the many derived works, considered too dangerous for their existence to be freely shared with mankind.
Its tattered pages are written in an odd and trance-like blend of Hebrew and Enochian, and in their words are detailed the secrets of all the planes of hell, the entities within whom are safe to traffic with, and the methods by which mortal men can summon and make servants of them... Or destroy them for their insolence in the face of the king of mages... and whatever can so much as harm a lord of the abyss will lay waste to anything of this world.
Even so the tome has greater value still than the knowledge it contains, for to echo the words of King Solomon as he wrote them is to speak with untold power. To read aloud from the tome is to channel the greatest Magus to have ever walked the earth, and in so doing ones mastery of the unholy magics contained within are every bit as absolute a the high King who was first entrusted to guard its baleful knowledge by God himself.
While many reproductions exist throughout the ages, translated and re-translated again and again as they lose more and more of their root's power, the original contains fathoms of knowledge that can be found nowhere else. Even those former holders of the tome foolish enough to transcribe its dangerous lore elsewhere knew better than to record the volume in full, and so within are contained innumerable feats of sorcery beyond the mere naming and describing of of the seventy two demons which can be found in the many derived works, considered too dangerous for their existence to be freely shared with mankind.
Its tattered pages are written in an odd and trance-like blend of Hebrew and Enochian, and in their words are detailed the secrets of all the planes of hell, the entities within whom are safe to traffic with, and the methods by which mortal men can summon and make servants of them... Or destroy them for their insolence in the face of the king of mages... and whatever can so much as harm a lord of the abyss will lay waste to anything of this world.
Even so the tome has greater value still than the knowledge it contains, for to echo the words of King Solomon as he wrote them is to speak with untold power. To read aloud from the tome is to channel the greatest Magus to have ever walked the earth, and in so doing ones mastery of the unholy magics contained within are every bit as absolute a the high King who was first entrusted to guard its baleful knowledge by God himself.