Artifacts

31 out of ??? Artifacts have been created so far.

The Artifacts are a set of ??? extremely powerful weaponised Relics made by the Great Kings, Aether and Akasha Tsuneo, over the course of 100 years. Each Artifact has a unique power. How exactly they were made is information lost to the ages. Tsunia is currently in possession of the most Artifacts, although the other eight regions do have some of their own.

History.
The first Artifacts were made as a celebration of the Great King's, and thus Tsunia's, power. After they terraformed Arcerra into a utopia, they worried that since Tsunia is surrounded by every other Region, they'd be suspect to attacks from their newly developing Arkin. They were right, other Arkin began to challenge the Great King's power. After the Delta and Gamma Artifacts, they begun to use the corpses of the Arkin they defeat to create more Artifacts with powers identical to their foes. After about 60 or so years of murdering Arkin and stuffing them into weapons, there were no more who dared try to fight the Great Kings, and so the Multi-Type Artifacts were discontinued. Although that left them at 69, so they created ??? more Artifacts to round it out at ???. Those are the modern Artifacts

Arcerra has been in a state of continent-wide peace since the start of the 4th Era, meaning that the Artifacts cannot serve their intended purpose anymore. That's a good thing. Tsunia keeps a hold of most of them and locks them away in chambers, unless an internal conflict requires the use of one to solve. Sure, they've been stolen time and time again; a lot of bad guys have their hands on more of them than you'd think. But the thing is...everyone, EVERYONE knows how dangerous the Artifacts are, for everyone involved, so most opt not to use them regardless of how evil they may be.

Affinity Requirements
To be able to use one with minimal strain, the user must have an Affinity matching the Element of the Artifact. This is not to say that they are easy to use in the first place; usage of Artifacts have a high risk of death.

The further your Affinity is from the one required by the Artifact, the more Flow the Artifact will drain from the user. The amount of additional Flow the Artifact drains goes up in a Fibonacci sequence for every element you move away from it's requirement. With the Element opposite the Affinity requirement draining 8x as much Flow than normal.

This is the Requirement Graph for Razer, an Artifact who's only Affinity requirement is Fire:

Make sense? Good.

Multi-Type Artifacts
Now. Some Artifacts don't follow this rule completely. Here's an example: This is the Requirement Graph for Dryad's Blessing, a Multi-Type Artifact with Affinity requirements of Earth and Water. Now, let me explain. With Multi-type Artifacts, the Affinity requirement in bold is the one that the Fibonacci sequence of additional Flow drainage starts from. The other Affinity Requirements have their values replaced with "Normal", as if they were the Artifact's Affinity requirement.

Let me show you another example. This is the Requirement Graph for Quantum Discord, the Portal Artifact.

It's Affinity requirements are Sand, Fire, and Wind

Modern Artifacts
Straying even further from the rules, Modern Artifacts don't even have Affinity Requirements. Mages of all Affinities can use it equally. Yay.

Usage and Limitations
The strength of Artifacts is beyond the reach of mortals. There isn't a man Alive that could achieve the same things these weapons can.

The main material used when creating Artifacts is Compressed Flow Crystal, the only known material capable of withstanding an Artifact's unreal Power Consumption; they are entirely fueled by Life Essence. Also they need a lot of programming and thus need a lot of Life essence to store all that information.

Using an Artifact drains a person's Flow and requires it to be of any use. They are densely packed with Life Essence. If a person attempts to use one without mentally and physically preparation, they will die.

If you overuse an Artifact too much, all the life essence will be depleted and it will stop working. Forever. Although in order to counter this, The Great Kings had implemented a system in every Artifact that makes overuse virtually impossible. Plus I doubt that'd happen for another 3 eras or so

Types of Artifacts
The Great Kings never intended for Artifacts to have any sort of grouping system; they envisioned every Artifact being completely unique to itself with minimal similarities, ability-wise, to other Artifacts. But they inevitably created a trend with the functionalities of artifacts as the decades went on.

So, even if these differences are minor, here are the five types of Artifacts created by the Great Kings.

Delta
first 8 inorganic. first 8 in general. strongest in terms of raw power. little to no sophistication to them (with Polychrome burst being a minor exception) because they're essentially prototypes they drain flow the fastest.

you need an affinity matching the element of the delta to use it properly.

Gamma
first 8 organic. 9th-16th artifacts. all use pieces from life essence based lifeforms (region tyrants, predaters)

the same Affinity requirements as deltas

Multi-Type
pretty balanced in terms of power and sophistication.

you need an affinity matching one of the three elements the multi-type possesses.

Modern
said to be "Weaker"(That's relative) but possess much more utility than the other three types.

There are no affinity requirements to speak of; anyone can use them -Best Aesthetic Design.

Organic Artifacts
Some Artifacts were made out of the Corpses of animals or people. These Artifacts are called Organic Artifacts and are used more like puppets than they are weapons. The organic parts of the Artifact are bound to the compressed Ethr Crystal "core" like flesh on bone, which makes them relatively lighter than their inorganic counterparts. Organic Artifacts can be injured. If this happens while in use, it will drain it's user's Flow until it can repair itself sufficiently. Whoever's unlucky enough to have this happen to them will usually die from Flow Deprivation,

Effect that True Power has on Artifacts
Artifacts technically aren't meant to drain the user's Flow. They only do this when the person using is genetically dissimilar to the Great Kings. The less descended you are from the Great Kings, the more Flow the Artifact will drain from you. This is why the Distinguished Families of Tsunian Nobility have such a hard time using them. However, the your True Power % is the same as how similar you are to the Great Kings, as far as the Artifacts are concerned. The more True Power you have, the easier you'll be able to use Artifacts. When it comes to a distinguished who also has a high amount of True Power, both effects basically cancel each other out.

Artifacts Created so far
Listed by Artifact Type (Delta>Gamma>Multi-Type>Modern)

Further listed by Affinity Requirement (Fire>Steam>Water>Ice>Wind>Sand>Earth>Lava)

Trivia
These things take a very long time to develop into a weapon that im satisfied with. Sometimes they're too weak and I have to scrap them and add their powers to other Artifacts, or demote them into Relics, or give the concept of it's powers to a Predater because they're too vague.

If I had to think of the first 10 that I made in no specific order because i dont actually remember:

Razer, Dustnado Blaster, Vibe, Mega Fruit, Power/Doom Fists, Chord, Arcanum Hypnosis, Medusa's Eye, Clarity, Dryad's Blessing.