[OSSR]Indiana Jones Artifacts

[Ancient History]

Indiana Jones Artifacts


I have decided to dig out this book, considered by some the scarcest and most valuable of the Indiana Jones RPG books, which I purchased back when I was young and willing to buy anything related to Indiana Jones. That was one movie and a lifetime ago.


Case in point.

This book came out in 1996 and was released for West End Games under the MasterBook system, but during the changeover to the d6 system. This almost made me put it back in the box, because I was pretty sure I no longer own the MasterBook system. I thought I sold it or gave it away or something years ago, because it was rubbish. Then I dug deeper into the box.


Oh dark gods, I forgot there were cards.

Like Basic Role Playing, MasterBook is generic system used as the common game engine for five licensed properties: Indiana Jones, Bloodshadows, Tank Girl, Species, and Necroscope. That's....I don't know. That's just a lot to take in.

Mechanically, it falls somewhere post-AD&D and GURPS. That's not actually very helpful, is it? It's got a lot of procedural character generation, quite a bit of multiplication and division in the formulas, you pick options from tables, you roll dice and consult a table to see what bonus you get to add to your skill/attribute rating and compare that with the Difficulty Number, then based on that you consult Success Chart.

At this point you're probably wondering about the cards. Every player is dealt $TEXAS cards at the beginning of a session, which they can play whenever they're not in combat. Some of these work like Action Points in Eberron, giving you temporary but significant bonuses to various actions; others are subplot cards that act like Clue points in Bookhounds, modifying the story somewhat by throwing a twist into the plot. So, for example, if you play the Romance card, your character attracts a romantic interest with an NPC. And if you or someone else play the Campaign card on top of that, the subplot becomes permanent.

You can see what's going on here, right? I don't have to spell it out for you? It's a generically too damn complicated system made by people that thought consulting tables and charts to see what your dice roll means was de rigueur. It isn't a skeleton of a decent game system with lots of fiddly bits, it is ALL FIDDLY BITS. It's the worst parts of Shadowrun.

That is now the sum fucking total I want to discuss the MasterBook system until/unless it's relevant for the book. There's a bunch of "Special Effects" which represent different forms of magic, super-science, faith, etc. in the game, but to be completely honest the World of Indiana Jones tends to do its own thing with all of those, because different people were writing different books and nobody really wanted to use the standard SFX (or maybe didn't know how they worked; I would believe either).

So! Artifacts.


I've actually given considerable thought to getting one of those fertility idol facsimiles. Because it would look cool on the shelf.

Unlike a lot of games, you're on fairly solid ground mucking about with artifacts in Indiana Jones. Raiders of the Lost Ark involved the Ark of the Covenant (and, as a warm-up, the Headpiece of Ra); Temple of Doom had the remains of Mujaji and the Sankara Stones; Last Crusade had the Holy Grail; and there was no fourth movie! Really, all of the Indiana Jones movies and most of the derivative properties were based on action archaeologist traipsing throughout the world, stealing shit which may or may not have magical powers.



Normally in RPGs when you hear the word "artifact," you're thinking of something like this:



And, indeed, most books along this line are "big collection of magical items." But Indiana Jones Artifacts is a little different because it deals mainly with real-world or historical artifacts, albeit with a few twists. The books is divvied up into an Introduction, five chapters (Africa, The Americas, Asia, Europe, and The Middle East) and in appendix on how to convert MasterBook stats into d6 stats, just in case you want to convert some of this crap to work as Force artifacts in West End's terrible Star Wars RPG.


LucasFilm Ltd., you have chosen...poorly.

So I'm going to cover the Introduction, and call it a night. We'll get to actual artifacts tomorrow.

The production team for this book was five people. Two guys wrote it, then one get edited it and wrote some more stuff. Two guys did the black-and-white interior illustrations, and three people are credited with "maps and diagrams. This was all done in some way early layout software, which means you have kind of a sparse but workable two-column format. Game information is contained in shaded boxes, game fluff and hand-drawn illustrations are in these little computer-generate boxes made to look like torn leaves from a lined-paper notebook with tanned edges. It's not great - it sure as hell looks dated, even by the bizarre reality that was 1996 - but it is, maybe amazingly, very readable. I can't actually complain about the format. The art isn't great by any shakes, but then you're talking about hand-drawn black-and-white sketches of peaches and swords and shit reproduced on computer-generated notebook paper.

Like this, but with a ragged edge on the left. Now pretend Earl Grier doodled on it.

The Introduction is a whopping three pages long - well, two and a half, because the first page is half taken up by the title "Introduction" floating in an endless white field. Maybe two pages if you take out the two little notebook pages full of fluff text floating around. Definitely less than 1k total words.

The About This Book is fairly straight forward. Refreshingly so.

The bulk of this book comes from the log/journal of an unknown archaeologist. While much of the journal is unreadable due to stains, tears, and wear, the salvageable portions provide useful information about the artifacts of the world at the time of Indiana Jones. Certain pages of this journal appear throughout this book, including personal notes on the progress of the archaeologist's journey, sketches of the detailed artifacts, and maps leading to secret stores of treasure.

Each artifact entry is divvied up into two sections, often with no break between them, though the shaded portions are "game master" information and deal with stats and suchlike. The player's portion has:

Value: What the artifact will sell for in 1930s dollars.
Mystical: Yes/No. Whether or not the artifact is associated with any supernatural powers or phenomena.
Last Known Location: 'nuff said
Description: ditto
History: same
Rumors and Legends: Fun stuff.

The gamemaster section includes Powers (what it says on the tin), Wanted By (the parties and groups interested in the artifact) and Adventure Ideas (tin).

This is actually a rather neat and straightforward format, the kind of thing I'd like to see more actual artifacts display. D&D sort of lost its way in this regard, caring more about the powers of the artifacts and their supposed indestructibility than giving the GM or players any material to help them track the fuckers down or expand on their history and lore a little.

The first little notebook entry describes this as "the Smithsonian's Artifact Template AZ/490.1" and goes on to say:

While I understand the need for such standardization, I maintain the belief that the artifacts I og herein will oftentimes defy such categorization.

These term papers still haven't been graded.

The rest of the introduction is some GM pep-talk on using artifacts and this book in their campaign (i.e. start point - go fetch! or end point - We've got it, come on!)


