Sometimes an item -- a gun, clothes, a car -- is just that (see Op Tech).

But there are two levels by which you can make an item a lot more than that.

• You can take an item as an Extra, if it's something unusual.

• Or you can take an item as an Aspect, if it's intrinsic to your character.

You can also take something as both an Aspect and an Extra.

If you take an Item as an Aspect, and are unable to use it when it would be useful, you earn (Aspect level) Fate Points in compensation. Sooner or later, though, you'll be reunited by fate and coincidence (Greyswandir in the tree trunk, as it were.)

Just because you take an item as an Aspect or Extra doesn't mean it does more than just ... be. An Aspect gun is just a gun (but one that's very important to you, narratively). By making it an Extra, too, and giving it Aspects itself, it conveys those Aspects to you.

So for example, you might take a particular gun as an Extra (1 skill level), and then give it Aspects (Accurate, Intimidating, 1 or more skill levels each). You could then make use of those Aspects as if they were your own, as long as you had the item around or it was an applicable time to use it.

See Aspect Item Discussion for (much) more thinking on this.

Another way to look at it is (to use a model we're familiar with) buying a personal item in ADRPG. Anyone can have a sword (sword-as-item). Heck, anyone can have, with little difficulty, a magic sword (sword-as-Extra). But if you drop points on it, it becomes like Greyswandir, part of the story, and something that always stays with you (sword-as-Aspect).

Mal Reynolds has clothes (usually). His guns are probably Extras, familiar weights and reliable friends. But Serenity is one of his Aspects ...

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Character Rules