Path of Exile - Return to Oriath

Path of Exile
Return to Oriath update

Jumpchain compliant

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Virtue Gems.  An obsession as old as civilization itself.

So-called because they bestowed their wielders with qualities once attributed only to the divine, the ancient Vaal were the first to harness these strange stones.  Knowing them as the 'Tears of Maji' their study unlocked the art of thaumaturgy, a way to bleed the essence from these stones and use it to re-shape both people and the world in strange and frightful ways.

When the vain queen Atziri beheld the youth and vitality of a serial killer kept alive through thaumaturgy, she began a quest to secure eternal youth and beauty for herself that drove the Vaal to catastrophe.  In a single night nightmare swept across the continent of Wraeclast, and of a culture that numbered in the millions, 3126 kept their lives.  Fewer still kept their sanity.

Centuries later, some of the the Azmeri, distant cousins of the Vaal, would leave their mountains and build an empire upon the ruins of the past.  But despite all warnings, greed won over caution, and the buried gems were sought out.  It was not long before learned men of science began performing horrific experiments upon slaves culled from those cultures subjugated by the Eternal Empire, all in the name of improving the human condition.  From these terrible lessons were derived ways to elevate man to gemling.  Becoming a 'divine gemling' granted power and ability that was envied by all, though the cost, the loss of one's humanity, would at first go unnoticed.

Though Voll of Thebrus would lead the Purity Rebellion to free his people from decadence and thaumaturgical perversion, he was fool enough to put his trust in Malachai, the greatest thaumaturgist of the age, who claimed he could destroy thaumaturgy itself to avoid the pyre.  The rapture device Malachi created was pulled to a distant mountain, one believed to be the very source of the Virtue Gems, and activated.  Once again, darkness and corruption spilled forth unto Wraeclast, and the Eternal Empire was no more.

Today, in what was once a backwater colony of the Eternal Empire, High Templar Dominus has made exile to the forsaken continent of Wraeclast the standard punishment for all crimes, from the most terrible to the most petty.  Here, the dead do not rest peacefully in their graves.  Animals are twisted and vicious.  Even the stones themselves walk in places, striking blindly at any who cross their path.

Those exiles who are strong enough to survive long enough may catch glimpses of Dominus' Ebony Legion searching ancient libraries, excavating shadowed laboratories, and performing terrible experiments...

This world has endured two cataclysms already, Jumper.  It will not survive a third.

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Your age is 20+1d8, and your gender is the same as your previous jump.  You may pay 50cp to change either.

All new arrivals, regardless of background, find themselves awakening on the shores of Wraeclast.  In the distance can be seen the ruins of Lioneye's Watch, a place of relative sanctuary for a few miserable exiles like yourself.

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Backgrounds

Drop-in (0cp)
You awaken upon the shores of Wraeclast with no knowledge of this world, clad in ruined finery with a rusty weapon laying within reach...and the moans of the hungry dead growing closer.  As you have no place in this world, the unnatural and corrupt call you kin.

Strength (100cp)
You made your way through strength of arms, perhaps as one of the Karui barbarians or as a fighter in the grand arena of Theopolis.  A moment of anger saw you exiled, but you have the strength and skill at arms to carve your right to exist from nightmare's corpse.

Intelligence (100cp)
As a practitioner of dark arts or one that calls his powers a gift from god, the supernatural is your first choice for both weapon and armor.  Testing the edges of the darkness saw you cast out of civilization, but you have the will to see through the temptations offered by corruption - and perhaps come away from it having learned a trick or two.

Dexterity (100cp)
A hunter of beasts or a hunter of man, you strike with swiftness and finality.  You ended a life that was claimed by another, and for the first time your speed failed you.  Caught and exiled, you will find your grace lends itself to killing monsters and nightmares as easily as creatures of flesh and bone.

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Perks:  (100cp perks are free for their background, all others are discounted 50%)

Drop-in:

100cp - Gem Sockets
The safest way to make use of virtue gems is to attach them, unaltered, to inanimate objects.  While the gems still draw on the wielder's mana for power, wood and metal suffer little when channeling otherworldly energies.  You know how to modify your equipment to accept virtue gems, and to link them in sequence with support gems that modify the effects of each connected gem.  This knowledge can be easily adapted to work with similar modular magical items.