She thought she'd found a prize![/img]

Best part of this section, the end:

There is only one tenet to keep in mind if you want to run a successful Indiana Jones game: Make sure everyone (including yourself) has fun!

This is followed by the understandable but weaksauce part:

The artifacts presented here are not meant to remain in the hands of the characters. Just like Indiana Jones never retained possession of the Ark of the Covenant, the Sankara Stone, or the Holy Grail, so the player characters should in some way be coerced or forced to give up their finds.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the thematic point of this bit. The players of the World of Indiana Jones aren't intended to be AD&D "heroes" gathering magic bling. Indiana Jones does not collect the Infinity Stones and rule the Universe.



That said, it feels like an artificial limitation. Because in pulp stories, pulp heroes tend to gain and lose magic artifacts, or maybe entrust them to other people to guard (it belongs in a museum!), but losing the artifact and/or getting it back usually becomes the subject of the next adventure. Granted, World of Indiana Jones caters to fairly narrow definition of pulp hero. It's a very small step sideways from here to the Call of Cthulhu setting.

And to cap off this Introduction, the Final Note:

Unless otherwise stated, the artifacts contained herein are fictional. They were created from the rumors, legends, and myths of the world. Though some of these artifacts may have existed, their powers and abilities are unsubstantiated.

This is basically a project memo that says "Hey guys, we need a gigantic cover-our-ass statement right here."

Next up: Africa!


Some things gain something in the translation.

[hyzmarca]

Like Basic Role Playing, MasterBook is generic system used as the common game engine for five licensed properties: Indiana Jones, Bloodshadows, Tank Girl, Species, and Necroscope. That's....I don't know. That's just a lot to take in.

Does this mean that it's possible to run a game in which Indiana Jones is raped by an fast-growing extraterrestrial babe and their hybrid offspring attempt to exterminate humanity but are instead thwarted by inter-dimensional vampires in post-apocalyptic Australia?

[Ancient History]

It's not actually designed for cross-pollination but...conceivably? Keep in mind, this is the same company that brought you this:

[Leress]

I personally would not mind an Indiana Jones X Tank Girl.

[OgreBattle]

Do they have stats for savage brown jungle people in the bestiary portion of the book?

[Ancient History]

No, that's in Magic & Mysticism of the Dark Continent.

[Stinktopus]

Do they have stats for savage brown jungle people in the bestiary portion of the book?

They're just Fighters with no gear and crummy Fort saves.

[RelentlessImp]

I contend this would have been more fun a movie than The Movie That Doesn't Exist.

[ScottS]

Temple of Doom had the remains of Mujaji

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurhaci

[Ancient History]

I knew I got that wrong, and I was too lazy to google.

[Rawbeard]

soooo... what does this book say about crystal skulls?

[Ancient History]

Not much. Sorry for the delay, real life got in the way. Anyway, we start out with...

Africa



Given the format, the information density in this book is somewhat low. Each chapter is about 20 pages long (except Europe, which is 40 pages), and covers something less than one artifact per three pages. So the entire continent of Africa gets 5 artifacts that cover Egypt to South Africa. It goes into some considerable detail about each of those artifacts, but it's important to realize that this isn't the Enyclopedia Magica.

The first artifact is the Ankh of Osiris. This is a solid choice, but it immediately runs into the problem that under the entry for "Value," it reads "Priceless." Well, thanks. That's terrifically helpful. Despite the artifact being the Ankh (which is so popular that there's even a D&D version of it), most of the entry is about the Sphinx, which is supposed to have a secret chamber where the Ankh is hidden.

Power-wise, the Ankh is a gatekeeper mechanism: you grab it and need to succeed at a bad-ass Confidence test or you get consumed by holy fire (and have to pass another test at that point to drop the fucking thing), definitely one of those "here, catch!" artifacts like the old Alignment regalia. If you do manage to hold onto it without becoming deep-fried infidel, you get to generate a light that drives off the unquiet dead (zombies, spirits, ghosts, etc.) and raise the dead (once).

Adventure ideas include a cult (the Order of the Crimson Oak), a noted Egyptologist getting mauled by an invisible animal, and the Spirit of the Sphinx. Workable.

Throughout this book - one for each chapter - there are "maps." These aren't traditional X-marks-the-spot maps, these are more like illustrated puzzles full of numbers and symbols that take up an entire page, with a little line at the bottom giving you permission to photocopy them for personal use. On the facing page are notes on how to use the map. So for the first one, we get:

Using the Map
The sketch consists of a glove, a cross indicating the north and east directions, a tarot card spread, and the central elements from two tarot cards: the Devil and the Lovers. The solution to the map is: 15 degrees north latitude, sex degrees east longitude, the location of the ankh's supposed burial place near the town of Tahou in the nation of Niger in Africa.

The Devil, which has a tarot card value of 15, is pointing down, indicating latitude. One of the Lovers, tarot card value six, is pointing across, indicating longitude.

The dotted lines on the globe should offer a hint to the solution, but it should take the characters some time to solve the riddle. Any scholar of Gypsy lore or tarot card reader will immediately mention that the Devil and the Lovers are images from tarot cards and that each has a number associated with it.

It is left to the gamemaster to decide whether this map actually leads to the ankh. Of course, it may be just an old legend, or a deliberate fake, or even a trap for the player characters.

I had forgotten Gypsy Lore was a thing in MasterBook.

This is pretty typical of things, really; I like the idea of weird hidden-information map handouts, although I would probably have liked more information on who made the map and why.

Next up is The Armor of Alexander the Great, which is also priceless but not mystical, which means that the power entry reads:

The armor is not magical. If worn, it grants a protection of TOU+5/20. The armor's only extraordinary feature is the prestige it would give to an aspiring empire builder. The benefits, however, are not quantifiable.

The winner for this entry might be the "Wanted By" section, which acknowledges:

Germany, Italy, and Japan all desire the armor. Naturally, this is supreme egotism at work. All three leaders, Hitler, Mussolini, and Minister Tojo, seek to carve out an empire...

It's slightly better than this. It notes that for Tojo to make sense, the campaign has to take place in 1938 or later.

The Headress of Shaka Zulu is worth $5,000 to an interested buyer, which because this is the 1930s includes "Several nationalistic African groups, especially in Abyssinia, East Africa, Italian and French Somaliland, and Belgian Congo" and "The Governments of Germany, Italy, Britain, France, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal (in other words, all the nations with African colonies), have also devoted effort to locating the headdress [...] They do not wish to display it in a museum, however. They want to find it and destroy it, denying the indigenous peoples of Africa a rallying symbol."

