A crying stone made into an artifact (notice the symbol on top of it).
In the first game, an artifact is any object left near the village and charged up by dancing villagers.
Making an artifact is very easy, though a little time consuming, as it doesn't happen overnight. Place the chosen object in the area of a village, and villagers may then dance around it which over a period of time will emit a red aura. At this point it has become an artifact and as it charges further will eventually display your godly symbol over it.
Artifacts can be used to impress villagers. Simply place the artifact in the village, once it settles in place this can produce hundreds of belief. Once placed in a village, placing it elsewhere in the same village wont have any effect, but it can be placed in another village. Repeatedly moving artifacts between multiple villages will give extra belief though with diminishing effect.
Artifacts left in a village will yield a slow trickle of belief and villagers may dance around it further charging it.
One can also throw an artifact over the village above the villager's heads – this can earn even more belief. The more villagers that see the flying artifact the greater the effect. This can be repeated in the same village though with diminishing effect. This can be done next to inhabited houses during night time.
Artifacts can increase the size of wonders that are to be built. If an artifact is close enough to the scaffold as it is being placed, the belief stored in the artifact will increase the size of the wonder. The artifact(s) must be quite close – within about the width of the scaffold. If the size of the wonder is increased enough it may be too large to be built at that spot, and it may take a few tries to find an appropriate spot. Once the scaffold has been placed the artifact(s) can be moved with out affecting the wonder.
- Artifacts can be bookmarked to help keep track of them.
- Villagers quickly become bored by artifacts, especially if they've seen that particular one recently.
- Artifacts don't lose their charge and will stay charged forever, unless destroyed.
- Artifacts don't seem to have a maximum or full charge. The symbol above the artifact appears after a while but is no indication of 'maximum' charge.
- Placing artifacts near to where the villagers congregate when they are 'chilling out' or near the village crèche gives them quick access and maximizes time spent dancing.
- If an artifact is made from a normal stone, and said stone is tapped to break it, it will stop being an artifact and any stored belief is lost.
- The singing stones on Land 1 and the brown "totem head" stones on Land 3 make for good artifacts since they can't be broken by tapping, and are large making them more impressive.
- Creature toys can also make unbreakable artifacts.
- Any artifact can be destroyed by sinking them in the sea (so be careful when throwing them), a mega-blast miracle, or a very wonder-boosted lightning miracle.
- One can start making artifacts on Land 1, but they'll be of little use until Land 2, and the singing stones can't be made into artifacts while on land 1.
- It's not clear whether placing an artifact within a worship site has any effect.
- The statistics tab on the ESC menu includes a count of how many artifacts each god currently has.
- There's a bug in the game: if one fully charges some artifacts, saves the game, then reloads, the symbol won't reappear above them. They're still charged though, and if brought through a vortex, the symbol will reappear on the new land.
- A player can obtain an effectively infinite amount of unbreakable artifact material, if they were to hold off The Singing Stones quest until the Vortex to Land 2 opens. The quest is programmed to respawn the singing stones required for the quest should they leave the map in any fashion. Due to this, you can send as many singing stones through the vortex as you like, and they'll all come through the other side.