Corrupted Weapons of the Predator Queens (RPG Blog Carnival)

This months blog carnival from Attronarch's Athenaeum has the topic of Wondrous Weapons and Damning Dweomers - so I was inspired to write about what happens when bad people come into an inheritance of other peoples magic.

Once upon a time the elves conquered all the land, ruled millenia, before casting it aside and leaving. Their most terrible servitors fought in the chaos that followed, flailing at each other with the half-understood magics and weapons they clawed into greedy heaps.

The elegant, intelligent weapons of the elves hated their wielders. The predator queens founds ways to adapt.

Theirs was a practical magic, a hands-on, bloody clawed magic - not one that treated much with infernalism or demonology because those were seen as just another flavour of long-living, effortlessly magical overlord, the kind whos promises and entreaties had to be rejected by the strong, by those worthy to seizes power for themselves.

d6 corruptions and the impacts they cause to those struck
1. enslaver runes - twisted through brutal control enchantments applied later, causes stun on strike
2. mind-broken weapons - deranged through misuse, all actions next round penalised
3. vampiric enchantments - addition of life-draining magics, eliciting addictive hungers in the weapon; causes additional d4 piercing damage
4. mounted in barrier grips - will save or must attempt to disarm wielder and 'rescue' weapon
5. darkly imbued - sustained use for grim purposes has sparked independent malevolent will, causes fear on strike
6. arcane cauterisation - washed through with raw, caustic magics, only a shred of the original enchantments remain; 25% chance to dispel any magics affecting a struck target

Where the weapons proved to awkward or powerful to be over-borne by magic or craft, brute force often sufficed.

d10 Weapons
1. polearm +3 - crudely tipped with a magical sword long gone insane from misuse
2. the screaming choir (as greatsword +2) - a blade-antler helm sized for an ogre or minotaur, allows sweeping charge attacks
3. dagger cut from the shell of something, etched with runes. To bloody the edge makes the wielder faster, draining d6 hp a round, either from foes or the wielder until ten rounds pass or 60hp damage is caused
4. force healing ring - transfer 2d6 hp either way from wearer and someone touched
5. thrall armour - chain +1 that makes the wearer berserk and immune to fear, charm or any mind affecting magics including calm emotions
6. beaten plate - plate +2, regenerates wearer d4 hp/round, all regenerated hit points lost immediately on removing armour
7. mutating claws - as short swords; gripping them causes transformation doubling strength, con, halving int, wis, cha. 50% chance change irreversable
8. self-growing weapons - chain +1 and sword +1 - throw them onto a corpse and overnight they will enfold and animate as a 4HD skeleton. Don them as a live person, same outcome.
9. thaumic spike - javelin +1 with 50% chance to dispel any magics on a struck target, inflicting an additional 1d10 damage per effect dispelled.
10. collar of mighty ancestry - the wearer reverts to a more formidable ancestor; becoming a bear-equivalent monstrous version of themselves. 50% chance change irreversable

In the latter days, as the last, worst of them fought for supremacy, drug numbed thralls wielded storied weapons which had not been broken by any other means.

For another d8 reasons to fear the legacy of the predator queens go here.