This item is quite different from the others that we have gathered data on. It has not uprooted history or broken nations. Despite that, it is one of the most significant finds that I have run across. I originally found the story about it from a personal journal retrieved from the Library of Alexandria, but how it had gotten there is as much a mystery as anything else. At first, it seemed to be fiction, but the more I read of it, the more convinced I became that these were words penned by truth and tragedy.

In the city of Spiros, there was an artificer named Tyson who was known for his unlimited skill, but severely limited wealth. While he was an accomplished academic, he had nothing to show for it aside from the esteem of his peers, not even a position that would fund his work. This changed when the matriarch of a major family saw his potential and chose to offer him patronage, under the arrangement that anything he produced belonged to her, a treasury to display just how much status she had and influence she could command. It was an acceptable arrangement for some time, but as he grew older, he began to feel the keen edge of solitude creeping upon him.

With nothing to his name, despite his new status, and nothing to truly call his own, he could think of only one thing he desired. He regretted that he had never had a child… and he knew of only one way that he could fill that hole in his life. He constructed a clockwork girl, a young lady that he could have as his own. In secret, he assembled her, and the final touch was the mystic coin that would make her so much more than a doll. Once the coin clicked into place, she was very nearly indistinguishable from a living child.

In months, she learned what children would in years, her maturity vastly outstripping her apparent age. She began to have dreams of her own, desires to see the world beyond her walls, but her father kept her close to him, his precious child, so that she could never be taken from him by the family whose wealth had paid for her construction.

But it didn’t matter. The matriarch learned of her and was delighted, ignoring the breach of his agreement. Tyson fought desperately against her claim, and for a time it seemed that the courts were split upon to whom she belonged. That alone was part of the problem though. To the matriarch she was an object, a trophy to sit prettily for visitors among an empty hall of like objects. To the artificer, she was his child, but she could never be anything more than a child. Her shape would forever taint the way that he could see her despite the yearning young woman she had actually become.

So she ran, but no matter the wisdom she possessed that gave lie to her age, she was still a fragile girl, a child in form and all too vulnerable. She was a delicate thing of clockwork and care, and when they finally found her… she had been broken. The matriarch got her doll, but none could repair her enough to live again. The only man with the skill enough to do so had crawled into a bottle and never left it.

The coin was displayed next to her body and its meaning was lost to the family that claimed ownership of her. And that is the end of the journal.

I don’t know how the story ends, but I feel we have to locate Spiros and take charge of such a precious life, if it still exists.

(The coin is made of some golden metal that I can’t identify, which bothers me more than it should, but the entire affair bothers me to begin with. Getting the coin was easy enough, but it really is a masterful work, the magics that make up Eirene’s mind and soul are still are strong as they must have been the day they were first placed into her shell. Sometimes, when I touch the coin I can still feel her in there, dreaming. It is… tragic beyond words that a life so unique and precious was cut off by the world's capricious whims.

I wish I could do something to help her.
-Maral)

<An excerpt from the journals of Raleris:
I have some trepidation in allowing Maral to keep Eirene’s coin. Given her past, the broad parallels with her own life, I think she may display far too much sympathy for the child, or… young lady I suppose if the journal is to be believed.

If Maral had more mechanical skill, I fear that she would likely work herself to death trying to restore Eirene. As it is, her specialty and usual obsessions have thankfully kept her from trying to undertake such a task, but… it bears a watchful eye.>

Also referenced as: The Wings of the Damned, the Daemoncloak, The Abyssal Cape
One of the oldest and most storied of the artifacts that has sprung from my research, it has carved a path through history in blood and darkness. I believe it very likely had a small part in the corruption of Dark Rabiah, though other forces that came later surely had a larger hand <or claw> in what it finally became. That is not the only scourge that it unleashed, as there is evidence, circumstantial though it may be, that its influence might very well have spawned a lineage of vampires upon the plane of Mireva.

Unlike the other relics, virtually every bearer of the darkmantle has been identified and the stories seen in its passing are horrific to consider. It has been in the hands of killers and despots, pirates, thieves, and warlords alike. It most often appears upon the shoulders of lords, surrounded by a seemingly limitless army of devils and horrors, but the tales do not specify if the mantle attracts evil creatures such as these, or if they spring from the relic itself.

Almost none that bore the darkmantle found a peaceful death, and it was often at covetous hands that they were unmade. There is only a single tale of a man willingly giving up the mantle, but what became of him is lost to the nebulous fog of history. <See attached notes>

The darkmantle is described as a cloak held together with a silver collar and pauldrons filigreed with the bones of demons. The pauldrons are decorated with gems made from the eyes of the same and the cloak itself is leather flayed from demons' living flesh. The darkness within the cape is near absolute. It is a primordially malevolent artifact, the darkest impulses of the horrid beings it was made from stitched together. It drives its bearer to indulge in any act that they desire, removing all inhibition and replacing it with an insatiable hunger for more.

The only thing we can say, is that though crafted from long dead demons, it has inherited their drives and desires. The host will inevitably become a slave to the power they bear.

(Addendum: The darkmantle is unbelievably old and even I can't be certain how ancient. There are notes Raleris found which stretch back over ten-thousand years, but even those suggest that it was created before that. Whatever hand made it obviously didn't use it immediately, which has disturbing implications for what they'd been doing with it before it escaped. Not to mention how disturbing it is that it probably planned its own liberation.

The darkmantle's abilities are drawn from the depths of its wielder's psyche, the devils that haunt them, the fears and malevolence that lurk in the shadows of a sane person's mind given flesh. This ability seems to be very similar to phenomenon we can observe in demons from across a number of worlds, however the effect it has on a mortal is disturbingly different than that of a demon. Bereft of their fears and darkest desires, it creates a void within its bearer that drives them to greater and greater depravity.

The increasing emptiness seems to make the wielder more susceptible to the cloak's whispers until they cede all control to the foul thing. This observation comes from both the study of the artifact itself as well as the firsthand observation of its previous owner. I still can't get near the damned thing without smelling his blood.
-Maral)