Artefacts are the most legendary of all known weapons and items that have been enchanted over many generations; they are very rare. If a being can be harmed by an attack, artefact damage will affect them. Artefact weapons inflict one point of damage on any creature hit, as long as that creature is capable of suffering from physical blows. Any damage done by this attack can be cured as normal.
The types of blows that can inflict enchanted or artefact damage are:-
Blunt and sharp
Certain types of creature are immune to blows from either sharp or blunt weapons. For example, all types of zombie are immune to blunt weapons even if they are enchanted. Only artefact or affect unliving damage will hurt a zombie when delivered with a blunt weapon.
Unless specifically made to inflict both sharp and blunt damage, a weapon can do either blunt or sharp damage and not both. The hilts of daggers and swords, of the hafts of pole-arms cannot be used to inflict blunt damage.
It is not necessary to use these calls when fighting against normal creatures that will be affected by both sharp and blunt attacks equally.
Cold
This damage effect always counts as enchanted and will affect any creature harmed by either cold or Enchanted.
Crush
A single blow of this type will smash whatever it hits. A shield will be rendered unusable until repaired, armour will be reduced to zero hits or a location will be reduced to -1. The force of the blow is expended on the first thing struck, so the first blow on an armoured location will smash the armour, a second blow on the same location will reduce the now unprotected location to -1.
This call can generally only be used with two-handed weapons. Armour worn by beings that are immune to crush damage will still be destroyed by this damage effect.
Flame
This damage effect always counts as enchanted and will affect any creature harmed by either flame or Enchanted.
You must call 'flame' to indicate this damage (the word 'fire' is only used as a safety call).
Harm
Once the spell is cast you have up to ten seconds in which to touch the target with the open palm of your casting hand. This attack reduces the body location touched to -1. This would will affect any creature with a living or unliving pattern and is treated in all ways as enchanted damage.
Armour does not affect this attack and is not damaged by it. Against creatures with total body hits a harm will simply remove a third of their total hits to a maximum of 5 hits of damage. This is a direct manifestation of the power of a dark ancestor and will violate a ritual of peace if one is in effect.
Silver
Certain monsters and special creatures can only be hurt by silver damage. Damage inflicted by this attack can be cured as normal.
Strikedown
This is a physical blow that unbalances the target and knocks them to the ground. The strikedown damage effect functions in exactly the same way as the strikedown spell, but the damage effect also inflicts one point of damage.
Any strikedown effect delivered by a weapon is a physical unbalancing blow and can only be resisted by characters immune to the damage type delivering the blow or specifically immune to the strikedown damage effect.
Subdual
Any character can chose to subdue a target rather than try to kill it. If armed with a one handed, blunt, melee weapon you can choose to make the damage you inflict subdual damage. Subdual damage works in exactly the same way as normal damage but cannot reduce a body location to less than zero hits.
This type of damage is considered to be shock and bruising and will be recovered ten minutes after being inflicted. Subdual damage can be healed as normal. Under a Ritual of Peace all weapons inflict subdual damage and no call is required.
When not under a ritual of peace, all damage is considered to be normal and you must call 'subdual' if you wish to inflict non-lethal damage. Outside of such a ritual then all damage is considered to be normal unless someone chooses to do subdual damage as mentioned above.
Through
Through ignores any armour worn and inflicts damage directly to the struck location. Through will not affect armour in any way.
Arrows, bolts and quarrels fired from bows or crossbows do one hit of normal through damage. Blunt weapons cannot be used to inflict through.