Lone Knight

Pearl Diviner’s Claw

The soft nacreous sheen of this scimitar-like blade looks almost like an enamel or stain, but no — it is part of the blade itself, a feature of the Claw’s draconically-worked steel. Pearl Diviner’s Claw is also a blade and only a blade, the tip wickedly sharp, the butt ending abruptly in a short blunt wedge capped with silver. There is no hilt, no grip of any kind, and no proper tang on which to mount one.

* Pearl Diviner’s Claw, once claimed by a new owner (by touching at least three drops of blood to the butt of the blade), will hover and bob silently around their person, following the motions of a limb if its owner so desires and otherwise hanging in a neutral position, tip downward. At will, its owner can direct the blade to fly and slash at subjects within comfortable melee range as if a scimitar in addition to any other allowable actions that they may have.

Four times per lunar cycle, the Claw’s owner may trail a blood drop on the blade and ask a question or seek to identify an object or being, and the answer will shimmer to the surface of Pearl Diviner’s Claw.

* It’s a strange world out there, sometimes; and what could be stranger, to some, than a dragon that wanted to be a duelist? But that is exactly what Curacivatha The Ocean Jewel wished, and so that was exactly what he did — forging the Claw from sunken steel and his own blood and venom, according to enchantments he saw in pearl-sent dreams.

A dragon’s paw may be unsuited to the sword, but a dragon’s mind can wield any blade. The Ocean Jewel insisted, after all, on fair matches.

Tany

Is Tany a sword? Sword-shaped, certainly, more or less: a “blade” of vertebrae, their processes sharpened; quillions and handbasket of jawbone fused with ribs; a rust-brown grip entirely too warm and accommodating; and — most prominent of all — the swollen adamant egg between hilt and spine-blade filled with bloody fluid, tangled veins and a slowly beating heart.

Tany murmurs loneliness. Won’t you help? Please won’t you help?

* Attacking with Tany inflicts unnatural terror on any living creature struck — even plant life will curl up — leaving them fleeing and hiding for safety wherever they may, until the fear passes (test 1/hour). There’s a price for that, though. Tany’s bearer must fight off the mental backlash (dagger damage) as Tany fights back — and fights for a home.

What Tany really wants is to be driven to the quillions through a living body (best attempted on an unmoving target, but one can improvise). Doing so explodes Tany into a torrent of fluid and bone as the heart in the egg forcibly implants itself into the victim and brings Tany with it. The wound closes over with a lacework of splintered bone … and Tany looks back at the now former bearer of the blade.

What she does depends on a great many things.

* The sword Tany will not, or cannot, surrender details of her origins. Sometimes, even his assumed gender changes; species is never divulged, though humanoid of some kind might possibly be inferred. From Tany’s wistful whispered pleas can be gleaned the work of a death-forger, a lord of the grave; is this Tany? Is Tany a student? A victim? Is it all a tale?

Tany does have necromantic knowledge and will mournfully murmur anecdotes about many unliving and diabolical things.

Tany just wants to live.

Will you help?

Waycutter

A broadsword, well-worn and equally well maintained despite the tiny nicks in the blade and the scarring across the burnished oak of its heavy hilt. Waycutter sports stout, blocky iron quillions and its chunky hilt is nailed with the same, with a simple iron pommel-nut; in the furrow of its blade are chiseled a string of runes proclaiming the ocean, the craft of craftiness, the glories of both, and the sword’s own name.

* Waycutter is an excellent sword, and virtually immune to damage (which begs questions about the nicks it bears), but other than the ability to harm those immune to mundane weapons it offers no further benefits in battle. Actively bearing the blade confers a more subtle benefit: the ability to roughly gauge the value of any trade good, gift or plunder, even to the benefit of more than one party should Waycutter’s bearer wish it.

But the true worth of the broad blade is greater still. At a command, wordless, Waycutter will transform from sword to trimmed and sea-worthy longship fit to carry up to a score of travellers or warriors, and their cargo, holding this shape until commanded otherwise or until its bearer draws their final breath.

* There have been many Waycutters over the generations, or so it seems; enough sagas to suggest a small fleet of such grey-winged sword-ships. Or perhaps only one, or maybe two, famous blades. Who can say? Most tales do agree, however, that the first and finest was crafted from the iron bones of a smith-wyrm and quenched in an ice-witch’s foam-flecked harbour by the battlepriest Ironheart as a gift to the long-gloried Ingvi, the Storm Wave’s King.

Talenen, The Sundered Soul

Once, Talenen was a greatsword of legendary make; mirror-bright steel chased with delicate gold filigree and silver calligraphy, mounted in gilt bronze and turquoise and mother of pearl, the Mirror Of The Soul brought peace and clarity to the distressed and sorrowful retribution to the unrepentant.

Now the Sundered Soul is a dozen fragments of scorched steel and broken gilding, hovering about their bearer like fluttering, frightened butterflies of once-shining purpose.

