Hi Enwordlers!
I'm hoping I can get some help designing a relic item for one of my players, most likely intelligent (but I'm not 100%) on that.
We are in a slightly higher-powered game than standard. First, a little lore on the item at this point.
One of my PC's is a werecat of Sharess, specifically a chaos monk/Celebrant of Sharess. In a recent game, she fought and defeated a more powerful version Thah Rahalar detailed in Hate of the Cobra. Thah had the Hate of the Cobra with him, but I also gave him a Khopesh of the Loyal Minion (description half way down the page, from Arms and Equipment Guide), since it fit very thematically with the character and would be the basis of the Celebrant's "signature item" in the campaign to follow. Since she can change into hybrid werecat form, the sword can merge with one of her claw attacks. I've modified the statistics to have the weapon merge its enchantment bonuses, not just as if a magic fang were cast on the claw.
Thah has been defeated and the Celebrant took the blade (which she is not proficient with as a chaos monk/celebrant) and the book, trying to decide what to do with them. As soon as the fallen celestial was defeated, the snake and scorpion motif on the weapon changed to a more noble appearance showing a face of a lion/panther. When the character and her party investigated the item, they found the "face" of the cat kept looking at the Hate of the Cobra. The character could "feel" the weapon's hate for it and she used it to destroy the evil book. She then felt "satisfaction" from the sword.
That's where things stand at this point, as far as the player knows.
From the DM side of things, this is what I have so far.
- Thah had used his Khopesh of the Divine Minion to slay a Divine Minion of Bast back in Mulhorond. An element of that slain soul is still within the blade.
- When the celebrant picked it up, it was awakened and knows one of its faith holds it, and the weapon is turning itself into a divine relic (perhaps with the aid of Sharess herself)
I was very inspired by the lore in the Hate of the Cobra page of a divine minion and was even inspired more by this artwork. What I'd like the weapon to do is, with one of its relic powers, "summon" itself out of the blade, in effect creating the character in the artwork that holds the blade. The Cobra page details that someone can summon a 6th level divine minion with a summon monster V spell, and that's the basis for this idea. Essentially, when the character (and only the character) uses that relic power, the divine minion is summoned from within the blade to hold and use it for a short time. I'm also looking at putting a restriction on how many times this summon can be used. Not sure exactly what that should be...1/day, 1/week, etc. The divine minion would probably be a 6th level human barbarian/fighter from Mulhorond. Their personality is sort of a huntress, warrior of Bast, far more militant than regular Sharessans (which befits her divine minion status and focus on the Bast part of Sharess). The summon can use the blade, but should it be an intelligent blade, it looses the intelligent properties when being wielded by "itself" because the soul of the blade is no longer inside it.
To make the weapon useful to the characters as an actual weapon (since they can't use the summon feature all the time), I'm thinking of giving it the brutal surge property. When merged with the claw, and since the character is a very good charger/pouncer, it gives a new ability that assists them in a charge without adding to their already high damage output. Lore wise, I sort of attribute that to the soul within the weapon giving her its fighting prowess.
I'd like the weapon's relic abilities to scale as they advance, sort of like a legacy weapon but without legacy rules. Higher HD, more abilities, the summon levels as they advance.
So, where I'm stuck at this point is, I'm not sure if I should make this a full fleged intelligent weapon or not. Considering that in combat, a lot of the time the weapon will be merged with a claw, I don't like the idea of her literally "talk to the hand". That's just weird. Though I suppose I could get around that by having the cat's face of the blade be present on the back of her hand after it merges. Perhaps I should just have it at empathy instead. I was also toying with adding the "roaring" special weapon property in the BoED sometime later, since that fits thematically with the cat's face and the weapon itself. Or adding the proficient property or simply making her proficient with it at no cost.
So right now, I simply have this:
Does anyone have any advice on how I should build this relic? What HD the abilities should be present at? If intelligent, should it be able to speak? Would it need lesser intelligent item properties like in the SRD, or is that too much? The character will be taking their 11th level soon, and in this campaign, you get feats at every second level, so I see them naturally taking True Believer soon.
Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated!
