Stormbringer -- an evil, sentient sword
that drained men's souls. Excalibur -- a
weapon of kings. Scalpel and Heartseeker
-- blades of a barbarian and a thief. What
are they in AD&D game terms? A sword of <x>
life stealing, a sword of sharpness, and two
normal blades.

Not very colorful, are they? <?>

No doubt you have a number of fine
magical swords or similar weapons in your
campaign. In time, however, the glint on
that longsword +3 dulls -- after all, it just
modifies the dice roll -- and, in order to
make dungeon-delving a little more exciting,
you throw in a special sword, a vorpal
weapon or a sword of wounding. Even
using these weapons can grow old to swordusing
characters, and your players may
demand something more. You may introduce
them to intelligent swords, but, a few
personality conflicts later, it becomes clear
that you have nothing else to give your
sword-using characters, and the players
keep looking for something new.

What your campaign may be suffering
from is a glut of colorless, boring, magical
swords. Even the sharp-edged blades of
vorpal weapons are dulled if your sentient
swords have no life or individuality at all.
You need to give your magic blades character,
whether they have strong magical
powers or not, by giving them legendary
backgrounds and by changing the way they
affect the characters themselves.

Giving a sword a past will create intriguing
and interesting gaming sessions, as well
as for giving a common sword new life.
Consider the sword + 1. At first glance, it?s
terribly boring. But, what if it were made
known to the wielder that this particular
sword + 1 was made 30 years ago by Tolrat
the Wizard, now the mage-king of the
Royal Court of Triviana (your campaign?s
main country)? It was constructed long ago
for use by the mage?s son, who mysteriously
vanished after a long period of time fighting
in the Trivianian Army. Suddenly, the blade
has a meaning and purpose. Legend lore
would reveal more of its history, but until
then, only the secret rune-mark of ?T? on
the tang under the handle would denote the
sword?s origin and background.

Now suppose, as the character with the
sword gains levels, the mage Tolrat discovers
that the character has his long-lost son?s
sword. This could happen during another
adventure in which that particular character
was caught red-handed, stealing from the
mage-king?s castle. You can see easily that
giving a legend and a purpose to a magic
sword, even if it is the weakest of magical
swords, can produce adventures from other
adventures.

Now, consider a frost brand sword. Since
it is one of the special-power swords and can
do such amazing things as stop fires and
glow when it is extremely cold, the average
DM would think it colorful enough. What
would happen, however, if the DM decided
that he was going to spend a little time
figuring out certain details like: 1) Who
made the sword? 2) Why did he make it? 3)
What?s the sword?s history? and, 4) How
did it get to the place where the adventurers
found it?

A possible result could be that the evil
wizard of the Ice, Nolrem, constructed the
sword because the fighter-mage Ulrik required
the sword in payment for exploring a
relatively unknown part of Gulicia,
Nolrem?s homeland. While exploring Gulicia,
however, ice devils surprised Ulrik in
the night, slew him, and carried the blade
to the Nine Hells, where it became nonmagical.
It remained there for hundreds of
years and its ownership changed several
times, until it was given to the devil-loving
cleric Solphar as part of a pact the cleric
made in order to get magic weapons for his
cleric/assassins. It was stolen from Solphar?s
temple in the dead of night by thieves from
the local guild and was eventually fenced so
that it came to be purchased by an outlaw
named Keepto, who placed it in the castle
(now in ruins) that your group has been
exploring.

The above legend provides the DM
chances for several new adventures, if only
the DM gives the legend the chance to take
off.

What about the most powerful blades, the
intelligent swords? Intelligent swords can
aid the DM even more. Not only can they
have very vivid legends, but they can also
have strange and diverse personalities.

The best legends surface about intelligent
swords, because they are able to talk about
their past. Of course, the truth of the tale,
how complete it is, or whether the sword
will speak of its past at all is a matter involving
not only its intelligence and ego,
but its personality as well.

Some intelligent swords (especially those
with high-and-mighty special purposes) will
lie and cheat in order to accomplish their
own personal goals. Some swords with big
egos will boast about their supposed ?past
deeds?? usually lying when it suits them.
But what if a sword says it was once wielded
by the lieutenant of the local lord?s army
and claims it knows where the lieutenant
stashed a cache of priceless gems? Can the
party really afford not to check out the
braggart sword?s story?

How do intelligent-swords get their personalities?
When a magic-user creates a
sword, its personality could be formed in
one of three ways:

1) The personality of the sword could be
the personality of a person or being who
was slain in order to imbue the sword with
intelligence during the enchant an item
spell. These swords are known as sentient
swords, because they have a creature?s soul
inside them.

2) The magic-user creating the sword
could have used a wish to give the sword its
intelligence and personality.

3) The sword?s personality and intelligence
evolved by chance from the residual
magics of the enchant an item spell.

How do you design the sword?s personality?
Those DMs who enjoy randomly generating
things instead of going through an
extensive creative process will find the
General Tendencies Table of the Non-Player
Character section of the DMG (pp. 100-
101) helpful in establishing the sword?s
personality. Other tables in this section will
also prove beneficial, such as piety, morals,
and interests. Certainly, this can provide the
DM with some bizarre and interesting
diversions with swords ? consider a sword
with an interest in fauna wanting to pursue
a particular species of butterfly while the
rest of the party is trying to fend off an
attack from a beholder!

As an alternative to dice-rolling, you may
spend as much time creating the personality
of your swords as your players spend creating
the personalities of their characters.
After answering the first four questions
detailed above, simply ask the question
?What would a person be like who has a
history and a background such as this??
Also worth considering are the sword?s
alignment and special powers, if any. Other
questions you might want to answer are,
?What are the sword?s primary and secondary
interests?? ? How egotistical is this
sword?? (Not all swords with high ego
scores need be arrogant. Like real people,
some swords don?t show their egos as much
as others.) ?What are the sword?s likes and
dislikes?? These and other questions will
help clarify the sword?s nature.

Intelligent swords can offer exciting modifications
to encounters, if both their personality
and their background, as well as
their intelligence and ego, are represented.