I've read Warbreaker by Sanderson and I really liked the interaction between Nightblood, the living sword, and its wielder Vasher, the master magician.
Are there other good fantasy series you can share with me that have sentient weapons helping and talking with their wielders? My request is not limited to swords but shields, spears, armor, crossbows or any type of armament useless on their own and in need of a partner to unleash their destructive potential.
I would like it even more if the protagonist is the weapon and not the wielder.
Spoiler warning for Age Of Ashes
I was trying to add flavor to the Cult of Cinders adventure path because camping out and exploring can get monotonous so I started adding random encounters to GREAT success. One encounter was a very gossip prone monkey who became fast friends with our druid who was fascinated by making friends with every possible creature.
One night Bimothy(the monkey) wasn't there, he left a pretty rock but he was gone for days. Concern was rising. Lo and behold he arrives in camp late one night during the druids watch Bim arrives suffering from exhaustion, covered in blood, and clutching an obsidian dagger.
Since then he has grown at least half a foot, started walking upright and can speak common( and other languages). I should also say they witnessed part of a revenge quest he was on against a tribe of Biloko.
He has no ill will to the party and is quite fond of them yet two of the party members are terrified of what he's becoming.
The question I have for the subreddit is how would you run with this? I have my ideas for what I like for Bim but I wanted to share. Right now he has a lot of downtime at the Citadel away from the party, what would you have them run into when they come back?
To Drazil and Ingvar, mind your own business.
Edit for formatting
Recently one player in my group started using a sentient greatsword that's artefact-level powerful, far stronger than anything else the group has access to. It houses the spirit of a mad prophet who wants to see the world engulfed in flames. At first I thought to signal this clearly and therefore have the players avoiding to use it, but where's the fun in that? So instead I thought to play the sword as a bit more cunning, making a show of all the abilities it can grant its bearer. In the background it's working its way into the bearer's mind, slowly taking over their will. The idea is the slow seduction of power by something you know you shouldn't do, but is oh so sweet. And by the time you realize you've gone too far it's already too late.
Hence I devised the following method: each long rest the player spends attuned to the sword, they must make a Wisdom save with a high DC. Successes have no further effect, but failures are tallied. After a certain amount of failures (maybe 3) the sword will start making demands of the player, and if they refuse, the sword will take over their body and force them to do it. This would hopefully lead to some tasty roleplay, and possibly a sort of PvP boss fight where the goal is to get rid of the sword, like how >!Grog struggled with Craven Edge in Critical Role!<.
Have you other possible methods of doing this?
Correct me if I'm wrong but Wren Kain said to Arthur that the acclorite would transform into the weapon he needs the most at the moment and thus regis, a sentient being was born, meaning that the one thing Arthur needed most at the moment was a companion or someone to talk to.
Really shows how broken and lonely Arthur was in that moment
Playing in the MotW system but the question is pretty system-agnostic! Would love to hear ideas!! :)
For extra info, the weapon (a dagger) vanished into a whip of smoke when they touched it (with intent to wield), and calls itself "The Rot"
I would like to see a manga in which the unfortunate soul is transmigrated into a weapon like a sword, a shield or a suit of armor and needs to find a partner to wield them to make full use of their powers.
I got a proposition from my friend,he asked me if i could draw a sword or other melle weapon that is sentient and has some characteristic's of an animal.For example a sword that will represent a desert fox could be an egyptian styled blade with a fluffy tail on the end of its chandle,i would rylly like to draw a melle weapon that represents some kind of less common or even non existant animal,yes i am making this post bc i know that there are ppl who have wery uniqe ideas and i would like to kindly ask if anyone would be so nice to write some ideas in the comments.Have a nice day/night eweryone and be well.
So I have been reading Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. And so far it is fantastic! In this story, the MC has a sentient sword named Ashdrinker. This got my brains turning to all the wonderful and fantastic sentient weapons in stories.
So what are some of your favorite sentient weapons? Extra points if they talk, because banter is almost always amusing. Maybe a Sentient Weapon tournament is on the horizon...
Here are some of mine:
-The Browning from Eric Carter - imbued with what we think is the soul of a Nazi Necromancer.
-Nightblood from Warbreaker - So cheerfully wants to destroy some evil...
-THE Stormbringer from Elric Saga - The first sentient weapon I remember reading.
-Bleach (Anime and Manga)- Where literally every zanpakto (Spelling) is this.
-The Master Sword - Zelda Series
I could go on, but I want to hear what you guys have to say.
Genre: Turn Based Strategic Roguelike
Game Summary: You play as a sentient/magic weapon that has an ability to influence those around you. You start by just influencing just one unit but you can grow that power. Your goal, defeat all the evil in this land.
Mechanics/Ideas:
- Units have abilities and attacks that are enhanced when wielding the weapon. Perhaps this is only after the weapon has killed at least one enemy in combat.
- Instead of skill trees for units, you have a skill tree for the weapon that does various things for your party and provides enhancements to the units abilities and attacks of the wielder. This is where you would grow your influence as well (so you can control more units at once).
- Units are fairly disposable, you'll want to be shuffling the weapon around as you progress in power. You will find new units with cooler/preferable abilities/attacks/armor throughout gameplay who you will want to have wield the weapon.
- The unit who is wielding the weapon cannot just drop the sword, they grow addicted to the power and will not give it up. To transfer the weapon that unit must die. When a new unit picks it up all units in the players party have a chance to become enemies (they wanted the power for the themselves).
- If combat ends and you have no units remaining alive to pickup the weapon, you lose.
My questions to you all is what do you think of the idea? Have you heard of a game with similar mechanics? I realize there are all sorts of sentient weapons in games but nothing I have played matches this very closely and would love to find ideas/inspiration to draw from. Do you have any suggestions yourself with how this system might play well together/work?
