Your most memorable intelligent items?

[Marnath]

I could have sworn there was a thread on this earlier, but I don't see it now. Anyway, I was playing around on a treasure generator and got this:

greatsword +2 (bane of elf(s)) (24,350 gp)
Int: 17 (3)
Wis: 12 (1)
Cha: 6 (-2)
Ego: 11
Communication: speech
Reading: all languages spoken
Alignment: lawful good
Languages:
common
abyssal
orc
auran
10 ranks in any knowledge skill
detect magic at will
'deathwatch' continually active
sheds light in a 20-foot radius (as a torch)

I imagine the story of how an apparent orc champion's blade turned out to be his/her polar opposite is quite entertaining. Anyone else have a memorable intelligent item in their campaign?

[Sacrieur]

I had an intelligent item... It was formerly owned by a really powerful god (before he became a god).

Technically it was 2 items, 2 long swords with each a distinct personality. One was black, the other was white. The black one liked to cut into things. The white one was more peaceful, and attacking with that could heal people.

Well, I could force them together to form a +5 Holy Devastator with incredible bonuses. I could heal, or dish out massive damage. Also had a very powerful personality. I'm surprised it even let me use it. Our team's barbarian tried to grab it once, he was flung back into a wall >_>

[Tokuhara]

We once had an intelligent Helmet of Blindsense, who would tell you where to go, often into walls or other objets. We later found out it was originally a poorly-sighted wizard who accidentally misread his spell and sealed his soul into the helmet. It was a blast to use...

The wizard's name was Fred, and he talked like the character of the same name from Courage, the Cowardly Dog. I was the character who wore fullplate and wore Fred on my head. It looked like a Full-Faced Gladiator's Helm with no eye holes.

[Marnath]

We once had an intelligent Helmet of Blindsense, who would tell you where to go, often into walls or other objets. We later found out it was originally a poorly-sighted wizard who accidentally misread his spell and sealed his soul into the helmet. It was a blast to use...

That's awesome.:smallbiggrin:

[Warlawk]

I think we've only really run two of them in campaigns that were of any length.

The first one was a warhammer. My wife found it while playing a beatstick type character. Don't recall the exact character or abilities because... it was 10+ years ago.

The hammer was named Theo, and he liked to be "slung loooooooow". I think it was a Thrower with an orcbane property and a few neat little abilities, might have had the thundering property or something too, on top of a pretty solid base, like a +4 hammer or something. She had to get rid of all her other magic weapons, at one point the hammer demanded a portion of the treasure when we found gems so that it could have a velvet lined hardwood box set with gemstones. After a fight where the hammer was particularly useful (I think she stuck it around a corner to scout for us or something) when we next got into town it demanded a special service. She had to purchase a barrel full of shaving cream and spend a good 15 minutes just stirring him around to a chorus of "ooohhhh aaaaahhhhh yeah, that's the stuff!" A powerful weapon that doubled as creepy comic relief.

The second one was an elven longsword created by one of the founders of the elven schools of bladesinging. It was absolutely obsessed with combat and had a strong sense of honor. It was used by a friend and I'm not sure the complete list of abilities it had. The main thing I remember about it was the time he tried to sneak up on a sentry, makes all his stealth checks and such. As he gets ready to strike the sword yells out a warning "HEY! HEY YOU! LOOK OUT!" then whispers to its wielder "I totally saved you, you were about to hit that guy from behind and he wouldn't have been able to fight back, you almost missed out on glorious honorable combat!" It wasn't exactly a pivotal moment in the game and didn't cost us anything with having the sentry forewarned since he died in short order without raising the alarm anyways, it was just an example of the way the sword saw the world.

[Amoren]

Sadly, I never got to play this one. But creating a 9th level fox hengeyokai spellthief/dagger spell master (would likely change it to hidden seer if I redid the build now) with random rolled item rules, I got a greater intelligent silver barbed dagger with huge mental stats and the capability to detect thoughts.

I made its personality manic depressive, and since its Ego was leagues above my rogue, whatever state the dagger was in my character would be in as well. I was going to roll a die to randomly determine if he was end of the world depressed or stab happy manic to reflect this.

[fortesama]

I've only seen 1 intelligent item in play which was an artifact greatsword the dm designed to grow more powerful as it's owner gains HD. It could speak, had mental scores higher than it's master and a bit of telekinesis and his master was a barb with somewhat low mental scores. The result were short impromptu boke and tsukkomi routines every so often complete with slaps from the sword.