That's...startlingly accurate, probably. No real complaints.



On the stranger side of things, the Sandals of Mohammed ($30,000)! There's actually an entire sidebar that gives a relatively NPOV take on Islam, which is kind of impressive. The special powers of the Sandals are that anyone with at least one add in faith:Islam gets some minor bonuses while wearing them; the downside is a curse, where if you wear them for a total of 52 days you get a disease that slowly kills you unless you take them off.

Some of these adventure seeds aren't terrible good, either:

The characters hear of the rumored whereabouts of the sandals in Libya. Unfortunately, there is one major problem: Libya is under Italian control in the '30s and early '40s. During the latter time period, the desert war is raging, with Rommel and Montgomery's armies battling back and forth across the northern African coast. To get the sandals, the characters must overcome Arab bandits, Italian armed forces, and, if set in the early '40s, Rommel's Afrika Corps.

While history buffs probably appreciate this, the fact is I'm 99% damn sure the World of Indiana Jones never had support for Rommel's Afrika Corps, and minus that this seed is mostly some drunk guy in the bar pointing in the general direction of Libya and saying "Yeah, you see all that fighting? The sandals are over there. Now fuck on out."

The last artifact for Africa is The Statue of Anansi ($150,000), a solid gold statue of a spider with a man's head, I don't think anybody did the math right because this is supposed to be 75 centimeters tall and weigh 70 kilograms; that's about 3.6k cm^3, which means a rectangular prism 75 cm tall would have a base of about 48 cms, or about 7 cm on a side. That's a tall, skinny, man-headed solid gold spider statue, is what I'm getting at.

Bizarrely, while not "mystical" the statue nevertheless has a curse. Or it's supposed to have a curse; the entry mentions that many people think there's a curse and bad luck and death follow it, but there's no actual curse, except may Anansi playing his tricks again. That's less than helpful.

Mostly though, this is a solid gold whatsit that you're supposed to steal from brown people, or else steal from someone that stole it from brown people and return it to the original brown people.


Sound familiar?

Next up: The Americas!

[hyzmarca]

You know, these artifacts don't really seem like the sorts of things that you can make Indiana Jones movies about. They're not the big massive slaughter entire armies and make Hitler immortal sorts of things that you find in Raiders and Last Crusade. They're more like the Sakara Stones, and frankly, Temple of Doom was the weakest of the trilogy. I'd expect something like these to be in the cold open, rather than the meat of the adventure.

[Shady314]

Yeah why are any of these artifacts non-mystical? If they're non mystical you're just a regular archeologist.

[Ancient History]

Pretty typical, actually; WoIJ was very much on the historical wargamer roleplayer end of the Pulp RPG scale.

[maglag]

Using the Map
The sketch consists of a glove, a cross indicating the north and east directions, a tarot card spread, and the central elements from two tarot cards: the Devil and the Lovers. The solution to the map is: 15 degrees north latitude, sex degrees east longitude, the location of the ankh's supposed burial place near the town of Tahou in the nation of Niger in Africa.

The Devil, which has a tarot card value of 15, is pointing down, indicating latitude. One of the Lovers, tarot card value six, is pointing across, indicating longitude.

The dotted lines on the globe should offer a hint to the solution, but it should take the characters some time to solve the riddle. Any scholar of Gypsy lore or tarot card reader will immediately mention that the Devil and the Lovers are images from tarot cards and that each has a number associated with it.

It is left to the gamemaster to decide whether this map actually leads to the ankh. Of course, it may be just an old legend, or a deliberate fake, or even a trap for the player characters.

That's quite an interesting coordinate system.

[Ancient History]

The Americas
This chapter suffers from the existence of an Indiana Jones ripoff franchise.



The problem isn't that the National Treasure movies aren't entertaining; Nick Cage will cheerfully ham his way through any film. The problem is that the two films deal with treasures that put the ones in this treasure in the shade. We've already had a couple people note that these artifacts, "realistic" as some of them are, just aren't much to get worked up about. That's a pretty dire indictment of the basic premise for this book; if you can't bring us the artifacts that will plausibly motivate Nazi recovery teams and fez-wearing secret cults, you've basically failed no matter how detailed the history or decent the adventure seeds.



Things don't start off well. Our first artifact is The Hammer of John Henry ($5,000).



I'll be honest, the best part of this entry is the following comic book-style legend:

A second hammer may exist. Rumors suggest that the workers carried the second hammer to the end of the railroad, at which point it disappeared. Should the two hammers be reunited, the dormant power within each may come to life.

The whole section is more than a little tone-deaf; the "history" of John Henry is a sparse three paragraphs, and the best they can hint at the possible significance of this particular entry is:

Unfortunately, there are people who would deprive African Americans of any heroes, or of any evidence that such heroes existed. Several hate groups in the United States want to find the hammer and destroy it to prevent the black population from "getting too uppitty and proud."

Let's be honest: the 1920s and 30s saw the second Ku Klux Klan at the height of its power and political influence. Fucking Superman fought "The Klan of the Fiery Cross." We know who the assholes are here. Don't beat around the bush.

Also, for whatever it's worth, pretty much every adventure seed involves digging up John Henry or otherwise accessing his gravesite.



There are no crystal skulls in this book. This is the best I can say about it, really. There is a carved mineral head created by the Arecuna of South America, and The Image of Cachime is worth $125,000 (the ruby eyes alone are worth $50k apiece.) Again, the book isn't really good at handling...well...cultures.

Several times a year, the men and women of the tribes seclude themselves, conducting ceremonies that result in the complete inebriation of all present. When all is in readiness, four priests with intricate patterns painted on their faces disguise themselves in animal pelts and feathers. The priests approach the cave where the image is kept, their disguises intended to lull the image into false comfort. Once inside, they grab the image and carry it out, where the tribe gathers around it in a tight circle. The people then dance wildly around the image, calling upon it to lend its blessings to those present. At the completion of the ceremony (with all present exhausted), the priests return the image to the cave, and then remove their disguises and bathe. Whether this is a fertility rite, or a coming-of-age ceremony is uncertain: the entire tribe participates, with little distinction between young and old.