* Once a day for each pair of Talenen’s fragments in one’s possession, the once-sword’s owner may dispel fear, dull or restore a memory as desired by the subject, show the image of a mysterious yet soothing flower-meadow in the metal of a shard, encourage one to sleep, or divert a shard to foul an attack (+2 to armour for that incoming attack). In duress, one shard may fly up to 60′, slashing as a dagger and ignoring defenses; all shards will blacken and be unresponsive for 24 hrs afterward.

It is said that, as the Mirror, Talenen possessed the ability of its shards and deeper, more revelatory gifts, in addition to granting its bearer great prowess against its enemies and greater prowess to defend the needy (+2 to attack and damage, +3 against deliberately evil or criminal or cruel subjects; or, lower these bonuses to increase armour in the service of taking blows meant for others, 1:2, per incident).

It is also whispered, more quietly still, that the Mirror possessed an awareness and a soul of its own.

* As the Mirror Of The Soul, Talenen was a source of inspiration and hope for many, just as its bearer, the itinerant knight Jahan Nightingale, had been. But Jahan’s light has long been extinguished, his remains long lost — if the knight be not held captive or ensorcelled or worse, or a moldering corpse in an oubliette — and Talenen scattered across the land.

Gathering Talenen’s shards has been the work of seers, devotees, would-be squires and once-been criminals, passed hand to hand as the thundering black hooves chase them in the night.

And it’s whispered that if one last shard is found Talenen will reassemble of its own accord, and grant its full strength to its new bearer in return for finding Jahan — or what remains.

Principle Of Order

This longsword appears to be carved entirely from grey marble — blade, hilt, all of it entirely from one piece of seamless, unblemished, smoothly polished stone. It is perfectly symmetrical and perfectly balanced, with a precisely angled blade-tip and squared off, prism-shaped quillions.

Nicks and scratches acquired by Principle Of Order disappear within moments; similarly the sword rejects any attempt to elaborate on its spare and spartan appearance, sloughing off everything from paint to gilding to wrapping of the hilt.

* Principle Of Order cannot be used to harm any creature or object that is not allied with or spawned of the forces of entropy; it will simply refuse to cause that harm. What it does, is act as a lodestone for setting things “right” as order defines it.

A slash of the blade against a sundered door, and the door stands whole; thrust into ashes, it raises the burned barn, pile by pile. A living being may be healed by Principle Of Order — by the blade in the wound, or against the flesh — but only once in a year’s cycle, because living beings chart their own paths and some injury and illness must therefore occur.

The sword will reveal the twisting of laws when those actions serve disorder and entropy, pulling law away from the common weal; but to do so it must be brandished against a manifestation of such a corrupted law, be it document or enforcer. Then phantom cracks, as if filled with lead, flash across Principle Of Order’s smooth stone surface until the disruption is contended with.

* A manifestation of order itself, this sword — some say it is unique, others claim a trio, still others an ennead of nine — cannot be created by mortal hands. It must be found (or “found”, as this is never truly by chance) or be gifted by one of orders champions — and the weight of accepting such a gift will be made very apparent before Principle Of Order is given into one’s hands.

Prideblight

Some swords are unpleasant necessary works.
This is one of them.

A longsword half eaten through by rust, by its looks — though its ragged blade is deceptively strong — and secured by rough iron nails to a wormeaten, oaken hilt. It does appear to have once had quillions, now broken (or rusted) off. The pommel is a broken stump.

And, when Prideblight is turned just so, an inscription in verdigris and bloody rust can just be perceived on its piecemeal flat: “Show your real face.”

* A strike from Prideblight appears to cause no injury save for a few shallow scorings, easily tended (which is a very good idea anyway, because of its general rust and foulness), a “failure” that may leave its wielder being jeered and mocked. But not for long.

Any arrogant member of high society — or any society, really, if they seek to crush others beneath their boot — callous or repressive nobility, abusers of laws and others of such ilk who receive so much as a scratch from the stained blade find their flesh beginning to look, feel and reek of decay, face and hands first: a progressive, weeping foulness spreading as the days pass that may only be relieved by the afflicted truly making an honest effort — to be a better person.

* Prideblight is a legend whispered of with hope by the downtrodden and terror by its potential victims. None know its creator, nor the identity of the first to wield it — as their face was hidden by veils of wool and bones — nor, truth be told, that of many of that Bleak Laughter’s numerous successors. Prideblight just has a way of appearing, even if it was presumed destroyed, and a brave bearer along with it; and then, once more, slipping away into obscurity to foster silent dread.

Sebi, the Falling Star

A surprisingly broad shortsword with a mirror-bright edge to contrast its frosted flats, Sebi is forged of an exotic metal that fell from the heavens; there’s an almost milky white undertone to its steely frost, and when tipped into the light it shimmers with a faint golden sheen. Sebi’s hilt, including its quillions — backswept crescents — and smooth sphere of a pommel-nut are forged as one with the blade; its grip is bolstered by faceted pearl plates held in place by gilded pins.

