Tuesday Magic Item – Massacre Blade
31 March, 2015
Voddick turned the corner, stopped suddenly and slowly backed away. “Golloan,” he whispered, “we need to find another way.”
“What is it?” his friend asked, quickly peaking around the corner. A man stood there, framed by the light of an open door, blood dripping from the blade of his sword into the pool of it around his feet. His head jerked around as if he hear something.
“Don’t let him see you,” hissed Voddick. “He is in the midst of blood madness, he will try and kill anything he comes across. I have seen it before.”
“But he will kill everyone inside.”
“True,” sighed Voddick. “We should try and stop him then. If we can catch him by surprise, it will go easier.”
Golloan quietly unsheathed his sword. “The life of a hero is not an easy one.”
Massacre Blade
While it is possible to create such a weapon deliberately, they usually are formed by being used in terrible acts against the innocent but one who enjoys such cruelty. At first glance, they seem to be normal weapons, but a closer look shows that the blades have been stained by the blood they have shed.
A Massacre Blade is a +2 weapon that gains the Keen special ability when used against a fleeing or surrendering foe, an innocent or a noncombatant. Whenever one of the types of being that triggers the Keen is killed by the blade’s wielder, they feel charged and gain a +1 morale bonus to attacks and saves against fear for five minutes, additional kills reset the duration but have no further effect.
The wielder gains a +2 morale bonus to saves against any effects that would prevent them from attacking the sorts of target that the blade gets additional bonuses against. They also find it hard to stop killing once they have started.
Aura moderate necrourgy; CL 7th
Slot none; Price 10,000 + weapon; Weight by weapon
Construction Requirements
Craft Magic Arms and Armor, bestow curse, death knell or vampiric touch; Cost 5,000 + weapon
Notes: Evil begets evil and steel remembers. Sometimes bad people need magic items that play to their strengths and this is one of them.
Image from the Wellcome Library, London and used under the Creative Commons Attribution, Non-commercial, No derivatives licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Sea of Stars RPG Design Journal 
This weapon is fiendishly creepy. I could see this being used as the central theme in a campaign where the character grows more mad and blood thirsty with each kill.
Please give it a try. I like knowing these items are getting used.
This is awesomely nasty. I love magic weapons with drawbacks (frankly I think they should all have some sort of “curse”). I look forward to your A-to-Z challenge posts!
Evil deeds lead to evil ways. I like to think about why a weapon was made or what created it and how that would affect the item. Not all items are forged out of good and kindness after all.