The old Greek god of war had Hephaestus create for him the original Trumpet, the better to terrify his enemies on the field of battle. Once per day, the relic may be activated: when blown, everyone within a fifty yard radius with an equal or lesser number of Forces than the user must make an immediate Will -4 roll or suffer from the equivalent of the Cowardly Discord. Those within 5 yards must make a Will -6 roll. The level of Discord suffered is equal to that of the relic: duration is for one hour. Note that being deaf will not defend against this relic.

This was all well and good, but Ares had apparently never thought about the wisdom of having someone who you're blatantly cuckolding create a mystic item for you - or if he did, he didn't care. He really should have. Hephaestus somehow forgot to make sure that the wielder of the Trumpet remained immune to its effect. He also inexplicably forgot to properly shield a regular user from permanently suffering from the Discord (for every month that the relic is carried, the owner must roll versus Will. Every three failures will result in the owner acquiring one level of the Cowardly Discord).

Well, now you know how Ares got that way.

After the loot squads ... excuse me, 'hazardous materials teams' ... brought back Ares' gear to Heaven, it wasn't too hard to reverse-engineer the effect. Jean's people were able to eliminate the leakage sufficiently to protect against permanent damage: the temporary Discord problem remained insoluble, however. Luckily, Novalis, at least, is prepared to accept the improved relics 'as is': to her, it's a feature, not a bug. Most modern Trumpets are found in the hands of Seraphim of Flowers: it's the closest thing to a weapon that they can have.

Cost: the original was level/4 and was worth about 12pt. Modern versions cost 4/level.