* Should its wielder choose, Sebi may — rather than, or in addition to, simply attacking and wounding — produce one of two effects when the blade is swung: a drifting wave of soft gleaming golden stardust that obscures its wielder’s location (next attack against is at disadvantage), or the release of a silver-gold shining mote that flies up to 60′ and causes damage as a dagger.

Perhaps more useful to some, however, is Sebi’s ability as a guiding star map. Held up towards the sky and panned around, regardless of time of day or state of the weather, one may see the stars as they would be, in the flat of the Falling Star’s now night-dark blade. No feature of the starry vault may be hidden from Sebi’s sight.

* Carefully and lovingly gathered from its calamitous fall, the celestial metal that became the Falling Star was forged into its current shape by the skysmith Vanai Fatehealer, and carried by that worthy for the rest of their days. It has since been passed down to a series of skysmiths, diviners, sorcerers and charters of the heavens — and more than one star-following buccaneer amongst the lot.

Landsblood

Impeccable, this longsword is — flawless edges, perfect balance, graceful ivy-like quillions of silver- and gold-gilt that sweep back into a hand-guard that sports the royal crest amongst its leaves, to match the intricately enameled crest set into the silver pommel-nut. The hilt’s grip is a tight spiral of silver and gold braid.

What really stands out are the flats of the blade: both are polished to a brilliant mirror sheen.

* Landsblood grants prowess and deadliness to its wielder’s blows (+2 to attack and damage), and causes injuries to enemies of the realm to bleed continuously until treated — which cannot be through sorcerous or other non-mundane means.

However, its true purpose is rather different.

Once sworn to the realm, Landsblood’s wielder may peer into the flats of the blade to see across the breadth of the kingdom that is their charge, as if a bird in flight, with awareness of both location and any notable distress, imbalance or building conflict that needs redress. (it does not allow breaching private homes.)

If the ruler deliberately allows their lands and people to fester and fall, Landsblood animates and turns on its former master, flying to attack until death or true repentance or both.

* The origin of Landsblood is lost in royal legendry; the most common tales spin variants of the first ruler, in a fit of bloodied despair, being granted the blade by a manifestation of the Green-Cycle Unicorn in response to an oath to save the people and the land from sorcerous devastation. Darker tales whisper of a bleak black-crowned king shown the error of his ways and bound to shoulder Landsblood and its wise burden.

Pavane, the Peacock Blade

Gold, glitter, and shimmering iridescent inlays. Intricately patterned chevrons of emerald and sapphire and brass rippling down the length of this exquisitely balanced shortsword’s golden blade. A grip of braided green and blue silks beaded with gold; intricately pieced quillions in the shape of feathery fans, frames the last palm’s-span of blade, a counterpoint to the dazzling cobalt-green orb of the pommel nut.

So ostentatious is Pavane, the sword leaves a sparkling trial of emerald blue in the wake of every stab, slash and gesture.

* Pavane is meant to fascinate, to distract, and it performs its task with literally scintillating colours. Drawing the Peacock Blade, or even presenting it boldly, draws the eye of any within eyeshot not deliberately exempted by Pavane’s bearer; all others keep their attention on the sword and its wielder, to the point of attacking the source of their fascination before all other potential targets.

The effect is lost when Pavane is sheathed, its wielder is overcome, or one who is entranced fights off the fascination.

* It has since seen its fair share of flamboyant owners — not least, briefly, the Prism Wyrm Kiritylith — but Pavane’s commission was to the specifications of Golden-Eyed Jarrala, a mercenary bodyguard as famed for his colourful and eye-dazzling accoutrements as he was for being a stone-fleshed wall of warding between danger and those he contracted to protect. No expense, and no show, was too much when he was on the job, be it for a day or a decade.

Bellwether

Relatively unadorned, Bellwether is a well-balanced and often-sharpened longsword, sporting an oaken hilt studded with brass nails to match the the spots of colour on the tips of its backswept quillions. Its pommel is a smooth brass orb.

Bellwether’s one notable physical feature is the inscription engraved onto both sides of the blade: “Temper thyself, or display thine temper.”

* When Bellwether’s wielder is calm, composed, patient, or otherwise unruffled — in a neutral state, one could say — the sword has a golden gleam when swung and inflicts additional damage (as a dagger) that counts as lightning or light/sun damage, whichever would be more beneficial. (for example, undead and demons probably won’t like light, metal-armoured folks won’t appreciate lightning, etc.)

If Bellwether’s wielder is passionate or enraged, the sword erupts in flames, dealing additional damage as a shortsword (fire), but also causing minimum damage to its wielder.

If Bellwether’s wielder is fearful or shaken or mournful, the sword shrouds itself in ice and frost, dealing additional damage as a shortsword (ice), but also causing minimum damage to its wielder.

* Surely one of the more extreme examples of self-inflicted lessons in self-control, Bellwether was commissioned by one Dareth Falconheart some years ago to teach himself not only equilibrium and that self-control, but how and when to harness his wild emotions to his own will.

The “small pains” of the first lesson, and beyond, Dareth considered worth the utility of the second. (other opinions have varied about this peculiar self-sacrificing habit, though it was certainly effective!)