This is pretty bad. Also, it basically sounds like a tailgate kegger. It's the kind of weirdly stilted crap that passes for anthropology in the 1910s, when Joseph Campbell would dissect any little celebration as a remnant of some unspeakably ancient and profound primitive fertility rite.



Jim Bowie's Knife ($5,000; $25k in Texas - no, I didn't make that up) is the prototype of the knife made famous by Jim Bowie, and "it is an item of much pride to the Teans, a symbol to rally around. The possessor of the knife gains a +5 bonus to his Charisma when in Texas, provided he wears it openly."

The Texans angle is pretty much the thing and the whole of the thing for the entry, where the writer seriously adds. "If loyal Texans learn that Bowie's first knife exists, they will go after it." Seriously, the whole fucking thing is basically about trying to steal this knife back from the descendant of the Mexican officer that took it off Bowie's body as spoils of war. You'd think they'd maybe trade it for Santa Anna's Leg.

I know they're trying to be "serious" and "realistic" with these entries, keeping the mystical powers to a bare minimum, but I have to admit I would love a game where Santa Anna's Leg worked like the fucking Hand of Vectra, giving you the powers of a legendary Mexican general. It's just a lot more interesting than an adventure seed where to stop Texas from seceding you need to go down to Mexico and steal a knife.

The Mantle of Quetzalcoatl ($120,000 for chest, $50k for mantle) is a long flowing gown in a chest of solid gold which once again proves that the writer can't really do basic math, since it's supposed to be 75 cm x 100 cm x 30 cm and still weight fifty kilograms. However, probably the most hilarious part of this entry is in the "History" section:

Some tales told by New Spain monks link Quetzalcoatl with the Apostle St. Thomas, who supposedly journeyed to the American continents to bring the word of Christ. That Quetzalcoatl was perhaps a white man is lent credibility by many ancient Mexican paintings, which depict him with white skin.

I'd fault them for including this if, well, it wasn't an authentic bit of bullshit. Seriously, the real world makes fiction look unimaginative.

Metacom's War Club ($10,000) is a Native American shillelagh, the most interesting part of which is the last sentence, probably added shortly before the book went to print but after the rest of the section was written:

Note: Metacom's War Club was discovered in 1995 at an antique shop in Massachusetts.

And it looks a damn sight better than the illustration in the book.

The Mirror of Tezcatlipoca ($100,000) is, finally, an actual mystical artifact for the Americas, and basically acts like a crystal ball that "enables the viewer to watch any mortal in the world" that they've met.

The mirror is the ultimate espionage tool. The United States wants it. Britain wants it. France wants it. Nazi Germany wants it Japan wants it. Italy wants it. Spain wants it. Organized crime figures in the United States want it. In fact, anyone in power who knows of the artifact's existence wants it.

This is one of the few times that this is probably true; this is, in fact, the only artifact in the whole chapter you could plausibly build a campaign around. Fun stuff!


Things I learned today: "Obsidian Mirror" is also an Aztec-themed anime-style yaoi webcomic that appears on the first page of Google Image Search results.

Raven's Beak ($10,000 to museums, $5,000 to the Makah tribe) is described as mortal remains of culture hero Raven; the artist apparently had other plans, and drew it as a kind of shield. You don't really care either way.

The Saber of Simon Bolivar ($25,000)...isn't a legendary artifact, it's already in a museum for fuck's sake.



I'm a little pissed at this, because while it's easy to wiki this stuff in this day and age, you'd think they would have put a little more research into the basics of this crap, or at least made the mythical version different enough from the real version that it becomes fun and exciting. As it is, this is like the Crusades OSSR all over again.

The Spear of Illapu ($500,000) weighs twelve kilograms and is described as "golden." I don't know why the writer thinks this is worth half a million 1930s dollars but Armor of Alexander the Great is priceless. It's not mystical. It's just a heavy piece of bling. In any proper universe, trying to use the thing for combat would probably damage it irreparably.



There's a basic discrepancy here in that just because you're talking about artifacts which originate from or are historically associated with a certain geographic region doesn't mean they have to stay there. There's no reason some of these things couldn't have been picked up by the Spanish, sent back to Spain and lost, for example. I like that there's a general multi-cultural vibe and these artifacts aren't solely geared toward the United States (although poor Canada gets no artifacts at all - maybe we should start an internet sourcebook to create some. The eternal decanter of maple syrup might be improbable, but I'm sure we can think of something.) But even the three that aren't uniquely associated with various Native American cultures are a bit ass in terms of making a solid plot out of. I just find it really hard to believe that Texas is going to secede over Jim Bowie's knife.

Anyway, next up: Asia

[hyzmarca]

Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
Westward from the Davis Strait 'tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient for which so many died;
Seeking gold and glory, leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_7Pv5YshQ8

Due South with the protagonists going on a quest to find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea. That's suitably epic. It might just be a grave in the middle of the wilderness, but there is a song about it. Songs make everything more epic.

[Leress]

The Mirror of Tezcatlipoca

Oh shit, it's the smoking mirror from Broken Sword 2.

[Ancient History]

Asia


Wrong franchise!

Asia is big, and full of ancient civilizations, and so perhaps naturally it has more pages than the previous chapters. Literally, Africa was 13 pages, the Americas were 20 pages, and Asia is 26 pages. Europe gets 40 pages, which makes me think this book was written pretty much in linear order, where the first artifact you see is the first artifact they thought of. On the other hand, they appear to be using a fairly generous definition of Asia, since it also appears to include...Australia.


Pictured: Not Asia

The Adze of Apekura ($25,000) is a mystical artifact from the Marquesas.


I would not have claimed that as part of "Asia."

The mystical power of the Adze of Apekura is its ability to carve any item from wood that the wielder desires.

At this point, I should point out that this is an adze:



So "being able to carve shit from wood" isn't a magic power, exactly. It's sort of the point. You can google "wooden dildo" yourself for the "desires' part. The only real advantage the adze gives is that if you pass the willpower test to activate it, it carves at the rate of two cubic meters per minute. That's a lot of wooden dildo! Doesn't exactly help you out if you're on, say, Easter Island where there are no trees, but it's a mystical artifact at least.

While some of these items may not seem important in the overall scheme of things, they may have some unknown properties that could tip the balance against the Allies in the coming conflict.

Sure. Maybe the Japanese will ally with Groot from Planet X, and only the Adze of Apekura can defeat him.


