Cool/Interesting/Strange/Silly Swords?

[ThinkMinty]

So, what kind of swords do y'all think are cool, strange, interesting, silly, or otherwise noteworthy?

I've always thought cavalry sabers are pretty boss, especially the guards.

[chainer1216]

The Indian Pata is cool, its a gauntlet sword.

The German grosse messer or krieg messer is super cool, its like a European katana.

And the classic falcata is always nice.

[RagingBluMunky]

Call me crazy, but I've always been fond of the Egyptian khopesh

[Deffers]

The classic answer is, of course, the Flamberge, for being a giant snakey sword. Zweihanders, being big, are quite interesting too. I have a friend who's 6'2" and she found a zwei that's actually as tall as she is once. Anime swords par excellence.

The Urumi, inasmuch as it's even a sword to begin with, definitely wins the originality prize, what with being a whip sword.

For the cool category, I'd suggest the humble jian. Just a straightsword, double edged-- something about it makes it instantly recognizable, though. And it ain't just the hilt.

[TheCountAlucard]

For magic swords, my heart goes out to Beloved Adorei.

[Kaveman26]

My favorite fictional sword is Wirikridor....aka Man Slayer.


Lawrence watt Evans
The Misenchanted Sword

Army scout gets stuck behind enemy lines of a war that has spanned a century.stumbles on a wizards hut and finds that the wizard is empathetic to his plight but mostly wants to be left alone.enemy troops destroy the Wizards home and in retribution he enchants the soldiers sword and he enchants it up heavy. Then he leaves in the middle of the night.

A note informs the soldier to only draw it when needed and not before. Hijinks ensue

The sword when drawn can't be sheathed or dropped until it kills a male of adult age.

When in combat he is amazing and unstoppable...until he kills at which point he must sheath and redraw to deactivate enchantment.

He can't be killed. He can be injured and can age but he can't die. This causes problems.

The sword has a spell of true ownership....if you steal it jump on a ship and sail a thousand miles from land....a tidal wave or tsunami will pick your ship up and bring it back. There was a slight problem with this. The spell requires a gold ring as material component and the wizard used brass which erodes the spell over time.

They figure he has 100 uses of the sword before spell fizzles and selects a new owner. The old owner will be killed in process. No big deal....the war is over and there is no way he will kill 87 people during peace time. Over course he gets promoted from scout to assassin after war....

Again hijinks ensue.

[The Fury]

I like the Conyers Falchion. The myth surrounding it is that it was used to slay a dragon, the Sockburn Worm. Though modern scholars seem to think that the "dragon" the myth was referring to was actually a Viking captain that arrived in a dragon-headed longship. Plus the falchion itself looks kind of like a big machete.

[Honest Tiefling]

Call me crazy, but I've always been fond of the Egyptian khopesh

The classic answer is, of course, the Flamberge, for being a giant snakey sword.

Well, I'm clearly late to this party. My two picks would be these two, simply based on how they look.

[Ralanr]

Chinese Dao. Cutless. Saber. Falchions. Scimitars. Short-sabers.

Ok, I like all swords really. Except that whip sword from India...A bit much if you ask me.

[Amaril]

If we're allowed to talk about specific magic swords from fiction, I humbly submit Nightblood, from Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker.

Spoiler: Warbreaker spoilers

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In the world of Warbreaker, magic consists of a technique called Awakening, which is based on infusing inanimate objects with life force and commanding them to do things. The closer an object's material is to being alive, the less energy is required to Awaken it--so wood is easier than cloth, and cloth is easier than stone, for example. The most difficult material to Awaken is metal, so much so that it's only ever been done in one known case, the product being the sword Nightblood. Because of the massive amount of life energy that Nightblood had to be infused with, it gained sentience and the power to communicate telepathically with whoever carries it (this doesn't happen to normal Awakened objects).

Of course, there's a problem. When an object is Awakened, it must be given a command to imbue it with purpose, so the command given to Nightblood was "destroy evil". Unfortunately, while the Awakening process gave Nightblood sentience, even a sentient sword isn't very smart--the result being that Nightblood knows that its purpose is to destroy evil, but doesn't really understand what evil is. So pretty much every time someone comes near its wielder, it starts going "ooh, ooh, is he evil? Can we kill him? Come on, he's totally evil, let's kill him!"

