A Crucible keeper is one of the Wanderers: a foreign soul that released its core in some earlier Unsealing, so that the Welter moved into the empty foundation as a heart demon. Every crucible keeper carries a heart demon of the same shape, so each knows what the others know, though each keeps its own memories. None can anchor ground. They walk into each new Hallow out of the Mist, and they do not fight. Their kind holds no affinity and serves as Plain.
A kingdom runs on two currencies: mana, the raw power a core or a node draws, and geld, the coin ordinary folk pay. Once a Crucible keeper has served long enough, the kingdom's geld income rises and its mana income falls, and both shifts deepen the longer it stays. Wanderers of this kind say the crucible makes nothing from nothing. It melts a little of the power the kingdom draws and pours it out as coin. The card shows how much.
Crucible keepers say their kind learned its first rule from the Greenmother's Ox. That relic gave Ysme of Lumen fields, and as her kingdom grew it drank more of her mana, until her wards starved. Every gift, the keepers say, is paid for out of the same purse.
They are paid out of it too. A Crucible keeper costs geld and mana to keep, more as it grows, and it leaves the day the pay stops.
The keepers say the demon wants to turn one thing wholly into another, and that the Wanderer who carries it is the one piece of work it has not yet finished. Whether a keeper can ever be freed is not known.
Player-visible facts
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Battle hero | No |
| Upkeep | Included in your observed upkeep; varies with level |