Groot was not always a lovable twig, you bastards. Disney got to him.

The Dream Map of the Aborigines ($1,000) is also not in Asia, and is also Mystical. It makes me think maybe this chapter wasn't written by the same person as the last two. Or maybe there was a separate Pacific chapter that was merged into this one. Anyway, the map lets you meditate on the sky and slip into the Dream Lands, which is mechanically the same as playing an Idea card. That is the PC version of "Get A Clue Free Card," instead of going directly to Suck Mister Cavern's Cock.

If the Japanese manage to get the map, it ould lead to an exciting chase across the desert to a waiting Japanese seaplane, which will then rendezvous with an Imperial Japanese Navy seaplane tender, the Chiyoda.

The Chiyoda is presumably serving Japanese bento lunches, with Japanese rice and Japanese sushi.

The Drum of Kadakalan ($Priceless) is a mystical artifact from the island of Mindoro in the Philippines. WTF, we're three-for-three on the mystical items here, and once again we're not even in Asia proper. Anyway, the Drum has two magic powers: 1) if you hit it, it is very loud, deafening and disorienting people within 250 meters.



2) - and I love this so much I have to quote it:

If the drum is struck during a raging storm, a large, glowing dog appears and obeys the will of the drummer for up to three minutes.

Wow. So loyal.

As far as "random magic powers" go, I fully approve of random glowy animal summonings.

The I-Ching of Confucius ($250,000) is actually not mystical and also distinctly Asian, which makes me think we are probably back to the author of the first two chapters. Despite not being mystical, you can still use the I-Ching for divination, like you do in real life. Like in real life, this is an excuse for the invisible world to fuck with you.

The I-Ching cannot fortell the future; rather, it provides guidance. For example, the user might ask, "Should I seek the Spear of Illapu?" Based on the biorhythms of the user, the I-Ching offers a thought-provoking question/answer: "Is it worth risking your soul?"

The katana of Nobunaga ($45,000) is also not mystical, but is very very historical, so I have no idea why it is supposed to be located in Hong Kong.


Aside: Why is this not a standing attraction at a theme park? Seriously, I know people like to go to Universal Studios and Disney for the rides and shit, but wouldn't it be nice to walk through a faux-city with all your favorite bars and stuff recreated in painstaking historical detail, and period cosplay is explicitly encouraged?

The Katana has a pretty good damage rating, although surprisingly less than the mystical adze from earlier. In a rare moment, there's an actual tie-in to the movies:

The katana lies in the back room of a Hong Kong pawn shop owned by a Chinese gang. An associate of Lao, the gangster boss at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom owns the shop and plans to melt down the sword to prevent the Japanese from laying hold of it.

The Mirror of Amaterasu ($250,000 - these numbers are completely random) and yes, mystical. One of the three Imperial Treasures of Japan, at least this incarnation of the artifact isn't racist. This was basically a refugee from somebody's home D&D campaign, because three times a day the Mirror can blaze forth pure, golden sunlight...which is an attack that deals a base 18 damage and bypasses armor. Also, presumably, super-effective against vampires.


At least I don't sparkle.

It also interacts with the stupid MasterBook card mechanic, which sadens me.

Mortar and Pestle of Baba Yaga ($5,000), mystical...wait, seriously?


$5k seems low. Death metalheads would easily bid $50k, or the equivalent in Nazi memorabilia.

Despite a bizarre legend that confuses the mortar and pestle with Strega Nona's pot...


I can't be the only one that remembers this.

...it's basically a flying boat...thing. You sit in it and paddle along through the air with the pestle. I suppose if you're pretty good about it, and you have a small gunner, it would make an interesting low-radar-profile slow-moving aircraft. Also, it comes with some weird restrictions on who can own and use it. My favorite of which is:

If the items are found by non-Communist Russians who live in or around Kiev, the spirit of Baba Yaga races in on a cold wind, takes away the mortar and pestle, and leaves hind a pile of warm, delicious cakes.

If timed for when your mom takes the cupcakes out of the oven, this would be the best ending to an adventure of all time.

The adventure ideas are a bit lacking, however. One of them is seriously just a Library Use check:

Passages found in Russian books in Kiev's library mention the mortar and pestle. A successful research against a difficulty of 18 reveals the location of Baba Yaga's prized possessions.

The Peaches of Hsi Wang Mu ($Priceless, mystical) are best remembered in a frankly pornographic series in one of Alan Moore's comics, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier.


Okay, so they have a couple thousand years in Chinese myth and legend too.

Long story short: eat a peach, become immortal. As with many RPG methods of obtaining immortality, this seems too easy, so first you have to survive super dysentery (okay, 10 rounds of damage value 15) first. Secrets of Japan had something similar going on with their paths to immortality. And there's a catch: every two years, you have to return and eat another peach. So you're trading mortality for peach addiction, and there is no twelve-step program.



The Skull of the Muumuu ($50,000) is located in Guadalcanal, pre-U.S. Marines invasion, and is the skull of any member of a race of giant, cannibalistic hominids trapped on the island after the route to their underground kingdom collapsed. That's just kinda fucking sad. It's like going to find the skull of the last remaining hobbit.

This item is mostly interesting for having one highly-detailed adventure seed, which starts out bizarrely:

Indiana Jones calls the favors and asks them for a favor. [...] Though Indy can't offer any payment to the characters, they can earn his gratitude, which may prove more valuable than any amount of money.

This is somewhere between fanboy squee and terribad. Well, at least Indy isn't a pedophile. Thanks, George Lucas!


I loved this as a young'un.

Sun-tzu's "The Art of War" ($100,000) - the original version of the popular book on strategy and tactics which is now available everywhere. There's a note that the original edition was discovered in the ealry 1870s in a tomb near Linyi.

The Tapa Mallet of Hina ($10,000) - Non-mystical blunt instrument from Tahiti. Boring.

The Trident of Shiva ($Priceless, mystical). Keep in mind that this entry was written post-Temple of Doom but in-character pre-Indian independence. Anyway, it's pretty badass if you have enough adds in faith: Hindu. No actual tie-ins to the Temple of Doom, and I can't say that's a bad thing.

The War Bow of Gwau Meo ($25,000, mystical). From Mala Island in the Pacific which is again, notAsia! Unlocking the bow's power requires the relatively rare scholar: Melanesian mythology skill, which means your PC is never going to unlock the sweet ability to sacrifice a Life Point for an automatic hit with a fucking bow and arrow.

