Help coming up with powers for a magic sword

[Phoenix042]

So I'm trying to stat up an artifact-level-sword in one of my campaigns (I'm DM), and I'd like some help with brainstorming powers and features.

Here's the history in a SUPER simplified nutshell:

A father loves his daughter deeply. He also happens to be the most powerful necromancer in history, and his daughter commands his army of the dead (though she is a fighter, not a necromancer herself). She is given the authority to command them by carefully worded instructions, but one day, the father overlooks some loophole, and the undead servants, hungry for the blood of any living thing, turn on his daughter and almost kill her. As she recovers, he begins forging this sword, pouring into it both his power over undeath and his love for her. He makes it not just to protect her against his minions and give her the power to command the dead, but to protect her against death itself by infusing her with necrotic power.

The necromancer sought to control the forces of life and death utterly. He came very close, and this sword should embody the core of what he accomplished.

So now the player characters have the sword, and I need help making it's powers a little more specific. I intend to unlock them gradually as the players get more powerful and accomplish more in the world.

Any ideas?

(P.S. I've read the DMG magic item section, ALL of it, including the artifacts whatnot. While it's quite cute, I'm striving for more originality and completeness in this item)

(P.P.S. the player that currently has the sword is a single-classed barbarian (berserk), and I'm considering giving the sword a 1/day restoration effect, which would have the side effect of allowing the barbarian to remove the penalty of one frenzy per day).

[Joe the Rat]

Important question: Is it sentient? If so, who or what is its intellect? I could see either a copy of the necromancer's will (to watch over his daughter) or the daughter (the sword acting as a pseudo-phylactery to keep her safe forever). That also gives you the ever-popular "sword tries to take over its wielder" option, which I find essential for a proper artifact.

The ability to detect undead would be handy. "Oh, there's my army!" It could also act as a compass (or map) to lead you to something of importance, "home," some item of the necromancer, or the daughter's resting place.
Given the history, a sanctuary-like effect vs undead would be a likely early enchantment - look at the undying warlock patron for an example there. Giving the owner advantage on social checks with undead is also an option.
Life-stealer (extra necrotic on a crit, gain thp) or a vampiric touch rider (+necrotic damage, gain half as real hp) as either a crit-activate or as a charge-using ability would certainly be appropriate.
I have an item in my home game that stores extra hit dice for its user, and lets you spend them as a bonus action. Might be fun.
Speak with dead usable on anyone the sword has killed since (pick a timeframe).
Spare the dying, revivify, and/or raise dead. Revivify as an automatic effect of the sword when the user drops to 0 (charge-using, or 1/day... or eventually automatic) would be thematically appropriate... but you have to be holding it at the time.
animate dead seems likely, though I'm not 100% sold on Big Daddy Deathmage wanting his little girl to raise her own army.
Giving the user darkvision (which just about every undead has) would be a good minor power.

[MrMcBobb]

Basically everything Joe said.

The compass function would be really cool if you had to speak a word of power and anoint the sword with your blood, then you let it go and it spins in the air like a compass needle until it is pointing at the army/ his castle. If it was forged for someone other than his daughter so they could protect her, maybe it points to her. Maybe it points to all three but you activate it with different words of power depending on what you want to find?

I think giving it a Turn Undead feature would be good too, especially as the daughter has had a run in once before, surely he'd want to give her the facility to turn the undead away from her if they try to eat her face.

[jaappleton]

You want the powers to unlock gradually as they do more in the world. The Moonblade is a good basis for this.

Here's a list of some random effects. I would caution against stacking too many of the 'on a crit' effects, since Barb crits are already pretty nasty.

The sword deals an extra 2d8 damage VS undead
You have Darkvision while wielding the sword. Already have it? Increase it by 30ft.
You can cast Protection from Evil & Good once per day as a bonus action
If you crit, you regain HP equal to your level
You crit on a 19 or 20 VS undead
Whenever you crit an enemy, you can cast Chill Touch as a bonus action, using your weapon attack bonus
Increase your Constitution modifier by 2

[Sir cryosin]

I'm thinking add a death ward effect and a turn undead effect. Maybe start with a protect from good and evil effect. Then gos up to a sanctuary effect. Then into death ward. Give it a once per day turn undead effect. Then a d4 necrotic damage that heal for what ever same it does with the necrotic damage.

[N810]

One of the effects could be:
that due to the necromantic energy emanating from the sword,
the user is not considered a target by the undead.
As the user does not appear as living to the undead.

[sir_argo]

1/day as an action Magic Circle. This MC only effects undead and must face outward. The MC moves with the sword. The spell effect ends if there is ever an undead within the circle.

[Phoenix042]

Important question: Is it sentient? If so, who or what is its intellect? I could see either a copy of the necromancer's will (to watch over his daughter) or the daughter (the sword acting as a pseudo-phylactery to keep her safe forever). That also gives you the ever-popular "sword tries to take over its wielder" option, which I find essential for a proper artifact.