[Thurbane]

An intelligent Sparring Dummy of the Master with the personality of Marvin the Paranoid Android (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

"That's OK, you can hit me if you must. I'll try not to take it personally, shall I? Here I am, with an intelligence of 19, and what do I get as a job? Glorified punching bag. It's all rather depressing..."

[OMG PONIES]

An intelligent Sparring Dummy of the Master with the personality of Marvin the Paranoid Android (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

"That's OK, you can hit me if you must. I'll try not to take it personally, shall I? Here I am, with an intelligence of 19, and what do I get as a job? Glorified punching bag. It's all rather depressing..."

Steal this, may I?

[Thurbane]

Steal this, may I?
Absolutely. :smallwink:

[Mad Wizard]

Haven't actually used this one yet, but I plan to soon. So, you know how you can use your Int score to move on the Astral plane? I decided it would make sense to have ships powered by an "AI" - essentially, the entire ship is an intelligent item that uses its int score to drive the ship. Anyway, I created a Githyanki pirate ship called the "Dragon's Cry," a former cargo ship that had its personality permanently altered by the pirate captain. It now relishes ship-to-ship combat and attacks as soon and as devastatingly as possible. I think of it as sort of like an evil version of EDI, from Mass Effect 2.

[Goober4473]

I once randomly rolled up an intelligent artifact-level (+13 equivalent or so) kukri and named it Larry. Larry had a purpose, which was to kill giants. He also reversed the gender of anyone wielding him, and was extremely immature.

"Guys, guys. Pull my finger."
"You don't have a finger, Larry. You're a knife."
"...Pthhhhbbttt!"

He was a nice guy though, ultimately.

I later reused Larry in another campaign set in the same world, as an animated skull that another party found in a giant's bag. See, he had decided that he could kill giants much better if he was alive, so he got himself a body. Only, it turns out, he's terrible at fighting, and got squished by the first troll he attacked. The leader of the tribe of trolls decided to animate his skull as a joke. Because he used to be an item, his gender-reversal carried over to the skull, which the trolls found immensely hilarious. Later, a fire giant beat up the trolls, and took the skull.

[Luzahn]

Haven't actually used this one yet, but I plan to soon. So, you know how you can use your Int score to move on the Astral plane? I decided it would make sense to have ships powered by an "AI" - essentially, the entire ship is an intelligent item that uses its int score to drive the ship. Anyway, I created a Githyanki pirate ship called the "Dragon's Cry," a former cargo ship that had its personality permanently altered by the pirate captain. It now relishes ship-to-ship combat and attacks as soon and as devastatingly as possible. I think of it as sort of like an evil version of EDI, from Mass Effect 2.

I'm still pretty sure that EDI was evil...

[Marnath]

I once randomly rolled up an intelligent artifact-level (+13 equivalent or so) kukri and named it Larry. Larry had a purpose, which was to kill giants. He also reversed the gender of anyone wielding him, and was extremely immature.


Reversed their gender, or their sex?:smallconfused:


I'm still pretty sure that EDI was evil...

I'm not sure if she's evil or not, but definitely possible. Just because something is friendly doesn't mean it's good.:smallsmile:

[McSmack]

I made an intelligent magic item a villain in one of my games once. It was a katana formed formed from the bones of a blue dragon. The spirit of the dragon was trapped inside and would dominate beatstick types and use them to rape/burn/pillage the countryside. When the warforged dual-katana dervish picked it up after a fight the sword convinced him that it was a silver dragon.

It then used the party to track down it's old evil henchman who was assembling an eldritch device to bring the dragon back as a half-elemental demigod - this part took about 6 months in real life, so the character had gotten really attached to his +2 keen shocking burst katana.

The look on his face when he failed the will save and got dominated made it all worth while. MWHAHAHAHAHA

[Marnath]

I made an intelligent magic item a villain in one of my games once. It was a katana formed formed from the bones of a blue dragon. The spirit of the dragon was trapped inside and would dominate beatstick types and use them to rape/burn/pillage the countryside. When the warforged dual-katana dervish picked it up after a fight the sword convinced him that it was a silver dragon.

It then used the party to track down it's old evil henchman who was assembling an eldritch device to bring the dragon back as a half-elemental demigod - this part took about 6 months in real life, so the character had gotten really attached to his +2 keen shocking burst katana.