Thanks!
With the exceptionel of the professor orbs.
We've had some stories in which every species except humans have some sort of natural weapon, but what if every other sentient species is basically two stocks with plushies for hands. It would be interesting to see their reactions to humans
I've listened to Ruins of the Earth (military sci fi), and Shadeslinger (litrpg fantasy). Both with weapons that have AI.
I was thinking back to a game I played a long, long, time ago. Tales of destiny. I was wondering if there were any more audiobooks out there with sentient weapons.
Hello friends, just need a bit of help on this. Is there any way that a Wizard can find out the alignment of a living item?
Long story short, we found a talking dagger. It said hello, told us it used to belong to a series of assassins, then asked us to take it with us in the open because it longed to see the sky again. My character made a deal with it that he'd take it with him on his belt, but wouldn't attune to it till we knew his exact nature, to which the dagger was pleasantly agreeable with.
Now, Identify told me what the dagger could do if attuned to and that there's no attunement requirements, but the DM isn't obligated to reveal any curses or the weapon's alignment from that. Is there any way to figure that out other than biting the potentially very bad bullet?
This was a weapon I thought up for one of my previous games I was running and I still use him to this day.
Khach is a mimic that has the ability to change between two different forms. A small dagger and a broadsword. Khach doesn’t talk so much as make weird noises and slobber all over the players hand during a fight.
He understands that if he helps adventurers kill other creatures he might get to eat them. When it’s feeding time the sword blade turns into a wicked smile that swallows up bodies whole. He always gives a burp and a small “magache” as apology.
I am a first time DM running a Curse of Strahd campaign. My most experienced player is running a suitably edgy Hexblade warlock, and he wants his sword to talk to him. I am really struggling to find an appropriate character/motivation for an intelligent item.
For context: his character came home to discover his drunken father had killed the rest of the family. Player took up the family sword, ran his father through, and now the sword talks to him. He has left it completely up to me if the sword is actually talking to him, what it's motivations are, or if it is something posing as the sword and manipulating him.
I'm fearful of railroading my player in a direction he doesn't want to go. (Although I have made it clear to my group that temptation/fall from grace is a theme I will try to explore)
How have you handled intelligent items? Any suggestions for how it communicates and what it's goals might be would be much appreciated.
I'm planning on running White Plume Mountain as a one (more likely three) shot that maybe I'll tie into a second short game. I really like the idea of getting the sentient weapons but in reading over the adventure, they seem under used.
For one, why don't the monsters use the sentient weapons? Would it be overkill to equip the weapons to the guardians (other than Wave)?
Second, it seems to end so weakly. The party goes and gets super awesome items and juts hands them over? It seems like that should be a party decision and could be a really cool ending scenario - does the party hand over the items? do the weapons tell the party they don't want to go to these people? Has anyone added another encounter to this adventure to play out this last moment of handing over the items to another group? If so, how did you run it?
Hey all, Bit of a spoiler ahead if This question about lore and toward DM.
So I wanted to use the old Titans Talieus, Hergeron, Chalcia, Goloron and Yala as sentient weapons but I am struggling to find information on some Titans and there locations / involvement
Spoilers AheadTalieus, (Lord of crafting) – Pulling Lutheria's BargeHergeron (Lord of battle ) – In Praxys TowerChalcia (Goddess of Switftness) – Location Fire islandVersi (Goddess of Prophecy) - Turned to stone on a Island?Goloron ? - Turned to stone on a Island?Yala ? - Turned to stone on a Island?
The story says that 6 titans beside sydon and lutheria with different attribute ( Strength; Beauty; Wisdom; Craft; Prophecy and Swiftness) sprouted from seeds. So the only other mention of the three titans is when they tried to kill lutheria but got turned to stone.
Sounds a bit absurd that Versi the goddess of prophecy could get caught in such a simple trick... So I was thinking of altering her death to her secretly living on the island of fates being used by the sisters.
Just curious into who the remaining two titans represent Yala for beauty Goloron for wisdom probably doesn't matter which I pick but just curious into what island the 1000 basilisk blood trap would of happened on.
Just seeing if you guys seen something I'm missing the way 3 of them died seems silly I can understand 1 but not 3 any idea of cool stories would be welcomed also.
Basically the title, they tried to talk to their weapon a few days after but didn't get a reply, now they want to get the spirit back. I've got no idea how to go about this lmao
I don't know if this qualifies as a question or discussion, but-
Recently, my druid recovered Dawnbringer, a sentient sunblade with anxiety, that, quote, "Long years lost in darkness have made Dawnbringer frightened of both the dark and abandonment." After last session, I realized I have no idea what would happen if a sentient weapon was merged into my character's wildshape form. While I could leave Dawnbringer with a party member or leave her as worn equipment, does anyone know what would happen? I definitely don't want to accidentally forget and leave the sword afraid of the dark and abandonment in some dark extra-dimensional space.
Price probably like +50$ each? Willing to bend to a different price tho.
This is for a custom ttrpg my friend has made. In the game I have played as two different sentient items. I would love some art of them. The pictures are for personal use for me to show off my characters.
The sentient sword- a obsidian black sword that has the soul of a vengeful death knight stuck In it. Just your classic evil dark sword that looks menacing and has a watching eye on it. The type of sword don't matter just whatever looks cool.
The robotic bug- A small leaf bug looking robot. This bug was made to be a encyclopedia to host all known human knowledge, designed to look like a leaf bug as to be not very noticeable. I'm not looking for sci-fi , more like what a artificer would make in dnd. I will provide pictures of the type of leaf bug I'm taking about as theres different types.
Art style don't really matter, whatever fits nicely.
I'm fine with having two different artists for the two different items if need be.
Thx for reading!