200cp - Chaos Affinity
You have a talent with all things toxic and corrosive.  Both mundane and magical phenomena of these sorts are both easier to use and more powerful in your hands.  A gift from the nightmare, the purest expression of this rare form of magic is notorious for being able to completely bypass some types of magic-based defenses.

400cp - Nightmare Prevails
Why fight it?  Not only do you have an innate sense that alerts you when the unholy or chaotic has left its mark upon the world, you may choose to draw in only as much of that influence into yourself as desired.  While you suffer fewer negative effects than most, this is not resistance, but acceptance - flirting with damnation is a dangerous game to play, and you risk losing even the inclination to later cleanse yourself.  At the end of this jump and all future jumps, your benefactor will always give you a moment of clarity to examine the results of your actions objectively and act accordingly...if you survive that long.

600cp - Worlds within worlds
If this world does not satisfy you, then why not create one more to your liking?  Prepare a stone tablet at an auspicious location and unleash as much power as you can.  Watch the energy flow outwards, suffusing your surroundings, before being drawn back to transform the tablet into a map.  The size and nature of the new world within the map depends on the nature of the energies and land so co-mingled, with only experimentation revealing what different combinations will provide.  The device now attached to your warehouse can use the map to access the world held within for a short time, as they are impermanent.  Beware, for while one can plunder these new worlds for treasures of flesh and gold, any life within will owe you no loyalty.

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Strength:

100cp - Rusted but Ready
A great warrior is not always guaranteed to have a great weapon on hand.  No concern for you, as anything you wield will always be able to stand up to the rigors of combat.  Any item held is your hands is made durable enough that it will not break from being used as an improvised bludgeon no matter how strong you are, though it does not become any more capable of inflicting injury then it normally would.
200cp - Fire Affinity
There's a fire in your belly.  Perhaps literally.  Heat and flame comes fast and strong when you call, while small flames and oppressive heat bother you not at all.  You also find your flames stubbornly clinging to offenders, becoming harder to extinguish and slower to die down.

400cp - Bloodless
Your hard-won strength is not for the likes of weaklings to claim.  You are immune to effects that would drain your energy or vitality and grant it to others.  Even mundane parasites sicken and starve should they try to take root inside your body.  You may choose to relax this restriction, sharing your strength with those you deem worthy.

600cp - Totem fetish
To slay another is simple, to learn from the defeated is wise, but the greatest warriors take the strength of the slain for themselves.  You have taken this lesson to heart and learned how to craft totems from the bodies of your enemies, carving bone and weaving sinew to call upon the powers they wielded in life.  A totem that was crafted from the corpse of a dragon will terrorize and breathe fire upon your enemies.  From a beast with great stamina and regenerative powers, craft a badge that works to restore the vitality of you and your allies.  Your totems are finite things, their effects ending if damaged too greatly or when the residual energies of life within the fragments of corpus run dry after too much use.

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Intelligence:

100cp - Wandslinger
You know how to craft simple magic foci from whatever may be at hand.  These simple implements can channel your magic into concussive or elemental blasts with little effort.  With time, quality materials and proper tools, you'll be able to craft devices to make your spellcasting more powerful and efficient, or just create the wand equivalent of a gatling gun.

200cp - Lightning Affinity
Electricity dances at your command, screaming through the air and laughing in the face of resistance.  Lesser currents pass through you without notice, while those you strike with lightning find themselves more conductive to further electrical assaults.

400cp - Herd the Flock
You have a rough sense of the position and location of all your summoned, conjured, and created minions.  The finesse of your control increases, as does the number of minions that you can maintain.  Although somewhat draining, you also know a trick to recall some or all of your minions to your own position in an instant, healing them and granting a temporary boost to the speed and ferocity of their attacks.

600cp - Gemling Creation
From shattered laboratories, ruined libraries and twisted corpses, you have harvested the knowledge of how to implant gems into living creatures.  The possible benefits are many and varied, but the cost is a slow and subtle degradation of one's humanity.  Alternately you may extract the essence of a gem and inject it directly into a living creature, granting it enormous power but warping flesh and soul beyond recognition in the process.  Either procedure has been repeatedly proven to always end poorly for everyone involved, but perhaps you could do what none others have and find a way to perfect the process?

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Dexterity:

100cp - Surefoot
Moving faster and with greater agility in general, mundane hazards do little to slow your passage.  Debris, ice, underbrush...you move easily upon, over, and through these things without slipping or being tangled.