It doesn't help that Nightblood is the single most dangerous weapon in existence. The person who carries it for most of the book, Vasher, has to keep it sheathed pretty much all the time to contain its power. Throughout the story, there are several times when he's separated from it. Every time, he finds it again shortly after, rammed through the chest of the person who took it, sheath and all, with anyone else nearby also dead, and all color drained from their bodies and clothes (color is important to Awakening). Only once is he forced to draw it, revealing that its blade can instantly disintegrate a person's body, or a man-sized section of stone wall, just by touching it. Sadly, wielding Nightblood unsheathed quickly drains the user's own life force, as well as psychically compelling them to attack anyone and anything around them until they sheathe it again.

[Red Fel]

In terms of historic swords, I would have gone with the jian - the simplicity is so elegant - but instead I'll submit the kilij.

Spoiler: The Kilij.

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A one-handed weapon with a curved blade and a smartly weighted leading edge, which results in a weapon that wields like a club and carves like a cleaver. It found use by the Turks after evolving from Turko-Mongol sabers. It is not elegant; it is messy and savage. It was reviewed on the program Deadliest Warrior and considered the most destructive one-handed sword on the show.

And it's got "kill" right in the name. (Interestingly, the name actually comes from the verb "to break." So it's badass even in its native tongue.)

If I had to pick a fictional sword, I'd go with the Twelve Swords of Power from Fred Saberhagen's Book of Swords series. Basically twelve god-level artifacts, each with a unique and completely world-breaking power and nasty side effect.

[The Fury]

If fictional weapons are OK to mention, I gotta go with Rubilax from Wakfu as well. He's actually a demon in the form of a sword, (well, more like a dagger that can turn into a sword,) that can talk. I gather he was somewhat inspired by Stormbringer, though he's less malevolent and mostly just makes fun of Sadlygrove.

[Talion]

Since we seem to be including fictional swords, I'd like to mention this little bit of insanity:

Spoiler: Daedric Crescent

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Besides its unusual shape, the Daedric Crescent is a powerful piece of equipment. Besides doing a great deal of base damage, the Crescent also eats away at its target's armor...and paralyzes them. What's truly concerning is that there used to be enough to outfit a large number of Mehrunes Dagon's forces, before the Empire managed to gather them up and destroy them. Seems they missed one though...

Spoiler: Ingame Description

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Probably the most rare and even outlawed item of all the great prizes is the Daedric Crescent Blade. The Blade was used by Mehrunes Dagon's Daedric forces in the capture of the Imperial Battlespire. These extremely unique Blades were gathered up and destroyed after the Battlespire was recaptured by the Empire. All but one it seems. Though the Empire believes them all to be destroyed, it is rumored that one still remains in existence, somewhere in Tamriel, though none have ever seen it. The Blade lends it's [sic] wielder the ability to do great damage on an enemy and allows him to paralyze and put heavy wear on his enemy's armor. Quite the prize for any mighty warrior, if it does indeed exist.

[Deffers]

@Talion: Aw jeez! I remember that from Morrowind! They don't make those OP magic artifacts like they used to.

If we're talking Elder Scrolls, I always had a soft spot for Goldbrand, Eltonbrand, and the Nerevarine's flaming saber, whatever that was called.

[GungHo]

Whip swords (urumi)

Falx


I also like multi-purpose blades like bolos, machetes, and khukuris.

[Talion]

@Talion: Aw jeez! I remember that from Morrowind! They don't make those OP magic artifacts like they used to.

If we're talking Elder Scrolls, I always had a soft spot for Goldbrand, Eltonbrand, and the Nerevarine's flaming saber, whatever that was called.

They really don't, which is disappointing (like, seriously, holy Azura, that Wraithguard). Granted, a lot of the numbers were really weird, but they didn't stop you from steamrolling over a lot of things. (And your flaming saber is, Trueflame, the sister sword to Hopesfire).

[The Fury]

I also like multi-purpose blades like bolos, machetes, and khukuris.

Absolutely. They're generally not thought of as weapons and more as tools. Maybe that's why they're something I'd actually like to own in real life-- I'm not likely to ever have to duel someone to the death, (or rather I hope I won't,) but I'll probably have to cut down blackberry vines at some point.

[Solaris]

I've a soft spot for the kukri. It reminds me of a Nepali kid I used to serve with, who came from a family with a lot of Gurkhas.

I'll also third the liking of the khopesh. It's both exotic and goofy-looking, and I'm a bit of a fan of ancient Egypt.

Then, the katana. You know why? Because it's fun to mock katana fanboys who think it can cut through all the things because it was folded ten thousand times or whatever, instead of that being a means to compensate for feudal Japan's poor iron sources and a technique much of the rest of the world had abandoned centuries before because they improved their metallurgy.
That, and when you ignore the fanboys getting stupid over a Wikipedia article they didn't even bother finish reading, the mystique built up around the katana and the samurai is rather interesting.

