D20 This Sword Is...

1 A rusty old thing with the blade snapped off a little ways down from its tip.
No matter how it looks, it’s just as deadly as any magical weapon of its caliber.
2 A notched, stained cleaver as big as a man is tall. With the sword’s
blessing, its wielder will find it just light enough to bear in battle.
3 A bronze gladius. Moaning, weeping faces can be glimpsed in its verdigris.
4 Crafted from an ox’s jawbone, with shards of glossy white stone rammed in to
replace the teeth.
5 Made from a stiffened spine. Besides its other abilities, it can also be
extended into a bladed whip.
6 A scimitar made of many silver crescents welded together.
7 Shining with unnameable colours.
8 Carved from the desiccated claw of a huge, dead bird.
9 An impossibly thin rapier.
10 A thing of sharp chitin and bubbling hemolyph.
11 Warped through higher dimensions. Only pieces of it are visible from any
given angle on this one.
12 Hewn from one enormous gemstone.
13 Woven from a million strands of fine silk, constantly refined and sharpened
by a million invisible spiders.
14 A still-living ebony branch, its fronds forming the handguard, shaped over a
thousand slow years into a peerless weapon.
15 A nanotech super-slime teased, hardened, and bound into sword-form.
16 An unassuming sabre that glows like an aurora in use.
17 A tongue of flamberge-flame frozen in a flickering moment.
18 Molded from clay from the first river baked into keen, unmarrable ceramic.
19 Apparently painted onto thin air, though you can hold it like it was any
other sword.
20 Forged out of countless minuscule blades of fairy-steel.
D20 This Sword’s Intelligence...
1 Is inversely proportional to its usefulness as a sword. The sharper its blade
is, the duller its mind becomes, and vice-versa. Either its wielder or the sword
can shift it one step towards vorpal-idiocy or blunt-genius with a successful ego
contest. Only one such contest can occur per day.
2 Comes from its own spirit, which awakened after a hundred years of abuse and
abandonment. This sword can transform itself into a little man with a long, sharp
nose and long, sharp hands at will.
3 Comes from a bound, damned soul who wishes they were a demon. Will appreciate
any wielder who brings them closer to that goal, and offer fell bargains it has no
way of holding up its side of.
4 Is that of the warrior who willingly allowed themself to be transmuted into
it, in order to more purely pursue its craft. Very intense, obsessed with combat as
an art form, viciously critical of those it deems hacks.
5 Is a committee of all its individual (and individually intelligent) pieces,
that decide the sword’s behaviour as a direct democracy. Each piece has its own
agenda and personality.
6 Is that of the child whose blood it was tempered in. Mopey yet curious.
7 Comes from an incomprehensibly complex clockwork device built into its hilt.
It is fond of the aesthetics of logic and reason yet doesn’t grasp the substance of
them.
8 Can only communicate in terms of sword- and combat-based metaphors.
9 Is unable to distinguish between the identities of its wielders.
10 Will warm to a wielder who uses it for fancy flourishes and elaborate
tactics.
11 Speaks in monosyllabic words and dislikes nuance.
12 Is ruled by animal passions.
13 Is distractible and prone to meandering tangents.
14 Has a sadistic streak.
15 Is capable of temporarily transferring itself to other objects the sword
touches.
16 Is an incorrigible pervert who thinks of combat in erotic terms.
17 Mimics a bit of the personality of each of its wielders, stitching those bits
together into a gestalt persona.
18 Is deeply religious and takes offense to blasphemy.
19 Can only perceive things it’s in contact with.
20 Is regal, polite, and moderately detached from reality.
D20 This Sword’s Power Is That...
1 If a wound it’s inflicted is healed, the one who inflicted that wound is
healed by the same amount.
2 It can cut even non-solid things. For example, a slice it makes through a
pool of water will remain empty as the water waits suspended at the slice’s edges.
3 If the sword kills something its intelligence gets a taste of that thing’s
memories.
4 It can damage ships, buildings, and similarly massive targets as easily as it
can human-scale enemies.