I don't know what to say, except I think this chapter is where things jumped the shark for the book. You still don't have a lot of artifacts worth getting hot and bothered about, a lot of them are mystical (if not terribly good), and most of them are explicitly not in fucking Asia. One thing I've been thinking about this book is that it could be the raw material for a game where everybody starts out with an artifact, basically playing a low-level pulp hero of some sort. That would allow you to build your character around using the Spear of Shiva or whatever to its fullest potential, you'd have your own individual enemies, and your group could team up together to plausibly defeat Nazis and stuff as a team of secret Allied agents.


Just sayin'

Next up: Europe!

[Ancient History]

Europe
I won't lie to you, Europe gets some of the better artifacts.



First up is The Aegis, Shield of Athena and Zeus ($Priceless, mystical). It has some fun powers, for those that have mastered scholar: Greek mythology, like the ability to raise storms and the expected ability to turn those who look at it to stone (although the Willpower test to resist is rather mediocre, even if you succeed you're at a disadvantage against the shield-wielder, unless you yourself are facing them with a mirror, which would make for an interesting combat.)

Next up is the Black Cauldron Cauldron of Regeneration ($700,000, mystical.) A Celtic artifact with a long history. Unlike the usual use of the cauldron in the works of Lloyd Alexander, this one actually revives the dead, rather than create undead. This makes it patently better in many respects than the ankh, because it is multiple-use.



You can sort of tell that this is written by the same person as some of the others because it mentions the Dark Pentacle, an occult group which I think they were trying to establish as a Big, Recurring Deal, but which as far as I'm aware never went anywhere beyond this book.

The Cornucopia, or Horn of Plenty ($Priceless, mystical) - lot of Greek artifacts in this chapter, somebody was getting their money's worth out of Bulfinch's Mythology. It's power is that if you hold it, name a food, and pass a Confidence test, it becomes overflowing with that foodstuff. I would probably have this thing in New York during Prohibition, spitting out pre-War scotch, but that's just me.

With all the Greek items, the writer is also pushing a "mini-campaign":

As part of a Greek mini-campaign, linking other items in this book, or as a stand-along adventure, the quest for the Cornucopia offers an encounter with a creature from Greek mythology: the legendary Minotaur. As agents of either the Greek or U.S. government, the adventures would end up on Crete, armed with various myths and rumors. Finding hidden passages within the Labyrinth would be a great discovery, not to mention the Minotaur and the Cornucopia.

Le sigh.

The Fourth Nail (Priceless, mystical) is pandering to a bullshit racist legend, that when Christ was going to be nailed to the cross a little kid stole one of the nails, and so JESUS! gave the kid and all their descendants a free pass of stealing shit, which is where you get gypsies. Yes, that is literally the entirety of this item, pretending that shit really happened. Also, there's a small table of "Gypsy terms."

Anyway, if you get ahold of this chunk of iron and have faith: Christian, you get $TEXAS bonus against supernatural attacks ("magic, possession, crazed Thuggee priests trying to tear your heart out of your chest") and can also drive away supernatural entities. The author also failed their Wikipedia check* and thinks that the Romani "have a monotheistic religion called Romania [...] in which they worship a patriarchal god called Del." Really, this section is terrible.

* In my hypothetical contemporary game, a Wikipedia check is like a Bardic Lore roll, where you see if Wikipedia or the nearest urban fantasy equivalent has anything useful to say on the subject at hand. Failure means you get bad information.

Gae Bolg ($50,000, mystical) is another Celtic artifact, this time the spear of Cuchulain. It's a pretty bad-ass spear. Also, it's barbed, so pulling it out of a person is both difficult and painful (for them). There's some light talk of Irish nationalists wanting the spear, and the best adventure seed involves that classic staple of all Indiana Jones games, a drunk old man down at the pub telling stories.



The Imperial Fasces ($10,000, not mystical) is a Roman artifact, the ancient bundle of twigs around an axe. Historians still debate what the fuck this is about and how it's supposed to have looked.


Everyone generally agrees that, like the Chain of Leadership, it's not something you want to be beat with.

My favorite part of an adventure idea:

Mussolini wants the characters to go to Messina, in Sicily, and oversee certain archaeological digs. Amazingly enough, aside from the fact that Mussolini wants the fasces in order to rebuild a Roman Empire, this job is completely on the level; the characters will be paid a fair wage of @250 each.

Lock of Frederick Barbarossa's Hair ($7,500, non-mystical) seems like a missed opportunity for a Vecna's Hair moment. But whatever. Despite having no magical powers, it gives you a +10 bonus when speaking with German citizens, and an irrational fear of bodies of water. That seems pretty damn mystical when you get down to "Austrians can fuck right off, this is a German artifact" sort of way. Also, first mention in the book of the impending Holocaust, via a Jewish museum curator and his daughter (who is supposed to be one of the PC's ex-girlfriend that comes begging them for help).

The Malleus Maleficarum, or The Witch Hammer ($25,000, non-mystical)


No.


Also no.


There we go.

The Malleus Maleficarum was a real-world manual on hunting witches, back when hunting witches was the popular thing to do. I actually own a decent paperback copy from Dover. I actually enjoy the idea of books as artifacts, because they can have interesting histories of ownership, use, and modification, which is the kind of detective work that would make a bit of fun in a Bookhounds of London game. They could, indeed, just put out a book of such books for players to track down and have fun with. But they haven't done that yet, and I have no idea what it's doing here.

While the book itself has no mystical powers, the horrifying secret of this particular copy is that its cover was created from the skin of an accused witch. Should an adventurer actually hold it in her hands, she must make a medicine or Mind test against a DN of 13. If successful, the adventurer realizes the nature of the cover, and is stymied for one round as the realization dawns on her.

Thanks to the movies, now everyone can pronounce "Mjolnir!"

Mjolnir, Hammer of Thor ($125,000, mystical). I love the description:

Accounts vary as to the precise description of Mjolnir. Some think it is a two-handed battle-hammer made of precious metals and decorated with jewels. More than likely, though, it is a short hafted weapon, probably a thick wooden handle with a leather thong on one end and a granite hammer head. This simple design is more in line with the nature of Thor, who is depicted as a direct, uncomplicated god. All in all, the hammer weighs 25 kilograms, and measures 1.75 meters long.

