New OSR class: The Swordslave

You didn’t choose it. It chose you.

You found it enveloped in the old growth of an ancient tree. Or your father took it out of a plain wood chest and gave it to you the day you left home. Or maybe that’s just what you told them after you stripped it off some wandering vagrant after you killed him over a few mouthfuls of wine.

Regardless, whatever your life was before is over. You belong to this sword as much as it belongs to you.

Art by Yuri Shwedoff

Swordslaves are vagabond warriors who possess a mystic blade with a mind of its own.

Class Abilities
Saving throws and attack progression as Fighter
Level progression as Magic User

Mystic Sword
The Swordslave  possesses a mystic weapon, from which all their special powers originate. The character can decide on the particular aesthetics of their mystic weapon, but it’s obviously a thing of otherworldly magic.

Regardless of its form, it does damage equivalent to a longsword (1d8), and may be used one handed. The weapon casts light like a candle (5' radius).

If the player has no preference, it appears as a glowing white longsword made of frosted glass. It may provoke fear, awe, or avarice. Ancient creatures with long memories may know more about its history than the character does.

At level one, the sword functions as a silver weapon.

Ancient Lore
The sword is ancient and wise. As long as it's in the character's possession, they may cast Commune once (and only once) per character level.

Magic Eater
At level three, the sword has deemed the bearer worthy of learning its innermost secret. It can devour a magic weapon to steal one ability from that weapon. It can carry three abilities at a time (a numerical weapon bonus counts as a single ability).

This process is conducted through a six hour trance that must take place in solitude.

Devoured weapon bonuses do not stack; if the Mystic Sword is +1, and it devours the +3 bonus from another weapon, the Mystic Sword becomes a +3 weapon.

The devoured magic weapon is utterly drained of power, and becomes as brittle and worthless as unfired clay.

Prisoner of Fate
The Mystic Sword is jealous. Any time you use another weapon in a fight, the sword withholds its special abilities for one day (it acts as a normal weapon of its type). If it is abandoned or lost for more than a week, it takes 1d4 months before the weapon forgives the character and works normally again.

Destroying the Mystic Sword is possible, but never easy. It cannot be broken or melted by mundane means (which also makes it a handy tool for barring a door or holding open a crashing portcullis!).

It’s up to the GM exactly what will destroy the sword. Dragon fire would be a good fit. The fire of a particular dragon is probably too limited. A Swordslave whose sword is destroyed becomes a fighter of one level lower. Their strength is permanently reduced by 4.

Once (and only once) the sword will cast Raise Dead to resurrect its bearer at the moment of death. The Swordslave must willingly submit to a Geas to receive this favor. The assigned task is always difficult and dangerous, and trying to get out of the bargain always results in tragic, horrible, lingering death. The Geas is typically long term, difficult, and extravagant. Examples might include:

• Found a new kingdom in the wilderness based on peace with the local humanoid
• Recover a legendary holy relic and return it to its home
• Eradicate the royal line of a great kingdom, down to the very last child

Name Level
At 10th level, the sword slave attracts a loyal cadre of warriors. 1d6 fighters (level 1d3) will offer their service in exchange for basic upkeep, and the opportunity to pursue great deeds. They will serve with great loyalty as long as the character continues living as a wandering adventurer and keeps no permanent home.

A stolen mystic sword acts as a normal weapon of its type as long as the original bearer is alive. If the original bearer is dead, it can bond with a new person, who will become a swordslave of whatever level their total XP dictates.

Other Notes
I wrote this partly just because that picture of the kid with the glowing sword got my wheels turning. It's not playtested whatsoever. I'm afraid some of the special abilities could veer into being cheesy plot armor, but their use is so limited that I think the B/X Elf is still more powerful.

I also had in mind an old friend from my early days of DMing. He always wanted to play a dude with an ancient magical weapon, and I would always say “nah just go adventure for one”. I thought our rinky dink Forgotten Realms game was way too serious to just hand out magic swords at first level!

He wanted to do Chosen Hero type stuff, which can bungle up the team play aspect of the game, but he was a good player and I regret not meeting him part way to scratch that itch. I like to think he’d have enjoyed playing this class.

It could also be a handy thing if you want to throw a bone to a player who wants to change to a warrior class without starting from scratch.

Seems like you’d want only one of these guys per group (or maybe even per campaign). It starts to feel silly when a guy with an Ancient Mystical Blade shows up every few weeks. Then again, they could be an order of medieval Jedi knights or something too.

If that’s the case, they’ll probably want their sword back after your dude gets geeked by some Normal Man with a crossbow.

Demons of the Outer Dark

Outside the Aether is just black, empty void. Not even air to breathe.

By Agostino Arrivabene

No. That’s wrong. It only seems that way because of your primitive instruments. You know, the ones rolling around inside your skull.

Out there is primordial chaos. The monsters that the gods cast out before time began. Call the tiniest whisp of that stuff into the material plane, and it congeals into a corporeal form known as a demon. Being forced to take on a material body appeals to it about as much as being pressed through a red hot sieve appeals to you. It reacts to your summons accordingly. That’s just one reason why you’d be wise to keep the thing contained with strong magic.

Ades Pantocrater - Agostino Arrivabene

Magic circles and the like are often effective just because they’re a complex, orderly geometric pattern. Any kind of organized structure might be sufficient to send the demon’s physical form into a crash state. Or maybe not.

Killing the physical vessel doesn’t free them, though it might disperse weak entities enough that they can’t reassemble their physical form.

They must be banished with tools mortals cannot create themselves (certain rituals and items handed down by transcendent entities, cleric spells). The disintegrate spell also annihilates demons permanently, creating a small amount of Black Aether*.

It's hard to say whether demons exist as discrete entities outside the material universe, or if their individual nature manifests only when drawn into our world. It's possible that the ritual and the sacrifice itself is what shapes raw chaos-stuff into a physical form.

While their powers can be terrifying to behold, they are summoned and tormented most often for knowledge. Their realm exists outside and throughout the material universe. It's likely they know more than the gods themselves.

http://www.agostinoarrivabene.it/paintings/

While a demon may take on numerous forms, and manifest subtly different powers with each summoning, it's one pleasure on the material plane is to degrade order into disorder. Set loose from its bonds, it endeavors to turn families into broken individuals, orchards into ashen waste, and kingdoms into chaotic orgies of death and destruction followed by silence.

It has no name, but you can be certain it will always remember you. It's fondest wish is to return the favor of its summoning, and bring you home as a souvenir.

*(I don’t know what that does yet, but it will probably be something like a metaphysical version of this. Highly reactive in unpredictable ways, with precipitates that might have a variety of effects on the material world).