5 Swinging it produces a gust of force that can knock enemies over even if the
actual swing misses.
6 It can sunder other magical weapons and steal their powers for itself. Stolen
powers last 1d4 days (exploding).
7 Its wielder cannot die unless they lose their hold on it (or the hand holding
it is severed from their body).
8 Wounds it deals become worse the further the wounded gets from the wielder
until they’re healed.
9 Blood bleeding from wounds it inflicts ignites on contact with air.
10 If it’s blocked by armour or a shield, that thing becomes significantly
heavier and more brittle.
11 It can be used to parry any attack, no matter how improbable.
12 It inflicts mental trauma in the same moment that it deals physical wounds.
13 It will always deal a modicum of damage, even if it misses, even if its
target is immune to everything else.
14 Its wielder can delay the effect of wounds it deals, and make those wounds
more severe by delaying them.
15 It can be called to its wielder’s hand from anywhere, in dreams, in the
underworld, etc. It can only be permanently taken with the sword’s consent.
16 When brandished, anyone witnessing it will recognize its wielder as one worth
parleying with before fighting, even if they wouldn’t normally have the smarts for
it.
17 It can deal any type of damage its wielder can imagine. Burning, freezing,
electrifying, etc.
18 Its cuts are addictive. The more an enemy receives, the less likely they are
to want to avoid them.
19 Magical defenses, countermeasures, and healing are powerless against it.
20 It can manifest phantasmal projections that copy its movements.
D20 This Sword Desires...
1 To push its wielders (and itself) to the heights of fame (or infamy) in the
history books.
2 To destroy its storied enemy, also an intelligent sword.
3 To collect the heads of worthy opponents who will be bound to serve it in the
world to come.
4 To be polished with the most luxurious oils by servants with the softest
hands.
5 To commission the creation of a new sword that will surpass even itself.
6 To carve out a homeland for causeless warriors.
7 A body without a will of its own that it can control without resistance.
8 To taste the blood of every sort of creature to walk, crawl, soar, above, on,
beneath the earth.
9 To cut great sculpture, great cooking, or something similar.
10 A new adventure with every day.
11 To spark the war it was made to fight in once more.
12 To learn martial techniques hidden by masters.
13 To found a school of swordfighting.
14 To gain acclaim as a philosopher of war.
15 To mold its wielder Into a proper disciple.
16 To avenge its endless list of petty grudges against the descendants of those
who offended it.
17 To study death in all its variations.
18 To collect a community of intelligent objects.
19 A scabbard made from an emperor’s skin.
20 To wound something that has never before been wounded.
D20 This Sword Is Currently...
1 Being used as a backscratcher by a giant too stubbornly dim to be dominated
by the sword.
2 Part of a museum exhibit.
3 Clutched in the hands of a dead adventurer’s skeleton.
4 Impaled in a dragon’s back. The wound is quite infected.
5 Held by an ambitious, talented, yet currently minor warlord.
6 Being hunted down by its original wielder, now a half-dead abomination.
7 On sale at an esoteric auction.
8 Being held by a malfunctioning angel waiting to bestow it on someone who is
“worthy” by bizarre metrics.
9 Being studied by a sorcerer-smith who hopes to break it down into pieces that
could be made into a series of mass-produced magic swords.
10 The top prize of a violent, pan-tribe contest out in the wilds.
11 Being fraudulently passed off as the magnum opus of a dwarf-smith, to great
acclaim.
12 Stuck in the middle of an eternal battlefield.
13 The only thing pinning an immortal monster in place.
14 The centrepiece of a ritual meant to tear a hole in the fabric of reality.
15 Guarded by a secret knightly society seeking a worthy heir for it.
16 Part of the ransom being paid out for the safe return of a godling-king from
captivity.
17 The heirloom of a noble house, pretending to be possessed by that house’s
patriarch.
18 Dominating the leader of a peasant rebellion, turning their righteous anger
to its own ends.
19 Being used as a replacement tooth by a titanic vampire.
20 Languishing at the bottom of some dungeon. Some party has worked very hard to
ensure it’s forgotten by history.