My favorite sword, however, is the cicada-wing sword. It's as close as you can really get to the two-bladed sword in reality, and because it has two sword blades it is therefore mathematically twice as cool as another sword.

[Talyn]

The Navy broad sword. All the awesome cutting power and salty nautical history of the cutlass, plus approximately 1000% more classy.

[comicshorse]

The tri-blade (from 'The Sword and the Sorcerer')

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDvuBY97cD4

In reality I was always liked the Hook Sword

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_sword

[Amazon]

The Kris sword.

Spoiler

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Spoiler

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The sword that Everybody hates. LOL.

...I will show myself out.

[Knaight]

Some of the more refined bronze swords made with weird alloys are really interesting.

[snacksmoto]

Add another tally for the Egyptian Khopesh. Also the Macuahuitl.

Spoiler: Ceremonial Macuahuitl

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[sktarq]

I would call the kris a dagger more than a sword. And I love them-the pattern welding on the good ones is enchanting.

Personally I love both the falcatta and the kora (the larger mate to the kukri)

[FocusWolf413]

I love the Royal Engineers saber. They have such beautiful hilts.

[Raimun]

Let's see, in no particular order...

Katanas. Heh, yeah. We all know "the true stories" about them. Still, the design is actually functional. I prefer swords that can be used with both one handed and two handed grip. I would imagine european hand and a half-sword would be just as good.

Great swords (all types). The classic D&D-weapon. You can't use Power Attack as well with a long sword.

High Frequency-blades! They can cut mechas with the power of actual, totally real science, which also made the mechas in the first place.

Gunblades. Shut up. They are cool and they actually existed, even if pistol swords were never popular. They still work just fine in fiction.

Sword-chucks, yo.

Water Sword! Wait, no. Scratch that. That thing was lame.

Black blade. The sentient sword of Bladebound Magus that gets better Enhancement Bonus and special abilities as you level up the class. Unbreakable from the get go.

Any sword that heals your wounds as you wound your enemies. There's something extremely satisfying in that... not to mention its handy.

Blades of Chaos/Athena/Exile. The swords chained to Kratos' wrists. Stylish and extremely versatile weapons. You could get creative with them. They are also on fire when you swing them.

The twelve Runefangs of the Empire. Mothers Ruin, Goblin Bane, Legbiter, Crow Feeder, Brain Wounder, Troll Cleaver, Dragon Tooth, Orc Hewer, Stone Breaker, Blood Bringer, Grudge Settler and Beast Slayer. The swords of Elector Counts and great heroes of the Empire. I like the fluff plus they are deadly.

An adamantine sword. The sword that made Rogue obsolete.

Armageddon's Blade. Because fair play is for losers. The sword that made swords obsolete by raining fire made of pure death from the skies on everyone on the battlefield... except your own troops, who are made conveniently immune. Probably gave some stat bonuses as well but they are mostly of academic value.

Edit: Yeah, I listed mostly fictional swords. That's because there aren't that many real life swords I would prefer. Ideally, the sword should combine speed, finesse, reach and power, could thrust and slash and could be used equally well with one hand or two hands. That basically means a katana or an european hand-and-a-half sword, such as some bastard swords and swiss sabers.

[JAL_1138]

Side-swords / cut-and-thrust. Often called "spada da lato," the Italian name, though many of the niftiest-looking were German.

Swiss sabers from the renaissance. Slight curve if any, versatile blade for slashing or thrusting, sometimes with a hand-and-a-half grip with a rapier-like swept hilt or a heavier basket-hilt. One of the more elegant-looking single-edged swords out there.

I'm a sucker for fancy hilts, basically. May be related to playing so many Bards.

[nyjastul69]

I'm giving another vote for the khopesh. I didn't think anyone else would vote for it. I was quite incorrect.

[The Fury]

I'm a sucker for fancy hilts, basically. May be related to playing so many Bards.

I sort of like fancy-hilted swords too. The Scottish basket hilt claymore and the English mortuary sword are both favorites of mine.

[Raimun]

Swiss sabers from the renaissance. Slight curve if any, versatile blade for slashing or thrusting, sometimes with a hand-and-a-half grip with a rapier-like swept hilt or a heavier basket-hilt. One of the more elegant-looking single-edged swords out there.

Whoa. That looks cool and functional. I'd have mine with a hand-and-a-half hilt, with just the cross guard, without a basket-hilt or rapier-style hand guard. Those would just get in the way.

I thank you for sharing this. I had no idea weapons this cool existed.