Sentient Artifacts (OpenMW)

Description

Artifacts now become truly unique magical items, as many of them will actually behave as if they had a mind on their own. With this mod, what was only just a bit of flavour text is turned into a gameplay system, with the aim of providing more challenge, variety and immersion to the game.

[]Ownership and abandonment system. When you start a new game, nothing really changes. Actually, nothing changes when you just pick up some artifact, either. The mod's system kicks in when you actually equip it. This marks the creation of a sort of bond between the player and the artifact. Removing the artifact from the inventory isn't enough to break it immediately, although after the grace period is over, leaving it somewhere for days actually increases the chance that the artifact will abandon you the next time you pick it up. Most of them don't like being ignored like that. There are some exceptions, as e.g. the Daedric Crescent Blade is pretty much used to being forgotten and the Staff of Magnus only cares about balance, but as a rule of thumb, if you leave the artifact unattended, it will become far more likely to abandon you over time. The abandonment chance also depends on artifact type, your stats and good old RNG. Some items may get partially depowered before they abandon you or provide other sort of debuff. Note that abandonment is permanent. Once the artifact is gone, it's gone.    [/]

[]Grace periods. Even though the mod is supposed to be challenging, I don't want to completely deprive the player of the opportunity to use a shiny new tool because of RNG. When you equip the artifact (which is a choice upon itself), you will have roughly from 30 to 60 days of total "safety" from abandonment. How long you have depends on the total number of artifacts you own and the artifact in question, as some of them have lower grace periods than the others. The exact number isn't shown in-game, as this kind of information is not really something the player is supposed to have, but sometimes various messages appear which may suggest that the bond with the artifact is fading. [/]

[*]Attunement. The mod isn't just about misery. Various artifacts receive new flavourful, lore-inspired abilities which are conditionally active. Warlock's Ring can provide regeneration if your Intelligence is high enough, the Bloodworm Helm can increase your Conjuration and Magicka if your Willpower can handle it, Spell Breaker can provide additional Reflect based on Block, Staff of Magnus can improve spellcasting abilities if it doesn't consider the player a danger to the mystical balance it's supposed to protect, Masque of Clavicus Vile can provide a Speechcraft bonus for a character with high enough Personality etc. None of these abilities are exceedingly powerful, but they are nice to have. The more artifacts you own, the harder these abilities become to maintain, and at some point they may be deacti