Bears a Blade Forged in Sorrow
You carry a weapon that was made, or remade, at a specific loss. It holds the shape of that loss as faithfully as it holds its edge, and the two are not separate facts. The blade (which may not, strictly speaking, be a blade: a staff, a hammer, a revolver, an axe, a length of chain) came to you at a moment that could not be undone, from a moment that could not be undone, and it has not left you since. You fight with it. You sleep near it. You will bury it only if you are buried with it.
Connection: Choose one of the following.
- Pick one other PC. They were present at the forging, or at the death that preceded it. What they witnessed is part of the weapon now, and they know it.
- Pick one other PC. They have asked you to let them hold the weapon once. You have not yet decided whether to allow this, and you suspect the weapon has an opinion.
- Pick one other PC. When they stand within immediate range of you, the weapon’s weight is fractionally easier to bear: your first attack each round with it ignores 1 point of your target’s Armour.
- Pick one other PC. Someone they loved forged, owned, or died holding this weapon, and it has found you for reasons you are still working out together.
Additional Equipment: The weapon itself (a medium or heavy weapon, your choice, with a specific appearance and history established in play), along with whatever accessories suit its nature: a sheath, a holster, a strap, a case. One personal object associated with the loss that is kept alongside the weapon as a standing reminder.
GM Intrusion: The weapon is briefly, unexpectedly, heavier than usual, or pulls against an attack you did not mean to make, or insists on a target you would have preferred to leave alone. Someone who once held it, or who witnessed its forging, arrives with a claim on it. The loss the weapon holds rises in you at a moment when you needed to be steady.
Geas: The weapon is bound to you. It will not rest easily in another’s hand; if taken from you, it returns to you by morning through whatever means the GM and the fiction find plausible (it is where you left it, it is in your pack, it is behind you in the room you did not expect to enter). You cannot voluntarily give it away: attempts to do so fail in ways that range from the mundane (you find yourself unable to complete the exchange) to the supernatural (the recipient wakes with the weapon returned to you). While within immediate range of the weapon, your identity is not fully separable from it, and you have an inability on tasks involving denying that the weapon is yours, concealing that you are armed from a creature that can perceive its nature, or abandoning it to harm an ally or innocent.
Minor Effect Suggestion: The weapon deals 1 additional point of damage on this attack as the loss it holds rings clear.
Major Effect Suggestion: The target is briefly unnerved by the weapon’s presence, losing their next reaction; or, if they are already wounded, the wound opens wider, dealing 2 additional points of damage beyond the minor effect.
Tier 1
The Weapon at Hand: You are practised with your bonded weapon specifically; with it, attacks deal 1 additional point of damage, and you may treat it as a light weapon for initiative and defence purposes if it would otherwise be medium. You are trained in tasks involving the weapon: wielding, maintaining, disarming others with similar weapons, and identifying weapons of similar provenance. Enabler.
Mourner’s Strike (2 Might points): You draw on the loss the weapon holds as fuel for a single attack. The attack deals 3 additional points of damage. The moment of the strike carries something of the grief in it, and witnesses who knew the loss may recognise it. Action.
Tier 2
Returning Edge: If you are disarmed, dropped, or otherwise separated from your bonded weapon, you may retrieve it as part of your movement on your next turn, provided it is within long range and not held in active resistance by another creature. In active resistance, you may make a contested task to recall it to your hand; the weapon is trained in that task on your behalf. Enabler.
Tier 3
Ability Choice. Choose either Quiet Edge or Weapon of Judgement as your tier 3 ability.
Quiet Edge: When no ally is within immediate range of you, your attacks with the bonded weapon are eased, and you gain +1 to Speed Edge. The weapon does its best work, and so do you, when you are the one standing between harm and the person you mean to protect. Enabler.
Weapon of Judgement: Choose one category of target: creatures that have broken a specific oath of the Sanctuary’s making, creatures bound to a specific creditor or faction, creatures of a particular supernatural category (as in Know Their Kind), or another category agreed with the GM. Your bonded weapon is treated as specialised material against that category: attacks deal 2 additional points of damage, ignore 2 points of Armour, and cannot be blocked by ordinary mundane counter-weapons. Enabler.
Tier 4
Ability Choice. Choose either Blade Speaks or Armour of Grief as your tier 4 ability.
Blade Speaks (3 Intellect points): You draw out what the weapon has witnessed. By touching it and concentrating for one round, you receive a clear impression of one significant event the weapon has been present for: a fight it was used in, a hand that held it, a place it rested, or the moment of its forging. The GM shapes what comes through. Information older than the weapon itself is not accessible, though information about a predecessor’s blade or material may be, if the weapon inherited from it. Action.
Armour of Grief: While you hold your bonded weapon, its weight and history settle around you. You gain +1 Armour; against attacks made by a creature whose action the weapon recognises (a category chosen as in Weapon of Judgement, or a specific named foe), you gain +2 Armour instead. Enabler.
Tier 5
The Weapon Remembers: Your bonded weapon returns to your hand from any distance, across any barrier short of another plane of existence, within one round of being lost, destroyed, or taken. If destroyed, it reassembles itself from the available fragments or from whatever material your hand is next touching, shaped by the sorrow that forged it. Any working that would permanently sunder the weapon from you requires a level 8 or higher effect specifically targeted at the bond; lesser effects fail. Enabler.
Tier 6
Ability Choice. Choose either Inheritor’s Strike or Final Reckoning as your tier 6 ability.
Inheritor’s Strike (6 Might points): You land a single, deliberate blow that calls in the weight of every loss the weapon has carried. The attack deals 10 additional points of damage, ignores up to 5 points of Armour, and, on a successful hit, forces the target to succeed on an Intellect defence task or lose their next action as the weight of the strike passes through them. If the target has ever personally caused the loss the weapon holds, the attack also cannot be reduced below 1 point of damage by any means. Action.
Final Reckoning (7 Might points): You commit the weapon fully to a single opponent within long range: a named foe, a being you hold accountable, a creature whose existence you intend to end in this encounter. For the remainder of the combat, your attacks against that one target deal 3 additional points of damage, ignore all mundane Armour, and treat its supernatural Armour as reduced by 2; you are specialised in defence tasks against its attacks. While the reckoning holds, you cannot voluntarily disengage, retreat from, or accept surrender from the target: the weapon will not permit it. When the combat ends, the reckoning ends with it. Action to initiate.