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loneknight2023-09-10 03:11 am
taichara) wrote in loneknight2023-09-10 03:11 am
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Swordtember 2023 — Days 01-10
AuGhost finished — but of course now it’s time for Swordtember!
This time around I decided on three things:
– I was going to make my own list
– each entry would not be as long as last year’s entries
– this time I would stick to types of enchantments/materials/etc, rather than unique or semi-unique blades
Since these are short entries like the ones for AuGhost, I’m going to post them in batches, like AuGhost.
So! Here are the first ten sword(-type)s of Swordtember 2023!
01. Thornwrought (“fae”)
The blades of faerieland are distinctive, whether gifted to mortals (or stolen, or discovered by same) or forged by mortal hands from round billets of “faerie silver”, a disquietingly shimmering, translucent silver metal.
No matter its size, a thorn is as light in the hand as a dagger or dart. Its edge flares with silvery light if it strikes magic; wounds left by it fester, disgorging string and feathers and fishbones. Striking iron shatters it.
02. Oathbreakers (“cursed”)
Maybe not all of the swords branded oathbreaker owe their state to a literal broken oath, but the name sticks.
Whatever the cause — oathbreaking, failing a sworn quest, abandoning cause or creed — the result is the same: somewhere on the sword a tiny black barbed spiral appears, and the blade grows spiteful. Should its wielder, new or old, fall short in any way, the sword turns itself on them with the next strike, no matter how impossible.
03. Moon’s-Eye (“lunar”)
No matter the size or make of a moon’s-eye sword, this blade will follow the phases of the moon in the injuries it inflicts: full, two-handed or bastard sword; gibbous, longsword; half, shortsword; crescent, dagger; and during the new moon, a strike from a moon’s-eye sword will heal its target the equal of a full moon strike, but only once a day.
Moon’s-eye swords shift colour to reflect their phase, or sport a gem or glass that does so.
04. Revelation (“solar”)
Nothing escapes the light of the sun, and no falsehood survives the touch of a revelation blade. A wielder could use it simply as a source of light — golden to dawn, it is certainly that — but it is better deployed against lies and falsities.
One may choose to cause no injury with a revelation sword; instead a hidden truth is spoken, a true form is revealed as a sunshine silhouette, and so on. But the sword dissipates if its bearer turns false.
05. Martyring (“corroded”)
A martyring blade, whatever else its enchantments or qualities, is always rusted, tarnished, stained — unkempt-looking no matter what is done to clean it or mend it.
Each such blade has seven martyrdoms when first forged. At any time, the martyring sword may be touched to a broken object and it will make it whole. Touched to any wound it heals that wound. Each time, the sword deteriorates further, and at the end it falls to pieces.
06. Emberi (“flame”)
The blast of dragonfire; a lordly fire elemental’s heart; arcane forges, leagues-wide conflagrations — any and all of these may leave in their wake a tapering tongue of glowing essence in all the colours of Fire.
Such a congealed flame can be used as a blade on its own, but risks abound; adding it to fine metal produces a flame-hued sword that wounds like fire itself, warms its wielder, and bolsters any endeavour that requires a passionate response.
07. Gelidi (“frost”)
A rippled spar of transparent silver-blue or -teal, or a mass of glittering white nodules (best ground to powder and folded into metal now turned colourless and cold), gelidi is found at the heart of glaciers, in the permafrost of lands locked in eternal winter, and piercing the core of ice elementals.
Gelidi blades deliver winter’s numbing paralysis with their strike, and bolster any action that requires calm clarity. They are sometimes fragile.
08. Fulguri (“bolt”)
A sword of lightning? Never more literal than a fulguri blade, sharpened from a gleaming, soldified blue-gold bolt; rare as primal blades go, found in the arc of a dragon’s breath, hurled by vengeful — or magnanimous — stormlords, spun from the wake of eldritch storms.
Such a blade harms even the wielder to touch unless a pact is made. Then it boosts speed, sharpens senses, and is sure death to knights, to metal elementals, and to the constructed.
09. Dayneedle (“flower”)
On far-off mountains wreathed in clouds grow pink-golden lilies — lilies so titanic the stands of them are like bamboo forests adorned with blossoms broader than one’s armspan.
Plucked and dried unopened, mounted in cedar and silk, the right charms murmured, the bud of such a lily becomes sharp as a rapier and suited to any who won’t or can’t bear metal. Some even seep nectar into a hilt reservoir, a draft every three days that sustains for one.
10. Wychbane (“mirror”)
A wychbane sword is usually a shortsword or, rarely, a rapier; one very seldom sees, say, a wychbane claymore.
The hilt and trappings are simple — bronze or steel, leather plaiting — and the blade is unornamented. Why would it be, when its entire surface gleams like quicksilver?
