Coin of Judas (Moneda de Judas, “the traitor’s coin of Judas”) is a necromantic artifact of Antiterra: laid on a corpse’s forehead, it raises the dead to serve its bearer. The only recorded example belongs to Reynaud.
| Type | Artifact |
| Bearer | Reynaud |
| Spanish entry | Moneda de Judas |
Description
It is small enough to lie flat on a forehead and recognizable enough to brandish in combat as a threat. One witness calls it a “medal”.
Properties
- Raising the dead. Placed on the corpse’s forehead with the command «Judas, levántate, defiéndeme» (“Judas, rise, defend me”), it raises skeletons and corpses, whole fields of the fallen if needed, to serve the bearer.
- Amends. It can return enemies to life “so that they make amends” for their betrayal.
- Against the living. Shown to the living, it attacks the will to betray; only a firm will resists. In combat it seems to act especially on Templars and traitors.
- Return. An unverified rumor: “the coins of Judas come back”.
Reynaud calls it “the one I use for my necromancy abilities”; without it he has no necromancy. No market, price or second copy is known.
Distinctions
It is not ordinary gold coin, the currency of Paris and Alexandria, courts and taverns, used for anything from two “little gold coins” to an artisan to a loan of 250,000 or a 50,000 diamond, paid out by figures such as La Plume. No one pays with the Coin of Judas.
A separate “large gold coin” was found in the infernal ferryman’s bowl, on a flat-bottomed barge whose ferryman carried nineteen maidens.
Open questions
- Its metal (silver or gold), stamp, size, weight and wear.
- How many corpses it raises, for how long, how often per day, and at what cost.
- How Reynaud got it, earlier owners, and whether it belongs to a set.
- Whether the “return” is real, and to whom it returns.
- Whether its effect on Templars is a rule or one scene’s coincidence.
- Whether the ferryman’s coin is this piece, a sister, or unrelated.