200cp - Ice Affinity
Your heart has grown cold and hard through long exposure to the elements.  Winter winds are of little concern, and spells that would freeze you in place find you a slippery target.  In your own hands, ice magic and other expressions of cold come easily.

400cp - Acrobatics
You move with fantastic grace, almost before the attack is even launched.  Your instincts are so sharp that you can anticipate incoming attacks and move out of the way - you might not be able to outrun a bullet, but you can easily stay out of a shooter's crosshairs or keep the business end of a wizard's wand from drawing a bead on you.

600cp - Culler
There's an order to nature, a subtle balance in the cycle of growth and rending fangs, of decay and renewal.  While mother nature is a tough girl on her own there are things that take from her and give nothing back, and that's when you step in.  Be it an invasive species or thaumaturgical corruption, you're hypersensitive to disruptions in your environment and the slightest whiff of the troublemaker's spoor will lead you almost unerringly to the source of the trouble.  Then it's up to you to remove it, however you can.

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Undiscounted perks

Blood Magic - 200cp
When you run out of mana, you can fuel magic with your own health.  The exchange rate for HP to MP isn't very good, but it is always preferable to shed your own blood than to have it taken from you.

Avatar of (Element) - 200cp
While the most devout Templar may give everything to the flame, you are not so limited.  Pick an element, from the classical fire/ice/lightning to sound or gravity.  When attacking, the energy of your strike, the combined physical, magical and miscellaneous forces will all be transmuted into a burst of the chosen element.  Some of the energy will be lost in conversion, though this can be improved with training.  This perk may be purchased multiple times.

Mind over Matter - 200cp
The mana in your body does not sit idle - it will rise up when you are attacked, expending itself to absorb a portion of incoming damage.  This is entirely reflexive and requires no awareness of the incoming attack.  You may choose to switch this on and off.

Unwavering Stance - 200cp
So long as you make no effort to dodge an attack, it cannot shake your focus or leave you dazed or disorientated.  You'll still be injured, of course, and this does not protect you from spells that specifically induce confusion or similar effects.  Don't flinch. It's a waste of good hitting time.

Vaal Pact - 200cp
A tiny percent of any damage you deal though any method is gifted to you as health and mana (and prana, chi, and whatever else you may have) and your other abilities that steal energy from others are strengthened.  Unlike the lesser version offered to others, this perk does not interfere with your natural healing process.

The wages of Sin - 600cp
I am Sin, thief of virtue, and it is mine to take what I will from the defeated, to make a gift of it to the victorious.  Alas, your mortal frame cannot withstand the unfettered fire of deism.  It would turn your blood to mist and scorch your precious flesh black.  So choose modestly and choose wisely, for there is much more at stake here than your little hopes and dreams.

After defeating a creature, you may choose to adopt a portion of its powers and identity for yourself.  Slaying an ocean god may grant you the ability to breathe and move swiftly underwater along with power over water and weather, and lesser beings of the ocean will recognize you as having great authority over them.

You have a mental record of every valid powerset available to you from past victories, but you may 'wear' the power of a single defeated being at one time.  You may change your assumed powers once every 24 hours.

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Items:

Oriath's mercy - (Free)
Every exile is entitled to a single weapon before being thrown overboard once in sight of Wraeclast's shores.  It's junk, but it will mean the difference between life and death until you find something better.

Thaumaturgical Arms and Armor - (50cp)*
Occasionally flickering with blue light, this piece of Magic gear bears one or two enchantments that might make the wielder slightly healthier, hit harder, or better at a particular skill.  Alternately, you may purchase a piece of armor with a similar benefit, which belongs to one of three types - Armor, which reduces damage, Evasion, which makes it easier to avoid attacks, and Energy Shield, which offers a regenerating, ablative layer of magical energy to absorb attacks.  Other armors can mix two of these kinds of protection.

For an additional 50cp, you may purchase a stronger item, one with a golden-yellow sheen when viewed at just the right angle.  These Rare items can have at most six modifiers, stronger and and more varied in nature.

For 200cp instead, you may purchase something truly Unique, heavy in hand and crimson in hue.  These items are the work of legendary figures of Wraeclast's past, and were often carried at turning points in history.  Their value and power are obvious to all, and the enchantments they bear can be incredibly powerful, wildly varied, niche in application or as dangerous to the wielder as his enemies.