I'm hoping I can get some help designing a relic item for one of my players, most likely intelligent (but I'm not 100%) on that.
We are in a slightly higher-powered game than standard. First, a little lore on the item at this point.
One of my PC's is a werecat of Sharess, specifically a chaos monk/Celebrant of Sharess. In a recent game, she fought and defeated a more powerful version Thah Rahalar detailed in Hate of the Cobra. Thah had the Hate of the Cobra with him, but I also gave him a Khopesh of the Loyal Minion (description half way down the page, from Arms and Equipment Guide), since it fit very thematically with the character and would be the basis of the Celebrant's "signature item" in the campaign to follow. Since she can change into hybrid werecat form, the sword can merge with one of her claw attacks. I've modified the statistics to have the weapon merge its enchantment bonuses, not just as if a magic fang were cast on the claw.
Thah has been defeated and the Celebrant took the blade (which she is not proficient with as a chaos monk/celebrant) and the book, trying to decide what to do with them. As soon as the fallen celestial was defeated, the snake and scorpion motif on the weapon changed to a more noble appearance showing a face of a lion/panther. When the character and her party investigated the item, they found the "face" of the cat kept looking at the Hate of the Cobra. The character could "feel" the weapon's hate for it and she used it to destroy the evil book. She then felt "satisfaction" from the sword.
That's where things stand at this point, as far as the player knows.
From the DM side of things, this is what I have so far.
- Thah had used his Khopesh of the Divine Minion to slay a Divine Minion of Bast back in Mulhorond. An element of that slain soul is still within the blade.
- When the celebrant picked it up, it was awakened and knows one of its faith holds it, and the weapon is turning itself into a divine relic (perhaps with the aid of Sharess herself)
I was very inspired by the lore in the Hate of the Cobra page of a divine minion and was even inspired more by this artwork. What I'd like the weapon to do is, with one of its relic powers, "summon" itself out of the blade, in effect creating the character in the artwork that holds the blade. The Cobra page details that someone can summon a 6th level divine minion with a summon monster V spell, and that's the basis for this idea. Essentially, when the character (and only the character) uses that relic power, the divine minion is summoned from within the blade to hold and use it for a short time. I'm also looking at putting a restriction on how many times this summon can be used. Not sure exactly what that should be...1/day, 1/week, etc. The divine minion would probably be a 6th level human barbarian/fighter from Mulhorond. Their personality is sort of a huntress, warrior of Bast, far more militant than regular Sharessans (which befits her divine minion status and focus on the Bast part of Sharess). The summon can use the blade, but should it be an intelligent blade, it looses the intelligent properties when being wielded by "itself" because the soul of the blade is no longer inside it.
To make the weapon useful to the characters as an actual weapon (since they can't use the summon feature all the time), I'm thinking of giving it the brutal surge property. When merged with the claw, and since the character is a very good charger/pouncer, it gives a new ability that assists them in a charge without adding to their already high damage output. Lore wise, I sort of attribute that to the soul within the weapon giving her its fighting prowess.
I'd like the weapon's relic abilities to scale as they advance, sort of like a legacy weapon but without legacy rules. Higher HD, more abilities, the summon levels as they advance.
So, where I'm stuck at this point is, I'm not sure if I should make this a full fleged intelligent weapon or not. Considering that in combat, a lot of the time the weapon will be merged with a claw, I don't like the idea of her literally "talk to the hand". That's just weird. Though I suppose I could get around that by having the cat's face of the blade be present on the back of her hand after it merges. Perhaps I should just have it at empathy instead. I was also toying with adding the "roaring" special weapon property in the BoED sometime later, since that fits thematically with the cat's face and the weapon itself. Or adding the proficient property or simply making her proficient with it at no cost.
So right now, I simply have this:
Does anyone have any advice on how I should build this relic? What HD the abilities should be present at? If intelligent, should it be able to speak? Would it need lesser intelligent item properties like in the SRD, or is that too much? The character will be taking their 11th level soon, and in this campaign, you get feats at every second level, so I see them naturally taking True Believer soon.
Sorry for the long post, but any help would be appreciated!
