Darkblade statistics *interesting*

The way I understand it, the sword eats the energy of a living person as the person dies from being struck by the sword. The spiritual energy of a person dieing is transferred to the demon in the sword who shares that energy with the wielder to drive the wielder to a frenzied lust to kill more people around the wielder, including friends - if possible, and the soul of the person who dies is damned straight to hell.

In the AD&D 2nd Edition books, it refers to entities entrapped in supernatural weapons. The spiritual planar entities or demonic beings, themselves, have to be forcefully entrapped for that being to be placed inside and kept in the weapon. I'm doing a 1+1=2 thing here.

Other than that, I call it quits on the debate in this thread.

 

What? The debate is over..? Damn, and I was just gonna put in my 2 copper.

 

Seriously...I was just about to blow the dust off of my volumes as well!

 

You can still blow the dust off your volumes, read up on it and even post your thoughts on it. Grin. I just won't debate it further as I, already, have my understanding on the topic.

Insight: I guess people have to understand that humans (and demihumans as related to the D&D game system) are trifold personages consisting of a spirit [that which provides breath and force of life], a soul [that which provides intellect and understanding], and a body [that which provides a physical vessel] - seperate but adjoined together in what is called being alive or having life.

 

Well ok then, here are my 2 copper. I don't know much about the two swords, but I do know demons and 2nd edition. If the swords were indeed forged by the Dukes of Chaos, then it is a contradiction to say that they were forged in Hell. According to 2nd edition rules, their exists two planes of which we can actually say contains tanar'ri and baatezu(or according to 3.5, demons and devils). Tanar'ri come from the Abyss, who's plane alignment is Chaotic Evil. I mean these creatues are just plain mad rampaging monsters with no order whatsoever. The baatezu come from Baator, or as most commonly known, the 9 Hells, whose plane alignment is Lawful Evil. Little or no chaos exists in the 9 Hells as the Baatezu are highly organized and under strict control...unfortunately there are a lot less Baatezu then Tanar'ri considering the Abyss has infinite layers, and these two races are caught in an eternal conflict (which involves practically every being and Deity from all the planes in some way or other) known as the Blood War. Perhaps these so called lords of law were actually Baatezu from the 9 Hells. The key point here however, is that they're both very..very evil, and definitely Unholy. In my point of view, any item which contains even a tiny portion of Tanar'ri influence is most definitely Unholy. It would also most definitely be Chaotic, unless it was indeed forged in Baator, in which case it would be Lawful. Unfortunately, in 2nd edition, terms such as Holy or Unholy weren't necessarily attached as dammage types. Thus these demons would never cause "unholy" dammage because it didn't exist. I guess in the end it all depends on the DM's interpretation. But as for me, I agree with Krunch, you can't get more unholy than a Pit Fiend or a Balor, no matter where they come from. Of course, the souls sucked by the swords should be sent to the Abyss, not to Hell. But then again, that's only considering 2nd or 3rd edition rules.

 

AD&D info on the blades from the First Edition Deities & Demigods...the original uncut version with all the cool stuff in it...like Cthulu & Melnibonean Mythologies...the version which sparked controversy & led to it's having the aforementioned material removed, and the volume renamed Legends & Lore.

This is the source on how the blades work in a Dungeons & Dragons universe...

 

Thanks Lord Spike. This is the Deities and Demigods I have been refering to, though I was mistaking it for 2nd Editoin.

Note that it says that the sword is a sentient being from another plane that takes the form of a sword on the prime material plane. It is not trapped in the sword, it is the sword. Also note that it sucks out the soul or spirit and devours it, and that the creature so devoured cannot be raised, resurrected, reincarnated or brought back in any manner, thereby damning them to an eternal death. The souls are not sent anywhere. The souls are gone.

I do not disagree that demons are unholy, nor that a sword with a demon trapped in it would be unholy. However, these swords are demons(as per the Elric Saga - exta-planar beings in Deities and Demigods), and I have never heard of a demon doing unholy damage with a natural attack.