The look on his face when he failed the will save and got dominated made it all worth while. MWHAHAHAHAHA

Nice. :smallamused:
It's funny that he didn't question why it did shocking instead frost, if it was supposed to be a silver dragon spirit.:smalltongue:

[Firechanter]

Well, "most memorable", so far I've only had one.

"Shadowthief", intelligent Longsword, found as loot in Castle Amber and converted to 3.5. First off, oddly enough, nobody else in the party seemed to have a use for it. Everyone preferred other weapon types. So actually my Cleric/Radiant Servant got it uncontested.

My char found out it was Intelligent before actually drawing it, and then didn't want to draw it until he found out more about it (for instance, its alignment). But when at one point he was Blinded by a trap, and everyone else was also either blind or under a... different affliction, I felt I just had to dare it. When I drew the sword, I heard a dirty laughter in my head.
Sword: "Hehehehehe"
Me: "What, what's so funny?"
"Wouldn't you think it's funny if two guys are sitting on their heels, staring at a picture of a full moon painted on the wall?"
"Uh-huh, so that's what's wrong with them. I can't see anything, can you help me out?"
"Sure thing. Go 3 steps ahead, turn right, one step, there's some paint utensils on the floor..."
With the help of the sword, I managed to convert the hypnotizing full moon picture into a radiant sunrise worthy of the Morninglord.

Basically, it was a +2 Longsword with telepathic link, the ability to cast Daylight, and effectively it granted Blind-Fight/Blindsight because it could give you directions and combat instructions:
"Grim Reaper! Counterstrike! Double Kloppek!"

It also had some minor powers but I don't really remember them... stuff that didn't really convert so well from OD&D. I guess we just never used them. But I kept the sword as primary weapon and have no intention of switching. ^^

[Metahuman1]

Oriental adventure game I was in, the party's sorcerer had rolled random items to go with his gear like the rest of us, and got a staff that had a cage with a stuffed toad on it's head. It was lazy, could randomly access spells of any given lvl (If we asked for something that was above his spell lvl acess as a character or if we asked it to cast more spells of a level then his owner could cast of that lvl, we had to roll randomly for them. ), talked, didn't much like people, was a bit lustful, and LOVED to drink.

When it drank, it's eyes glowed and the booze just got lower in it's container till it wasn't there any more. The party would go into taverns during down time and the Sorcerer would order the staff a drink, the Bar keep would poor it, and then the above described would happen and it would keep pouring drinks till he'd gone through entire bottles and barrels.

I remember we were having a hard fight at one point so my character, a Samurai who favored a two weapon fighting style with a pair of katana's called too the staff that if it would buff us properly I'd buy it 3 gold pieces worth of what ever booze it wanted back in town.

It instantly gave both swords greater magic weapon, Magic vestment on my armor, and it gave me Bull's strenght, bears endurance, Cat's grace, Shield, Enlarge person, haste, Displacement and Stone skin.

The DM did this becuase part of the characters thing was he was broke and so was his clan, so he knew I wouldn't be able to repeat it. I had an accidental character death about two sessions later, We were fighting a group of Orc's and Took three Confirmed Crits form Battle axe's that rolled 6, 6, and 7 damage on them, took out all my HP. And these were not rolls behind the DM screen either, we got to see the Nat 20's come up and then saw him roll the confirmation's and the damage.

[Otherworld Odd]

I recently discovered a legacy weapon called the Blackrazor (greatsword from White Plume Mountain.) It apparently whines at you whenever it's wielder uses another weapon besides it, so needless to say I never plan on using it to become it's "wielder."

Also, cue the jokes in my playgroup about nagging girlfriends. "I saw you with the warhammer! You pig!"

[Marnath]

I recently discovered a legacy weapon called the Blackrazor (greatsword from White Plume Mountain.) It apparently whines at you whenever it's wielder uses another weapon besides it, so needless to say I never plan on using it to become it's "wielder."

Also, cue the jokes in my playgroup about nagging girlfriends. "I saw you with the warhammer! You pig!"

Ahahaha, that is awesome! Bonus points if it's a cursed item you can't relinquish.:smallbiggrin:

[Yukitsu]

I once had an item familiar that my wizard Cael created. It was a walking stick named Caley, who also happened to be a lode stone. In a bizarre twist, she ended up being the father to his child.

