An artefact is usually created by a mage who expends part of himself in order to imbue the item with his power. This expenditure comes from one of two sources; either the mage spends experience points or he expends magickal power points. The expenditure in both cases is permanent irrespective of success or failure to create the new item.
All magi except wizards create magickal items in the following manner. Firstly the mage must know the correct spell in order to prepare his would-be artefact to accept the power he's about to bestow upon it. This "spell" is called "Imbue". The Imbue spell gives an artefact part of the casters life force so that the item can contain and wield magick. The prepared item is then ensorcelled with the desired effect which once again costs the mage in life force so that the effect can take on a life of it's own.
In game terms the mage loses a number of experience points equal to double the cost of the ensorcelments cast on the item; half to prepare it using the imbue spell and half to actually ensorcel it.
NOTE: the cost to create the item in experience is permanent, if any roll during the item creation is unsuccessfull then the creation process fails and the experience is still spent. The experience spent need not come from the experience gained pool, it is perfectly legal for a mage to loose an abillity score point and gain some two thirds of the experience back for it, this can be ANY abillity but NOT skills thus a mage with a strength of six who was prepared to drop the score to five could gain 40 experience points (60 / 3) * 2. Experience gained in this way CANNOT be used for anything other than item manufacturing.
Once the item is created the magick's upon it are locked in place by casting a binding spell, the difficulty of the binding spell is modified by the sum of the effects (spell levels) cast upon the item. Many binding spells exist, finding them is often the key to making awesome magickal artefacts as some binding spells have bonuses to difficulty!
**big list of artefacts that exist in the island kingdoms, remember these are earthly items made by men and trolls etc, NOT things of the gods. The list should include how rare the item is (common - unique) as well as a list of the items power, how often it can be used and (charges, times per day, once only) and any weilder restrictions that may apply!