I think that if you read the whole Elric Saga, you will find that the truth is revealed that the Lords of Chaos did not actually forge the swords so much as co-opt them to battle the Lords of Law. In the end Stormbringer at least ended up being used against the Lords of Chaos.

 

So your saying this info is not in legends and lore? I actually own that book, I stole it from a public library 9 years ago in Virginia and moved to Puerto Rico a couple days later. It might be messed up but highly worth it, I understand that book is pretty rare. I'm not sure where it is but it's gotta be stuffed in some box somewhere...I'll see if I can find it

 

Thanks Lord_Spike for making that available to us.

The Melnibonean stuff is not in Legends & Lore as Lord Spike said. I guess I let someone borrow my Deities and Demigods like 15+ years ago and never got it back. I could only buy a new Legends & Lore in the mid-90s.

Okay, so I stand corrected. The sentient magic weapon rules do not apply to Runeblades, Stormbringer and Mournblade, in a D&D realm. They are monsters [demons] on all planes, except on the Prime Material plane where their avatar shape is a magic sword. (The actual books indicate something different.)

Note: It reads, all Levels and HPs are drained. Just like when a NPC reaches zero HPs and is killed, when a PC has all Levels drained, that PC is irrevocably dead, and cannot be resurrected, reincarnated, or raised from the dead. Notice the Deities and Demigods book states HPs and Levels are drained...becomes energy...is shared with the wielder of the sword. This is what I referred to as devouring the spirit of a PC or NPC, but not the soul.
* The author of the Deities and Demigods book, apparently, states spirit or soul as if spirit and soul are the same thing, and [IMO] they are not the same thing.
** No demons in any AD&D books of which I am aware (ask Scorched_Earth) refer to demons who actually "consume" souls, except unless by consume it means sending those souls to their master on an outer plane like the Abyss or Hell. I guess that is up to ones interpretation.

In all things, it is the Dungeon Master as a moderator who establishes what is and what is not in his or her realm as the rules are a guide to follow.

 

There's an inherent problem in trying to translate anything into D&D terms. Michael Moorcock wasn't thinking D&D when he wrote the Elric saga, he had a specific idea which we can try to translate into gaming terms, but that doesn't necessarily reflect the original author's concept.

That said, I seem to recall many references to stormbringer drinking souls as if for sustenance. The "D&D can never be ressurected, raised or reincarnated" thing I always took to relect that the soul was gone, devoured, obliterated to oblivion (which is why they couldn't be raised, etc.).

Whether it's an unholy/holy weapon, I don't believe it was intended as either. It was a demon in the form of a sentient sword which devoured souls, that was Moorcock's concept.

Surely, it was evil, but not unholy or even chaotic in the TOEE sense of the word. Stormbringer, would either devour your soul until he was sated, in some cases, as with Yrkoon, some were able to survive a blow from stormbringer (presumably only having part of their soul devoured).

Sure, we can all try to explain in D&D terms, it's an avatar of a demon on the prime material, yadda, yadda, yadda. Sure, we are free to adapt it to our game for our own purposes. Let's just have some respect for the original work and independent and not really subject to D&D definitions.

Whew!! First the Tolkien orc and goblin debate, now this, how do I let myself get dragged into these crazy discussions....................

 

When I read the posted pic from Lord_Spike [I have not seen in over 15 years], my first immediate thought was, "No DM should intend to have Stormbringer or Mournblade in their campaigns as they are not weapons, but rather two demons serving their own purposes, unless but to punish a party that has gotten out-of-control and the DM wants to execute an amount of revenge on the party."

 

So with respect to ToEE and what's posible to mod - decribe a dark blade, with reference to things like damage, critical threat range, to hit bonus, critical multiplier, enchanted, masterwork, holy/unholy, lawful/chaotic, life stealing (don't know if that actually works), etc

 

And yet I'm sure so many have had them in their campaigns. Blackrazor was arguably more powerful, as there was no limit to the amount of energy the wielder could possess...but it was only +3, did not increase the wielder's strength, and only sucked out human / humanoid souls on a killing stroke (as opposed to every stroke).