It’s not for reflecting images, mind, but magic — a sword-blow can be against a spell, even mid-cast, and if the strike is true the magic is sent back to its source.
This time around I decided on three things:
– I was going to make my own list
– each entry would not be as long as last year’s entries
– this time I would stick to types of enchantments/materials/etc, rather than unique or semi-unique blades
Since these are short entries like the ones for AuGhost, I’m going to post them in batches, like AuGhost.
So! Here are the first ten sword(-type)s of Swordtember 2023!
01. Thornwrought (“fae”)
The blades of faerieland are distinctive, whether gifted to mortals (or stolen, or discovered by same) or forged by mortal hands from round billets of “faerie silver”, a disquietingly shimmering, translucent silver metal.
No matter its size, a thorn is as light in the hand as a dagger or dart. Its edge flares with silvery light if it strikes magic; wounds left by it fester, disgorging string and feathers and fishbones. Striking iron shatters it.
02. Oathbreakers (“cursed”)
Maybe not all of the swords branded oathbreaker owe their state to a literal broken oath, but the name sticks.
Whatever the cause — oathbreaking, failing a sworn quest, abandoning cause or creed — the result is the same: somewhere on the sword a tiny black barbed spiral appears, and the blade grows spiteful. Should its wielder, new or old, fall short in any way, the sword turns itself on them with the next strike, no matter how impossible.
03. Moon’s-Eye (“lunar”)
No matter the size or make of a moon’s-eye sword, this blade will follow the phases of the moon in the injuries it inflicts: full, two-handed or bastard sword; gibbous, longsword; half, shortsword; crescent, dagger; and during the new moon, a strike from a moon’s-eye sword will heal its target the equal of a full moon strike, but only once a day.
Moon’s-eye swords shift colour to reflect their phase, or sport a gem or glass that does so.
04. Revelation (“solar”)
Nothing escapes the light of the sun, and no falsehood survives the touch of a revelation blade. A wielder could use it simply as a source of light — golden to dawn, it is certainly that — but it is better deployed against lies and falsities.
One may choose to cause no injury with a revelation sword; instead a hidden truth is spoken, a true form is revealed as a sunshine silhouette, and so on. But the sword dissipates if its bearer turns false.
05. Martyring (“corroded”)
A martyring blade, whatever else its enchantments or qualities, is always rusted, tarnished, stained — unkempt-looking no matter what is done to clean it or mend it.
Each such blade has seven martyrdoms when first forged. At any time, the martyring sword may be touched to a broken object and it will make it whole. Touched to any wound it heals that wound. Each time, the sword deteriorates further, and at the end it falls to pieces.
06. Emberi (“flame”)
The blast of dragonfire; a lordly fire elemental’s heart; arcane forges, leagues-wide conflagrations — any and all of these may leave in their wake a tapering tongue of glowing essence in all the colours of Fire.
Such a congealed flame can be used as a blade on its own, but risks abound; adding it to fine metal produces a flame-hued sword that wounds like fire itself, warms its wielder, and bolsters any endeavour that requires a passionate response.
07. Gelidi (“frost”)
A rippled spar of transparent silver-blue or -teal, or a mass of glittering white nodules (best ground to powder and folded into metal now turned colourless and cold), gelidi is found at the heart of glaciers, in the permafrost of lands locked in eternal winter, and piercing the core of ice elementals.
Gelidi blades deliver winter’s numbing paralysis with their strike, and bolster any action that requires calm clarity. They are sometimes fragile.
08. Fulguri (“bolt”)
A sword of lightning? Never more literal than a fulguri blade, sharpened from a gleaming, soldified blue-gold bolt; rare as primal blades go, found in the arc of a dragon’s breath, hurled by vengeful — or magnanimous — stormlords, spun from the wake of eldritch storms.
Such a blade harms even the wielder to touch unless a pact is made. Then it boosts speed, sharpens senses, and is sure death to knights, to metal elementals, and to the constructed.
09. Dayneedle (“flower”)
On far-off mountains wreathed in clouds grow pink-golden lilies — lilies so titanic the stands of them are like bamboo forests adorned with blossoms broader than one’s armspan.
Plucked and dried unopened, mounted in cedar and silk, the right charms murmured, the bud of such a lily becomes sharp as a rapier and suited to any who won’t or can’t bear metal. Some even seep nectar into a hilt reservoir, a draft every three days that sustains for one.
10. Wychbane (“mirror”)
A wychbane sword is usually a shortsword or, rarely, a rapier; one very seldom sees, say, a wychbane claymore.
The hilt and trappings are simple — bronze or steel, leather plaiting — and the blade is unornamented. Why would it be, when its entire surface gleams like quicksilver?
It’s not for reflecting images, mind, but magic — a sword-blow can be against a spell, even mid-cast, and if the strike is true the magic is sent back to its source.