Scroll Case - (Free)
This pair of waterproof containers holds 40 scrolls each of Wisdom and Portal.  Reading a scroll consumes it.  Scrolls of wisdom identify most common enchantments, able to reveal the details of enchanted weapons and traps, though nothing as complex as magitek.  Scrolls of Portal open a blue oval gateway back to the nearest safe area of civilization, like an outpost or small town.  You know how to make more.

Gem in the Rough - (Free)
As you rise from the sand, a gleam catches your eye.  The starting virtue gem of a class that matches your background is within reach and ready to use.

Virtue Gems - (50cp)*
You carry a dozen gems, a mix of skills and support-types appropriate to your background, with a minimum level of less than 30 to use.

For another 50cp, you may purchase a further dozen in line with another background, or to expand your collection with higher-level (lvl 30+) gems.

For the truly daring, 100cp will buy you a dozen Virtue Gems corrupted by Vaal thaumaturgy.  Each gem is powered by nothing less than the stolen souls of those you slay, and has been altered in strange and powerful ways.

Simple Flasks - (Free)
Ubiquitous magical items, these two flasks - red and blue - collect the dregs of health and mana from your defeated foes.  As any time, you may drink the liquids generated within to speed the recovery of your own health and mana.  You know how to improve the capacity of these flasks and make more.

Elemental Flasks - (50cp)
Amethyst, Ruby, Sapphire and Topaz...like the flasks above, these are powered by the dregs of life force collected from the slain.  But these flasks offer a potent but short-lived boost to your resistances - to chaos, flame, ice and lightning, respectively.  Though they can't be improved by much, you know how to create them.

Utility Flasks - (50cp)
Quicksilver, diamond, jade, granite and quartz.  When drunk, they offer - increased speed, great luck in striking vulnerable areas, increased agility, increased toughness, and the ability to occasionally phase harmlessly through incoming attacks and pass through minor obstacles without being impeded.  These flasks have little room for refinement, but you do have the instructions to make more.

Crafting orbs - (100cp)*
A far weaker cousin to the virtue gem, applying these to an item will consume the orb and apply a random enchantment or effect to the item.  There are many varieties and you receive a one-time gift of a full stack of each kind, except for the Mirror of Kalandra, an item of extreme rarity.

Doryani's Workbench - (200cp)
This bloodstained stone altar carved in the style of the Vaal combines the function of the seven masters' individual workbenches, allowing you to expend crafting orbs to grant items specific enchantments.  By breaking a magical item upon the altar you can harvest shards of crafting orbs from the remains, allowing you to recycle enchantments you have no need of.

Ribbon Spool - (300cp)
A prototype overlooked by the Ebony Legion, this bit of arcane machinery will imbue magical energy into cloth to weave fluttering servitors.  The created ribbons become razor-sharp, able to fly faster than a man can run and eviscerate him through armor with ease.  Ribbons are capable of following simple instructions and have no will of their own, performing their last instructions to the best of their limited ability.  A well-crafted ribbon can last for hundreds of years.

Infernal talc - (400cp)
Steeped in nightmare, exposure to Infernal Talc causes magical energies to rage out of control.  A mere dusting of Talc is enough to ignite the flesh of magic-users and magical creature, and leave enchanted items cracked and pitted.  Any talc you may scavenge within this jump only effects Virtue Gems, but the version purchased here works on most forms of magic you'll encounter.  You also receive a recipe to make more, but it's a dangerous, very tricky thing to make and not at all easy to store safely.

Mirror of Kalandra - (500cp)
Near-mythical in its obscurity, it appears as a simple hand mirror with three gems set into the frame - one green, one blue, and one red.  Who 'Kalandra' was or why the mirror was named after her is a mystery, but all accounts agree that the mirror is capable of creating a perfect copy of any item, duplicating all physical and magical qualities perfectly.  Except, of course, that any markings upon the duplicate are reversed, as if the original was viewed in a reflection.  This quirk never interferes with the function of a copied item.  You receive a new mirror at the beginning of each jump.

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Warehouse upgrades:

Gem Mine - (300cp)
An ugly rent in a wall of your warehouse opens into a dreary passage of rough stone.  Veins of crafting orbs and Virtue Gems glimmer in the dark, growing stronger if left alone to mature for long periods of time.  The process could be quickened by a sufficiently determined (or deranged) mind, and an exhausted mine will replenish itself every few months.  While these gems are moderately safer to use then gems native to Wraeclast, storing anything else within the mineshaft, most especially living things for any amount of time is...not advised.

