My World of Greyhawk campaign started over 30 years ago, with the seeds being planted in my college campaign at Lock Haven University. It’s continued, on and off, ever since. During that time, it’s featured a number of unique weapons, a few of which I detailed below.
Blackrazor: The legendary, soul-sucking sword inspired the name of my regular gaming group, the Blackrazor Guild. In our campaign,it was recovered from White Plume Mountain by Brant Bladescream and his fellow adventurers. They went on to found the Blackrazor Guild, eventually losing the blade when they tried – and failed – to kill the ancient black dragon Woryx in his lair. Bladescream later died, and a new generation of adventurers took control of the guild. They have long spoken of retrieving the blade, but so far, that hasn’t happened. There have been many iterations of Blackrazor’s stats over the years, the most recent version of which showing up in the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition version of White Plume Mountain in Tales from the Yawning Portal.
Bloodletter: A powerful sword of sharpness that re-animates the individuals it kills as sword zombie minions. Effectively a relic, Bloodletter powers allowed it to mentally command its resurrected zombie minions and included potent magic such as silence 15′, darkness 15′, fear, vampiric touch, and power word: kill,. The intelligent weapon played a major role in my college campaign but never became a factor in the later Blackrazor Guild campaign.
Justiceseeker: A bastard sword imbued with the soul of Justiceseeker, a cleric of Tritheron (god of Individuality, Liberty, Retribution, Self-Defense in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting). Murdered by nefarious forces, the cleric’s soul bonded with his signature weapon and was subsequently wielded by his protege, Kalib Ironfist. Under Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, Justiceseeker was an intelligent +3 bastard sword, +5 vs. murders.
Time’s Splinter: An artifact capable of manipulating time. Its wielder can stop time, throw opponents forward into the time stream, and summon time elementals. It can also be used to travel backward in time, though this is inherently dangerous (and a power so far only used by NPCs in our campaign). Currently wielded by Valeron (archmage, chronomancer, and a friend’s PC from my college campaign).
This post is part of RPG a Day 2021, a month-long celebration of role-playing games. Join the Facebook community to learn more or read other Nuketown posts in this series.
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An adventurer wielding the mighty sword Blackrazor as featured in the adventure White Plume Mountain. Credit: TSR/Wizards of the Coast.