I also played a paladin that found an epic holy avenger that's trying to martyr him.

[Marnath]

I once had an item familiar that my wizard Cael created. It was a walking stick named Caley, who also happened to be a lode stone. In a bizarre twist, she ended up being the father to his child.

I also played a paladin that found an epic holy avenger that's trying to martyr him.

Cool story bro....wait. What? O.o

[Otherworld Odd]

Cool story bro....wait. What? O.o

I uh... had the same reaction? Whaaat? x_x. I think there's a word for that twist of events that starts with mast and ends with tion... However, if it was with an intelligent item, does that make it intercourse? O_____o;;;

[Yukitsu]

It involved a lot of transmutations, time travel and a huuuuuuuuge misunderstanding. I try not to delve much further than that.

Edit: Oh wait, it also involved an angel and an evil time clone. Those are important.

[Axinian]

It involved a lot of transmutations, time travel and a huuuuuuuuge misunderstanding. I try not to delve much further than that.

Edit: Oh wait, it also involved an angel and an evil time clone. Those are important.
This is the most epic story that never needs to be told.

In my current game, the wizard has a sentient torch name Agamemnatharius the Terrible. He insists that you call him his full name and each time. He gives people who aren't CN, CE, or NE one negative level as long as their touching him, so he relishes getting his wielders to throw him at random peasants and watch them die.
He basically looks look the eye of Sauron on a stick.

[EdroGrimshell]

An intelligent longsword that wasn't intelligent that my artificer found.

It was a +5 longsword that wasn't intelligent with a weapon augment crystal attached to it that was a combination of five weapon augment crystals and it was the intelligent item. Only found out after i exchanged the crystal and lost the abilities the crystal gained.

The thing had a female personality and was an undead/fiend hunter and was slightly perverted. My character and the crystal fell in love and I eventually forged a steel body for the crystal to use that i then had the party mage transmute into a human body with the crystal as the brain and my character married her. Definitely the most fun intelligent item ever.

[ArchAngel7609]

The Needy Shield

This magical shield has a skin of leather stretched across the face of the shield, with a face but out of the leather. It is the spawn of a lonely mage and his desperate search for a friend. In his frenzy, he left out vital components to the creation of his friend, and threw out the shield after his mistake was realized.

Item Type: Leather Shield
Alignment: NE
Cost: 53,700gp

Int:13
Wis:12
Cha:16

Ego: +6

Language: Common
Senses & Communication: Speech

Powers: This shield will function just like a normal Leather Shield, but it has the ability to provide a +10 to Blacksmith Craft skills once a day. The catch is the shield craves a coat of leather oil once a week. It may even go far as to rat out the owner if it involves getting its oil. It can also leap 10ft up and across if it ever feels the need to. It will also berate the owner if its not given the oil in a week.


Just something that seemed entertaining and interesting to have in a game. Could potentially get annoying, but could provide great role play opportunities.

[unseenmage]

In a tech enabled Pathfinder game I wound up with 1) a device that could download a conciousness into a tech item as an AI and 2) a device that replicated the Programmed Amnesia/Mindrape spells but only on AIs and robots.

The first villain had put himself into a robot body. I saved his head and reprogrammed him so that he remembered having enjoyed being and doing evil but could no longer enjoy it or derive satisfaction from even the memory, let alone the act.

The second one was the ghost of a sadistic researcher who let all his labtechs die because he was a jerk. My character hated the waste of research resources and hunted dude's ghostly form down in the ethereal and downloaded/reprogrammed him too.

They both became floating robot skulls whose sole purpose was to be at my beck and call and store info.
I turned them into bling.



In a previous game I made quarterstaffs with the Flying weapon enhancement so they could act as animated objects. They were intelligent and could use telekinesis, Greater Teleport, greater Plane Shift, and some other goodies.

Used them as go-fers mostly. Mass produced them.

Had the idea to accumulate enough of them that they become a BoVD hivemind swarm and gain Sorcerer casting and (theoretically) item creation feats. After that they could nanobots the world into more and more of themselves.

Flying staffs of every conceivable material filling the skies as far as the eye can see... beautiful.

[Quertus]

The Thread of Necromancy? It raises damaged garments from the dead, and only asks that you bring it more friends?

[thelastorphan]

Two words:
Knife Wife. She was a character central to the plot of one of the best series of games I ever played in.