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Companions

Ebony Legion deserter - (100cp)
Not all who serve Dominus are ignorant of his madness, though the prospect of being stranded in Wraeclast deters thoughts of desertion.  You've met up with one of the few who possess both the moral and martial strength to survive leaving the legion.  The armies of Oriath favor lightning and flame in war, with templars in heavy armor and tower shields backed by sorceresses that provide long-range lightning strikes.  Your new friend is a bit of an outlier, though.  You may choose their gender and preference of combat role.  They receive 100cp to spend and one (element) Affinity perk for free.

Companion Import - (300cp)
Trust is in short supply here, but you had the dubious fortune of being exiled alongside friends.  You may import up to 8 companions, each receives a free background and the accompanying perk, and 400cp to spend.

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Drawbacks
You may take a maximum of +800cp worth of drawbacks.  Tabbed drawbacks can only be taken if the drawback above them is taken.

Lolsorandom - (+100cp)
Crafting orbs are annoyingly random, rarely giving you what you hoped for.  This habit now extends to everything you create when in this jump.  While forging a sword will still get you a sword, you have no control over just what kind of sword it will end up as, and the enchantments you try to place on it will equally random.  The results won't be altered in overall expected quality, at least.

Glutton - (+100cp)
Eat and eat and eat, and never be full.  A problem for one in your particular situation, as edible food is in short supply in Wraeclast.  What you do find is often rife with corruption or mundane toxins.  But if you can stomach body-jacked crabs, insane monkeys, or cannibalistic drop-bears, than you can at least never worry about starving to death.

	Kitava's hunger - (+200cp)
	You can eat and draw sustenance from whatever you can stomach, yes, but it does not seem to fill your belly.  But there is something else, a scent on the wind, strangely familiar and enticing.  You won't recognize this urge...at first.  But by accident or a moment of absent-mindedness, when you take your first bite of man-flesh you will finally know satiation.  All else will forevermore turn to ash in your mouth, offering no nourishment.

Exile among exiles - (+200cp)
Even in Wraeclast, you are an outcast.  No one will offer you or your companions aid, and only grudgingly trade with you.  Exemplary deeds on behalf of others will find you some small courtesies, but you will never truly be welcome.

Map mods - (+200cp)*
Every time you enter a new area, building, or even go down a floor, a blanket set of modifiers will be applied to all enemies within.  They might be stronger, faster, reflect elemental or physical damage, or be near-immune to some specific forms of damage, among other things.  Each modifier set lasts 24 hours after generation, so you cannot simply walk in and out of a room to clear a particularly undesirable set of mods.

	Expansion pack - (+100cp)
	The mods that may apply now include powers and resistances from past jumps.  Expect beasts immune to psionics, undead with anti-tech fields, and sith zombies.  Map mods now also include general environmental modifiers.  Some areas may deaden the senses, be wild magic zones, or fill with electromagnetic distortions that scramble technological devices, among other things.

Creeping corruption - (+300cp)
Echoes of the fallen Vaal, sites of past corruption have wormed up through the cracks in the world to manifest once again.  These areas have the annoying tendency to sprout along routes you must travel, or threaten to spread into and overwhelm to few sanctuaries left in Wraeclast.  To purge the corruption, every warped creature within these areas must be slain, and the Vaalish altar smashed.  Each altar has a guardian, a creation of the Vaal with potent and dangerous thaumaturgy-gifted powers.

    Uber Atziri - (+200cp)
    Queen Atziri succeeded in her quest, after a fashion.  As nightmare rises once again, her own personal hell has connected to the waking world once more.  Quite insane and thinking her lands invaded, she has begun gathering the assorted constructs, undead, and monsters created in her time and forging them into an army to reclaim her ruined kingdom.  Wraeclast cannot survive the weight of her corruption should she manage to materialize in the real world, and the keys to enter her domain are scattered and guarded somewhere among the most dangerous and corrupted sites.  Enter her nightmare and slay her once and for all, or Wraeclast is doomed.

Crystallized potential - (+400cp)
As you fell onto Wraeclast's shores, the nightmare tried and failed to infect you.  But it did succeed in severing your connection to the otherworldly, leaving you surrounded by glittering gems that encapsulated each perk you purchased from previous Jumps.  Socketing a gem into your equipment grants you that perk once again for as long as you wear it.  At the absolute most, a full set of Wraeclast gear can only support 26 sockets, but refining your equipment to this degree is nearly impossible and you'll have half this capacity to start unless you put in some serious grinding.  Others cannot use these gems, but they can be lost or stolen.  The gems shatter and all powers are returned to you in full at the end of the jump.

