The Clandestine Gun

An untraceable gun that seeks out the downtrodden and helps them vent their anger...
In the 1880s Howell Ferguson was a renowned arms manufacturer
catering to an audience with special ideas about their personal safety
precautions. He custom-built whatever shooting device his well-to-do
customers wished to have. He was also a skilled Mechanomancer.

One day he traded a formidable weapon for a secret: a magical ritual
called The Unwritten Word could make a person or a unique item
disappear from all kinds of record and stay that way. The ritual came in
 handy, as Ferguson was just facing a trial; he was charged with being
an accomplice of murder. Apparently one of his devices had been used to
kill some very influential person.

Ferguson cast the ritual on himself with the help of a trusted friend
and disappeared from public record. People still remembered him but no
written records of his name or person remained for long. Word of mouth
still gave him an occasional customer. All but forgotten he died in

One of his creations survives to this day. It is a revolver which holds 7
 caliber .29 bullets. This caliber was a specialty of Ferguson's,
handcrafted and never again seen or built after his death - with the
exception of such cases when this particular weapon was used. The
revolver is made of perpetually well-polished steel with wooden inlays
on the grip. Its nose is rather short.

Ferguson used the Ritual of the Unwritten Word again to make the gun
impossible to record and thus to trace. In effect all records made of
the gun, be they written statements, photographs, films, whatever, are
either misplaced or destroyed soon after they are made. This includes
records of the .29 caliber. This has the effect that its relatively safe
 to use the gun for criminal purposes as all investigations under these
circumstances become rather difficult. While individual investigators
may know about the gun (memory is the only kind of recording device that
 is not affected by the ritual) the official channels usually require
reports, written statements etc.

This is not the only magick Ferguson put into the gun. The gun has a
knack of turning up in the hands of very desperate persons. They find it
 in the gutter, acquire it cheap from pawn shops or chance upon secret
caches where the gun waits for them. It is always loaded with seven
bullets with golden casing when it is found.

Usually the finder eventually uses the gun. The gun then soon disappears
 again; at the latest when the last shot is fired. It can also be lost
or given away by mundane means, but it doesn't reload in such instances.
 It always disappears when someone creates .29 caliber bullets for it;
it won't let itself be loaded with any ammunition apart from that which
appears in its chambers by magick after the gun has been lost and before
 it is found again.

The gun has become something of an urban legend in the Occult
Underground. It even has something of a cult following: somehow the
knowledge has seeped into the Occult Underground that a Clandestine Gun
is out there which cannot be traced and which appears in the hands of
desperate people. Some golden bullet cases and some bullets of the .29
caliber have been retrieved which are revered as talismans by the
followers of the Clandestine Gun. The followers are usually desperate
(or perceive themselves as such) and try to obtain the gun; but actually
 the hope of getting the gun is in the way of fulfilment of that wish
for as long as there is that hope they are not truly desperate.

But those in the know find another way to use the magick of the
Clandestine Gun for their purposes. They hex their enemies by writing a
description of the Clandestine Gun on a piece of paper and hide it among
 the personal effects of their enemies. Often something untoward happens
 to the person who has such a note: they are run down by a train, catch
fire or meet some other violent and very messy end. Naturally the closer
 the note is to the body of the victim the more probable such a result
is. There is no guarantee that the note will be destroyed in a violent
fashion, it's just as possible that the victim simply loses it or it
gets wet and unreadable. But you can always try again...

**Copyright Robin, posted on the official UA site on July 18 2002**