For those playing at home, 1.75 meters is a fucking polearm.

Anyway, no need for scholar: Norse Mythology or faith: Norse, this is another D&D translation that means it's a returning thrown weapon that can fire lightning bolts three times per day. Try getting that through customs!

The Original Manuscript of "The Prince" ($20,000, non-mystical). This is a fairly low-balled as far as monies go, but then the single best weapon in the book so far was low-balled as well. Most of the adventure seeds focus on the popular conception of Machiavelli as being in league with the evil, which is just bizarre.

That reminds me, I'm really looking forward to this book:

The Philosopher's Stone ($Priceless, mystical) - Yet another D&D translation, can transmute half a kilogram of lead into gold per day (a process requiring eight hours and netting you about $500 depending on the exchange rate); if you have the alchemy skill you can also powder some of it and make an elixir that heals any disease and makes you immortal. This is basically the best method of achieving immortality presented so far in the book. Unlike other artifacts, this one comes with a built-in "take the goddamn thing away from the players" option.

If an when the characters recover the Philosopher's Stone, four mysterious men - one Arab, one Greek, one Egyptian, and one Chinese - approach them and politely inform them that the stone is too dangerous to leave about. They say they can take it to a place where none can reach it. These four men are hundreds of years old, recipients of the Philosopher's Stone's immortality magic They have an interesting array of potions such as sleep gas, Greek fire, smoke screens, etc. If rebuffed, they unleash their potions on the characters, beginning with those meant only to incapacitate, and attempt to steal the stone away.

To which the nature response should involve TNT and possibly a Maxim machine gun. "Now I have a Vickers, ho-ho-ho."

The Scalpel of Jack the Ripper ($3,500, mystical - sortof). The scalpel carries a curse, taking the form of ongoing bad luck on a monthly basis. The Dark Pentacle makes another appearance, this time "a group of warlocks living in the northern reaches of Canada," which I think means somebody did not get the memo.

The Secret Diary of Leonardo DaVinci ($250,000, non-mystical). Refreshingly, there's no reference to Holy Blood, Holy Grail in this entire section. That's the best I can say about all of it, though there's a half-assed reference to the Philosopher's Stone which would have made a good tie-in if they worked at it.

The Silver Hand of Nuada ($Priceless, mystical) Yet Another Celtic Artifact (YACA). This one, however, very specifically is a Vecna prosthetic, although pretty much the silver hand just makes you strong and might give you five points of shock damage every day.

The Spear of Achilles ($Priceless, mystical) - Like Gae Bolg above, but the Greek version, except wounds given by it doesn't heal except with an ointment made from rust from the spear.

The Staff of St. Patrick ($20,000, non-mystical) - YACA, which you don't care about. It's not written terribly well.

It should be noted that the Irish retained a semblance of neutrality during World War II - adding hints of this into play should help keep the adventurers on their toes. The pagan aspect lends another, mystical side to the adventure. While most pagans are not evil and are incapable of summoning demons, the adventurers don't know this, which can lend an air of possible horror to the adventure.

I'd definitely have a young Mallory Archer pop in to comment on that.

The Sword of Saint Joan ($200,000, mystical) - Wait, what? Fucking Joan of Arc's sword is worth more moolah than Mjolnir? For shame, millionaires of the 1930s!

Anyway, it's a pretty good sword, and when used by somebody with faith: Christian is actually probably the best weapon in terms of sheer mechanical damage, with some inspirational MasterBook cards thrown in for good measure.

Tyrfing ($Priceless, mystical) - Legendary Norwegian sword that ties into the Nibelunglied. A Christian-empowered Sword of St. Joan is still a better weapon, but Tyrfing is basically a dancing sword from D&D that also sends you into a beserk rage when it tastes blood.

Untitled Self-portrait of Rembrandt ($500,000, non-mystical) - I don't care. I just don't care.

Wagner's Untitled Last Work ($15,000, mystical) - Hitler wants it because if played by full orchestra on midnight of February 13th (the date of Wagner's death), it unleashes a horde of Valkyries. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

...and that was Europe. We jumped the shark a long time ago, but there's only one more chapter to go. Hold on to your britches as next up is: the Middle East! (Yes, I know we already did Mohammed's Sandals, shut up.)

[hyzmarca]

Wagner's Untitled Last Work ($15,000, mystical) - Hitler wants it because if played by full orchestra on midnight of February 13th (the date of Wagner's death), it unleashes a horde of Valkyries. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

"We have to get the book before the Nazis do, Hitler wants to unleash a hoard of Valkyries in Berlin"

"Does the book let its user control those Valkyries?"

"No."

"Then let him have the book."


You know, in hindsight, Indiana probably should have just let the Nazis have the Ark.

"Hitler wants to open the Ark, personally, in front of the Nazi leadership."

"What does it do?"

"Its the seat of God on Earth and is filled with His divine presence. Anyone who touches it or looks into it is instantly killed, unless they're a ritually purified Kohen."

"Then why are we trying to stop him?

[maglag]

Wagner's Untitled Last Work ($15,000, mystical) - Hitler wants it because if played by full orchestra on midnight of February 13th (the date of Wagner's death), it unleashes a horde of Valkyries. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

"We have to get the book before the Nazis do, Hitler wants to unleash a hoard of Valkyries in Berlin"

"Does the book let its user control those Valkyries?"

"No."

"Then let him have the book."


You know, in hindsight, Indiana probably should have just let the Nazis have the Ark.

"Hitler wants to open the Ark, personally, in front of the Nazi leadership."

"What does it do?"

"Its the seat of God on Earth and is filled with His divine presence. Anyone who touches it or looks into it is instantly killed, unless they're a ritually purified Kohen."

"Then why are we trying to stop him?

"So that the USA can rack in fat profits from WW II and recover from the Great Depression you dumwit!"

[Occluded Sun]

The problem with the basic idea is that mystic artifacts in pulp works are inherently mysterious, poorly-understood things with unknown powers... and RPG statistics are about as diametrically opposed to that as is possible.

[Ancient History]

The Middle East



Even given that this book was basically designed to be a large collection of adventure seeds for gamemasters to build adventures and campaigns around, as opposed to a collection of explicit power-boosters like you would see in D&D, we're not seeing a lot of these artifacts which are particularly compelling. I dunno, maybe it's just me - I'm sure that the Ankh of Osiris or the Hammer of Thor could make for a decent archaeological run, even if the powers are a bit small-scale, but the layouts aren't quite as full of interesting adventure hooks as they might be.