So the question of sentience is actually a lot to get into. I like to run my games with a sort of background animism always going on, but the sword isn't sentient or intelligent in the usual DMG sense of the word. It does have a kind of "spirit," and what might be called a slight empathic influence over the wielder.

The blade's name is supposed to be the draconic word for "Memory." The names' significance is twofold; first for the mother, who's memory is a shared bond that is the foundation of the relationship between the father and his daughter. Second, for the quest they share, the research into the universe's "memory" of the magic of creation, the power the gods used to create life at the dawn of time.

So the sword's "spirit" as it were would be shaped by those themes, and by the tragic events that followed (long story short, the father wanted to use necromancy to bring his wife back from the dead after divine magic failed to retrieve her soul. He wants to protect his family from Death forever. His daughter devotedly helped him, delving into ruins and scouring the world for lore and artifacts that might help, with the aid of the undead he created as by-products of his efforts. In the end, he essentially invents lichdom as the way to do it, becoming a lich in the process, only it twists his mind and corrupts his heart. Father and daughter fight, and the daughter slays him with the sword he gave her, but cannot bring herself to destroy his phylactery. Knowing that he will one day rise again to wreak his evil on the world, she builds a tomb for herself and her sword and binds her spirit to the blade and the tomb's seal, set to break when her father returns to the world. There's a LOT more to the story than this, including more detail on her plan for saving her father's soul, but you guys probably already stopped reading, so...).

Obviously the campaign begins when the necromage returns, centuries later, and the players stumble into the tomb and find the sword.

I intend to roll out it's powers gradually, as jaappleton suggested, and I've been doing that so far. Whenever the PC crosses a milestone, the sword sends him memories in his dreams, the daughter's memories. When he awakes the sword has unlocked a new power, although he doesn't automatically know what it is.



Given the history, a sanctuary-like effect vs undead would be a likely early enchantment - look at the undying warlock patron for an example there. Giving the owner advantage on social checks with undead is also an option.

So that's one I hadn't thought of. I'm liking it a lot. Basically, undead instinctively hesitate to harm the wielder. Any suggestions for a DC? I always have trouble with that.



Speak with dead usable on anyone the sword has killed since (pick a timeframe).
Spare the dying, revivify, and/or raise dead.

Oh you're full of gems. I hadn't thought of the speak with dead thing, and I like that it only works on people the sword has killed. Spare the dying I did think of, and in fact the wielder has already used it once. I'm just letting that one be "at will." I might do the revivify thing, but as a half-orc barbarian, the PC in question already has a lot going on when he hits 0 HP, and while I'm not trying to custom tailor the sword for him, it does seem a tad silly to give him yet ANOTHER extra life through this item. Still, some kind of extra defense might be cool. I'm thinking a 1/day heroism-like effect that triggers when the wielder falls below half health ("takes a wound," so to speak).[



animate dead seems likely, though I'm not 100% sold on Big Daddy Deathmage wanting his little girl to raise her own army.

I'm thinking no on the animate, but some kind of command or influence over undead that already exist seems natural.

Maybe something like the command undead feature of the Oathbreaker? What do you think?



1/day as an action Magic Circle. This MC only effects undead and must face outward. The MC moves with the sword. The spell effect ends if there is ever an undead within the circle.


I like this too, especially since it affects the party instead of just the wielder. Question, though: do you think this would be too redundant with a sanctuary effect? Should it maybe start out like sanctuary, then progress to magic circle later on, or should magic circle be a limited use power while sanctuary is just always-on?

[lordarkness]

One possibility is that the sword is designed not only to protect her in life but also after death. It could drive the wielder to whatever might be necessary to resurrect her even if this means reanimating her. This could be an issue for the party given that they are trying to not only stop but to actually destroy her father which is something she couldn't allow.

If I built a sword to protect my daughter it would also be able to tell me where she is or at least whenever she is in trouble. It could make things interesting for the party if either the BBEG knows where they are and what they are up to OR if a "guardian" of some sort teleports to the wielder and attacks the party whenever his health drops below a certain point.

Also, the sword could get more powerful the more undead are in the vicinity. This would both encourage her to be surrounded by undead to protect her, and protect her from the undead she seeks to control.

[Unoriginal]

Make it so that the sword gradually gives the wearer traits of the Undead that's the closest of their powers and personality, until the day where even casting the sword aside is not enough to revert.

A wizard uses it? They progressively become a Lich.

A rogue uses it? Welcome to the new Shadow.

A normal commoner uses it? A Zombie will wake up in their place, one day.

Make it insidious, subtle at first. A little bonus here and there, an odd feeling from time to time. Then comes the strange desires, the bad dreams, a feeling of illness that comes and go for a while. Until the moment it comes and stays for good. Then, they discover that normal healing doesn't affect them anymore, and that only negative energy can heal them. Thankfully, their wonderful sword can provide that, right? There is no issue with that, right? Just a side effect of being tied to an artifact...

[Dr.Vino]

(There's a LOT more to the story than this, including more detail on her plan for saving her father's soul, but you guys probably already stopped reading, so...).

I think it's a great storyline and would be interested in knowing the rest.