Intelligent Magic Swords

[Steve]

One of the things I remember from my early days in RPGs (D&D) was how cool the idea of an intelligent magic sword was.

 

Please share your intelligent sword concepts.

[Rich McGee]

I'll mention an obscure but interesting setup.  Way back when The Space Gamer was still being published by Steve Jackson, it ran two short stories by Timothy Zahn about a wandering swordsman named Conaker and his magical sword Whehalken, which had a djinn bound into it providing its enchantment and a few other powers.  They ran in issue 43 and 48, and AFAIK Zahn never did anything else with the characters.  Both can be found online easily enough, and issue 48 also has an article with Aaron Alston talking champions as a bonus. 

 

The setting's magic rules mean that the easiest way to enchant something (weapons, armor, lamps, even architecture) is to summon and bind other-dimensional spirits into them, which is effectively slavery for the intelligent ones - and even minor elementals are semi-intelligent.  I won't spoil the stories beyond saying that, but it does mean that almost all magical swords are self-aware, and some are capable of speech and may have their own desires.  Well worth a read - both stories are very short, and the magazine includes some game mechanics for using this style of magic item in AD&D.  

[Lord Liaden]

There's what I think is a very interesting and plot-advancing concept for an intelligent sword in Hero Games' NPC supplement for its Fantasy HERO line, Nobles, Knights, And Necromancers. Silvertine is a powerful enchanted long sword of beautiful and noble appearance, with the ability to speak mind-to-mind with whoever holds it. Any spell to Detect Evil or Good will confirm its benevolent motivations. But all its positive appearance is a concealing illusion (Images). Silvertine is actually an ugly and brutal-looking weapon, which matches its true malevolence. It wants to cause suffering, death and destruction, and to trick or corrupt its wielder into committing terrible acts. Sometimes it will "guide" a promising victim for years, but if necessary it can take direct control of its holder's mind.

 

Silvertine feeds off the life-force of its wielder, but most insidiously. Whenever the person takes BODY damage in battle, Silvertine Drains an additional point of BODY, so it won't be noticed.

 

EDIT: I assume everyone here is familiar with the most iconic intelligent magic sword in fantasy fiction, Stormbringer, from Michael Moorcock's stories of Elric of Melnibone. But not everyone may know of the granddaddy of them all, Lord Dunsany's Sacnoth.

Edited January 22 by Lord Liaden

[DShomshak]

Well, the PCs in my urban D&D campaign encountered a magic sword with a will of its own, though it did not talk. Thousands of years old, forged by Elves for one of their ancient wars against Orcs, still devoted to the cause. Only, oops, Elves and Orcs are now equal citizens of the Plenary Empire (as are all sapient beings who are capable of obeying its laws). When the sword woke from centuries of sleep to find itself in a city with an orc minority, it overpowered the will of its owner and began a campaign of assassination intended to spark a race war.

 

The PCs dealt with the situation and freed the wielder from the sword's control. They have been assured by the Powers That Be that the powerful sword has been destroyed.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

That's sad. The sword was destroyed for living up to the purpose for which it was created. That's like putting down a dog that was bred and trained to attack.

[GDShore]

I guess that I am very cynical L.L. , the P.T.B's say it's destroyed, the P.C.'s did not see this happen, nor did they do it themselves, I suspect that it is stashed away for that foreseeable day when things go south between elves and orcs.

I have used TWO methods for creating sentient weapons (not just swords) 1. - a demon is summoned and imprisoned within the weapon, when used by someone of like nature there is harmony between the wielder and the wielded but when wielded by a goodly natured person there is a continuous battle of wills between the weapon and it's wielder, 2. - Noble weapons (almost always swords) requires that a church commission the creation. A saintly person of that faith must sacrifice their soul unto the weapon, if a person of evil or ignoble nature attempts to use said weapon it will turn in his/her hand and refuse to damage good. (as determined by the weapon)

[Rich McGee]

Runequest has a somewhat well-known magical sword that goes by Nose-Biter (it tends to hit foes in the snout/snoot/proboscis more often than is should).  It's fully intelligent and self-aware with its own agenda, and prefers to find wielders who are "cooperative" in the sense of being weak-willed and generally dependent on the blade to survive.  By tradition these wielders are known only as Nose-Biter's Feet, which pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the relationship.  The current Feet in the published material is a trollkin, one of the runt troll-spawn created by a curse their fertility goddess is stuck with.

1 hour ago, GDShore said:

I guess that I am very cynical L.L. , the P.T.B's say it's destroyed, the P.C.'s did not see this happen, nor did they do it themselves, I suspect that it is stashed away for that foreseeable day when things go south between elves and orcs.

That first Indiana Jones film really did have a great ending, didn't it? 

 

"Top men."

[Cancer]

I haven't introduced selfwilled intelligent magic weapons in any of my campaigns, largely because I and everyone else in my group are really averse to anything that even hints at being able to override a player's control over their characters.  And artifacts like that would almost certainly be contentious.

 

I was told of a campaign back during my wife's college days of two players, one of whom (the male) played an intelligent artifact sword, while the other (the female) played an intelligent artifact scabbard for that sword.  While no explicit scenarios were related to me, the comment was, "The humor inherent to the situation was if anything worse than you might imagine."