I mean, it can still work. Just need to fudge it a little.

Anyway. Last chapter of the book. The Middle East is sort of the meeting place of Europe, Africa, and Asia, so I don't mind that this gets its own section, but things are like to get a bit...biblical.

Aaron's Rod ($400,000, mystical) is the case in point. This little item is strictly Old Testament, but has had a rich afterlife in occult literature, thanks to Aaron having a bit of fun with Pharaoh's magicians.



To work the staff, you need faith: Judaism (language: Hebrew is also a handy associated skill, though as a nitpick it should be language: Aramaic); failing a test means you resist 20 damage every round until you die or drop the staff.

Also, some poor bastard had to stat out a "Rod-Snake."

Main powers: turn the staff into a snake, make the staff blossom and bear fruit (which, conveniently, heals the consumer), and maybe the most interesting ability: summon three of the Biblical plagues (rivers of blood, the frogs, and the lice).


You could make a good BPRD/Hellboy crossover campaign based around that.

MasterBook isn't really designed to deal with Biblical plagues, so you get some really wiggy mechanics:

To determine whether a character has become infected with lice, have her roll an Intellect test against a DN of 8 on a weekly basis until the plague passes. Failing the test reduces the character's Agility and Endurance attributes by four for the duration of the plague.

The Dagger of Sinan, the Old Man of the Mountain ($100,000, non-mystical) is associated with the Assassins, which in turn were a faction of the Ismailis, and basically very historical indeed. This isn't bad, but it does mean that the dagger is specifically symbolic more than anything else. Also, it means we get generic Assassin stats.

The Hanukkah Lamp ($25,000, mystical) is a gold lamp carried back by the Romans after sacking the Temple in Jerusalem. Characters with faith: Judaism can keep the lamp lit even if it doesn't have any oil. Also, once per day the lamp can "flare" and temporarily blind enemies of the Jewish people. The adventure seeds aren't much; the first one actually features a duplicitous Palestinian who steals their vehicle. Which is a lesson that you should always take camels.


Evil-Minded-Son-of-a-Bitch was interrupted in the middle of his hypercalculus.

The Judas Silver ($30,000, mystical) are the monies supposedly paid to Judas Iscariot for betraying Jesus. This was the basis of a not-great vampire movie.


Miss ya, Wes.

Anyway, the coins are cursed. They stay together, even if you try to separate them. They can't be gotten rid of except by giving them away to someone that willingly accepts them - even if they're stolen, they'll come back to you. And as long as you have the hot potato, bad shit will happen to you. Presumably this means that dumping them in the Salvation Army plot or using them to gamble in Las Vegas or melting them down is right out. But I can see people getting creative about it. There's a legendary way to remove the curse, but that's far less fun than, say, trying to buy a nude picture of Eva Braun off Hitler with them.

The Lamp of Aladdin ($Priceless, mystical) - From the 1,001 Arabian Nights, the complete edition with Richard Burton's full translation with the 10,000-word essay on pederasty tacked on. It turns out there is a spirit in the lamp, but it ain't a djinni, and is basically just a bit of a bastard instead of granting wishes. For reasons I'm not clear on, one of the adventure seeds suggests that the Lamp turns up in Casablanca.


Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see a man about a bird.

Moses' Pentateuch ($Priceless, non-mystical) is sort of the original edition that even the King James Only folks would pause before condemning. They're supposed to be the original five books of the Bible as written by Moses himself, still touched by meeting God on Mt. Sinai.

Well...probably not. Without getting too deep into Biblical scholarship, there is some argument on the subject. But as an article of Jewish faith, Mosaic authorship is an important thing. The author of this sectio managed to work in the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses and even Belloq from Raiders of the Lost Ark.


People in France named Belloq had to change their name after this film came out.

The Scimitar of Suleiman I ($30,000, non-mystical) is basically yet another important leader's bladed weapon. The best part of this entry is that the characters start out in the Soviet Union, where they were arrested for no reason and then taken for an interview with Joseph Stalin.


Beware dictators offering questionable employment involving artifacts.

The Star Map of Baghdad ($10,000, non-mystical) is...what it sends on the tin. Ancient Arabic map of the stars. The writer suggests that "this scenario can segue into a search for the Dream Map of the Aborigines." and that Indiana Jones "sends the characters a telegram, asking them to 'keep an eye on Belloq.'"

And that is basically it. Except for the Appendix. the West End Games MasterBookD6 System Conversion. This is patently very complicated, because as they like to show, "MasterBook and the D6 System have different character Attributes." and "There is no direct correlation between MasterBook skills and D6 System skills." In short, it's a pain in the ass, and neither systems are very good on their own merits.

Summing Up
I don't know why this is such an expensive book these days. I mean, don't get me wrong, a lot of the other World of Indiana Jones books are rubbish, and perhaps more rubbish. WoIJ itself is workmanlike, if you can live with the MasterBook system. Indiana Jones Artifacts gives you some items to go after, and tries to do a (very little) amount of worldbuilding. Given another couple of editions, maybe the game would have evolved into something more interesting, but it didn't get that.

In a sense, these kind of licensed games often suffer from the question of what are you supposed to do? Even Call of Cthulhu struggles with this, and system and thematic differences aside, at heart both of them are basically 1920/30/40s-era setting engines that deal with weird history and the supernatural in an era where there might be flappers or Nazis. This is an evocative age for anybody, with some great visuals and terrific historical resources available, though it suffers very much these days from the presence of Wikipedia - which can go into vastly more detail than any gamebook can hope to do so without being a ridiculously boring textbook kind of spiel. But that's all the more excuse to focus on the exceptional rather than the quotidian. For all that I give this book shit for including some unexceptional artifacts, they mainly get the history on these right, and I appreciate that all of these items are plausible artifacts - as opposed to, say, the crystal skulls of ancient aliens. Even if they aren't exactly game-changing.



It may be a weakness of the genre; no one wants this to turn into The Librarian RPG or even Warehouse 13 the RPG. Well, maybe the latter. Secure, Contain, and Protect 1930s Handbook would be fun, actually... but that's because it gives you the player a bigger incentive than just going to foreign, exotic lands and stealing people's treasures.