Tuesday Magic Item – Overo’s Last Blade
27 October, 2015
“Cannot say that I like the look of the commander’s new sword,” said Voddick.
“Nor I,” agreed Gollaon idly tuning a lute. “There is something about it something . . .”
“Evil?” suggested Voddick, sipping at his mug of mulled wine.
“Exactly. I keep thinking that I recognize it. Something about a duelist, but I just cannot remember.”
“Well, no good will come of it. Of that, I am sure.”
Overo’s Last Blade
Commissioned for Overo Dirgeblade, the infamous necrourgist-duelist of Vartoria, it is a black steel rapier with prayers for the dying etched along the blade. A silver skull with cut onyx decorating the eye sockets forms the pommel and the grip is wrapped in black mourning cloth. He only used the sword for a year before he was slain in the Sorcery Riots that tore down the ruling aristocrat-wizards and installed the new Republic of Vartoria.
Overo’s Last Blade is a +2 keen rapier that whenever if inflicts damage to a living creature, gives its wielder one temporary hit point for five minutes, these temporary hit points stack with themselves up to twice the wielder’s level. Additionally, when the blade kills someone, the wielder gains twice the victim’s level in temporary hit points (that stack with the one above with the same limits).
Its other power is only accessible to other necrourgists, anyone slain by the blade who is made into one of the unliving by the caster within a week is more powerful.
- If brought back by use of animate dead, the animate gains +2 to both Strength and Dexterity, Channel Resistance +1 and only counts as half hit dice when determining the number of undead the necrourgist can command.
- If brought back by use of create undead, the wielder of the blase is treated as being one level higher for the purpose of the spell and the created undead gains Channel Resistance +2 and the Toughness feat as a bonus feat.
The blade does have a disadvantage, while it is owned, the owner heals one less point per die from magical healing (this does not protect an unliving owner from such magic however).
Aura strong necrourgy; CL 11th
Slot none; Price 31,320; Weight 2 lbs
Construction Requirements
Craft Magical Arms and Armor, animate dead, create undead, vampiric touch; Cost 15.500 + 320 for the rapier
Notes: An appropriate end to the magic items for October. The idea of a crazy wizard-swordsman who reanimates the people he killed in duels to be his unliving servants just seemed to thematic to pass up.
Photo from Europeana and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Edit: Adjusted the gaining of temporary hit points to work better.
Sea of Stars RPG Design Journal 
That is lovely. Same comment as before — always good to explain where undead come from. Five stars, will totally use in a game.
Although 10 HP of damage has to be in one hit, yes? Is that realistic for a +2 rapier in Pathfinder? I might just allow it to give the wielder 1 hp per hit — it’s already capped, and 20 extra hp for a 10th level wielder after hitting someone 20 times doesn’t seem excessive. Actually that ability seems pretty underpowered.
The 10 hp thresh hold was to say, mechanically, on a critical hit without restricting it to just a critical hit. But, you are right, it is a minor enough benefit that every hit works. In fact, I will edit that in.