[Rich McGee]

There's an indie RPG called Wield where the players are (primarily) playing an ancient magical artifact from a fallen civilization that's being used by a mortal hero for, well, the usual stuff heroes do in fantasy stories.  The artifacts are nigh-indestructible, have their own suitably mythic agendas (bloodline alive, etc.) and means to unmake them, and can grant incredible power to their wielders who decide when and how those powers are used.  At the extremes, their gifts easily easily capable of destroying an army, drowning a army, turning the wielder into nigh-invulnerable dragon, raising the dead, etc. - these things are part of why it's fallen civilization. 

 

Granting some or all of their powers to a wielder is voluntary, and a wielder can refuse to accept power on offer - because the catch is that the more power a wielder accepts, the more control the item has over them.  Moreover, you don't play your own wielder, the player seated to your left does.  Wielders die pretty regularly, but when they do you make a new wielder, the artifact/wielder pairings usually (there are variant ways to play, confusingly) get reshuffled, and the campaign continues until one or more artifacts achieve their goals and no one else can - either because it's just impossible or because they've been destroyed by their hidden weakness (think One Ring into Mount Doom stuff).  With enough control you can force a wielder to pass you on to someone else, or you could agree to swap wielders - and if you don't have control, your wielder can deliberately abandon you, which sets up the same reset as a wielder dying rather than leaving anyone out of play.

 

It's a rather vaguely written storytelling-focused game for the most part, but the way you need to negotiate with your wielder to accomplish anything and basically try to force them into accepting too many gifts so you can more reliably control them is a neat mechanic.  You can often play cooperatively to at least some degree, but conflicting goals means someone is likely to get shafted eventually, and there's some real advantages toward playing cutthroat with some power sets.  Reminds me a bit of a Cosmic Encounters in the way you can often have a shared "win" - if you can just manage to trust each other - only it's a loosey-goosey RPG instead of a board game.

 

The artifacts don't have to be swords and what you are doesn't restrict your powers, but swords would be a perfectly appropriate choice.  The game even suggests doing campaigns where everyone is the same type of artifact, eg a ring or a weapon.

[Rich McGee]

2 hours ago, Cancer said:

I was told of a campaign back during my wife's college days of two players, one of whom (the male) played an intelligent artifact sword, while the other (the female) played an intelligent artifact scabbard for that sword.  While no explicit scenarios were related to me, the comment was, "The humor inherent to the situation was if anything worse than you might imagine."

Oh dear.  Sounds like time to dust off the Book of Erotic Fantasy there.

 

You remind me that one of the expendable magic items in 13th is enchanted oil, which turns mundane items briefly magical.  True magic items are frequently at least semi-aware and will also ask to be oiled up on occasion, which does nothing for them mechanically (as they're already magical all the time) but they can get sulky and uncooperative if you don't treat them now and then.  Given the situation above the lube jokes pretty much write themselves.

 

On a more general note, true (ie permanent) magic items (including swords) in 13th Age all come with quirks, which modify their user's behavior and thinking unless they deliberately suppress them.  This usually isn't a problem, but if you try to carry too many true items at once the quirks will overwhelm you and start manifesting whenever the GM wants - usually at inconvenient moments.  You can also get minor bennies from the GM if you choose to roleplay a quirk briefly bleeding through in an entertaining or dramatic fashion when you aren't being forced to.  A few oddball effects can amp up your quirks even when you would normally be able to restrain them, so magic items aren't ever entirely safe to use.

 

Most swords (and other items) aren't truly sentient and can't fully take you over even when their quirk is pushing hard, but a fair few are self-aware enough to have personalities and at least negotiate a bit about how they're used.  Think limited AI more than fully realized personality - most of the time.

 

Think I'm finally out of corner-case examples now.  Intelligent swords aren't as common as you'd expect - and I don't think the singing sword in that one Bugs Bunny cartoon really counts as intelligent as such. 

Edited January 23 by Rich McGee

[carmachu]

7 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

That's sad. The sword was destroyed for living up to the purpose for which it was created. That's like putting down a dog that was bred and trained to attack.

Who says the powers that be actually destroyed the sword? Sure they gave assurance s, but unless you saw it destroyed personally....

[Lord Liaden]

Dean Shomshak was the GM for the game, I guess he can answer that.

[tombrown803]

But, will he?

[MordeanGrey]

Because of the wonderful flexibility of the HERO system, I once had a character who played an intelligent sword. He was basically the demonic force and personality of the weapon and would use mind control powers to obtain new sword bearer minions who would carry him around and wield him in battle.

 

It was a high-magic game set in the Planes and worked out surprisingly well.

 

 

[Chris Goodwin]

8 hours ago, tombrown803 said:

But, will he?

 

"Top. Men."

[magnon]

Back in the Third Age of Man (late 1980's) I ran a FH campaign for a while and one of the players found a sword with multiple personality disorder.  Every time he drew the sword he rolled a d6 to determine which personality was in ascendance at the time and each personality had its own bonuses.  He really hated the pacifist persona.