Have you ever seen the true face of god, exile? - (+800cp)
Though he did not consciously realize it in the beginning, Dominus' thoughts were not entirely his own.  But now all pretense is gone, and Dominus has bent knee to a new god - Malachai has succeeding in lobotomizing the Beast, the source of all thaumaturgy, and taking the reins of power for himself.  The entire Ebony Legion has become corrupted, and 'what is real' is slowly being subsumed into 'what is imagined' - whatever Malachai imagines, that is.  Reality itself is slowly falling under his sway, and within a few short years, the entire continent of Wraeclast, and everyone living within in, will exist only in Malachai's mind.  Anyone or anything within his area of influence can be twisted into a new form or blasted from existence on his merest whim.

Fighting a full-out reality warper would normally be impossible, but there is one sliver of hope - Piety, who was once Dominus' right-hand woman and who helped set him on his current path to damnation.  With high ideals, twisted methods, and no regrets, she has no desire to see the world fall into nightmare, and stole the remains of Malachai's cast-off mortal flesh.  Enough to gird three individuals, the viscera will prevent its bearers from being simply wished from existence and grant them the power to harm a nascent godling.  Piety's intimate knowledge of the Beast makes her essential to victory, so choose the third champion carefully.

Should Piety survive the final battle, you may take her as a companion.  She possesses a unique combination of beauty, intelligence, and ruthlessness, and all the perks of the intelligence background.

Divine resurgence - (+800cp)
The Beast, for all the fear that surrounded it, was never meant to do evil.  Its only purpose was to exist, and bring about the quiescence of the gods that had caused so much misery with their petty desires and spiteful torments.  But now the Beast lays dead, at your hands or by the actions of another, and the Dark Ember, the core of the Beast, latched on to you in mindless desperation.  Your out-of-jump powers grow distant and weaker as time passes, your warehouse slow to open until it is eventually sealed, and the gods stir.

Many minor and major deities now seek to reclaim the prominence over mortal lives that they once enjoyed, no matter the opinion of mortals on the matter.  From the Brine King's abduction and transformation of women into his brides, to Solaris and Lunaris ensnaring minds to gather pawns to continue their feud, to Tukohama's warmongering...soon they will catch scent of the remains of the Beast within you, the one thing that might force them to slumber once again.  As your power wanes, theirs waxes, and monsters, their followers, and eventually the gods themselves will march against you.  Fight, flee, or die.

Should you survive ten years of divine ire, the Dark Ember will fully merge with you.  After overpowering an entity, you may choose to force it into an eternal slumber from which only you may awaken it.  Unless some future catastrophe requires a sealed creature's active intervention to prevent, sealing away a creature through this method will never result in harmful repercussions for the world.  Let mortals learn to live without divine interference.

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NOTES

Any supernatural energies can be used to fuel the creation of a map with the 'Worlds within worlds' perk.  Items and creatures taken out of the map are real and permanent, and can be melted down or tamed as desired.

If a Jumper wishes to acquire something within the game’s passive tree that is not offered here, they must practice and research it on their own.  If sufficiently impressed, the Forsaken Masters of the expansion of the same name each have many unique skills they can teach to a worthy student, if you can find them.

Thaumaturgical Arms and Armor
People who have played Diablo and similar games know what to expect from Path of Exile’s enchantment system.  Here are the full lists:

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Item_affix

Unique items are mostly just better in general, but some have quirks such as making you move faster and hit harder when you’re on fire, granting extreme resistance to one element in exchange for being weaker to all others, converting incoming sources of damage into a particular type, or making slain enemies explode in a shower of gore.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Unique_item

Virtue Gems
Unlike Diablo, skills and spells are not unique to each class.  As long as one is strong, intelligent, or dexterous enough, anyone may socket and employ any skill gem they find.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Skill_gem

Crafting Orbs
Path of exile does away with gold, dismissing the question of why monsters often carry gold in favor of the question of why monsters carry magical equipment without hands.  Loot is sold back at town in exchange for crafting orbs, which allows a player to create new enchantments or alter existing ones.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Currency

Map mods
Similar to item enchantments, but they apply a blanket effect to all creatures, enemies, minions, and otherwise, for as long as they’re in the area.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Map#Modifiers