custom magic item help

[kinathis]

So a player in my 5e game has been gathering special magical reagents for empowering their greatsword. Over the course of the game they have gone from one end of the continent to the other and back to gather a vial of liquid eldest moonlight, liquid radiant sunlight, and a enchanted stone of flensing(for supernatural sharpness). The sword already has a +1 on it and does a little extra radiant damage from a magical coating that bonded to the sword. So far i have decided that the sword will be called Eclipse and take the form of a black blade that is edged by a corona of golden light much like how the sun looks during a eclipse.

The character itself is a Zealot barbarian of the Life goddess in the setting.

I am unsure as to what the actual magical enchantments should be. Considering the effort they put into getting these items for the sword, I want to make it at least a very rare weapon, maybe even a legendary.

So far i have been considering the following.

1 combine the flametongue and frostbrand weapons into one sword.
2 make the weapon into a vorpal sword
3 a good aligned version of blackrazor
4 just put a bunch of extra slashing, fire, and cold damage on it.

Any suggestions?

[Pauly]

So a player in my 5e game has been gathering special magical reagents for empowering their greatsword. Over the course of the game they have gone from one end of the continent to the other and back to gather a vial of liquid eldest moonlight, liquid radiant sunlight, and a enchanted stone of flensing(for supernatural sharpness). The sword already has a +1 on it and does a little extra radiant damage from a magical coating that bonded to the sword. So far i have decided that the sword will be called Eclipse and take the form of a black blade that is edged by a corona of golden light much like how the sun looks during a eclipse.

The character itself is a Zealot barbarian of the Life goddess in the setting.

I am unsure as to what the actual magical enchantments should be. Considering the effort they put into getting these items for the sword, I want to make it at least a very rare weapon, maybe even a legendary.

So far i have been considering the following.

1 combine the flametongue and frostbrand weapons into one sword.
2 make the weapon into a vorpal sword
3 a good aligned version of blackrazor
4 just put a bunch of extra slashing, fire, and cold damage on it.

Any suggestions?

Going with classical Greek/Roman mythology.
Selene the Goddess of the moon and the moon was also linked with Artemis Goddess of the hunt, wilderness, childbirth and childcare
Selene had a chariot to pull the moon. She fell in love with Endymion, and one version of the story has she put him into eternal sleep so he wouldn’t age or die.

Helios is the god of the sun, and the sun was also associated with Apollo, God of archery, music, prophecy and healing.
Helios drove the sun chariot, but is otherwise a fairly minor deity in the classical tradition.

Combining the prophecy and hunting with the stone of flensing gives you pretty good justification for a vorpal blade. The moonlight and sunlight aspects also justify making undead vulnerable to the vorpal blade (I’m out of date on my editions but when I was playing vorpal blades did not affect the undead who were immune to crits).

Since both Helios and Selene wheeled about in chariots how about a once/day and once/night effect of being able to move at chariot (galloping horse) speed?

Both Apollo and Artemis were gods of archery. Some kind of bonus to archery whilst carrying the blade might also be in order if the player is already bow equipped.
Edit to add. Apollo and Artemis were both gods of healing as well so maybe a vampiric weapon effect, each successful hit healing 1 or 2 hp, could be justified.

[kinathis]

Going with classical Greek/Roman mythology.
Selene the Goddess of the moon and the moon was also linked with Artemis Goddess of the hunt, wilderness, childbirth and childcare
Selene had a chariot to pull the moon. She fell in love with Endymion, and one version of the story has she put him into eternal sleep so he wouldn’t age or die.

Helios is the god of the sun, and the moon was also associated with Apollo, God of archery, music, prophecy and healing.
Helios drove the sun chariot, but is otherwise a fairly minor deity in the classical tradition.

Combining the prophecy and hunting with the stone of flensing gives you pretty good justification for a vorpal blade. The moonlight and sunlight aspects also justify making undead vulnerable to the vorpal blade (I’m out of date on my editions but when I was playing vorpal blades did not affect the undead who were immune to crits).

Since both Helios and Selene wheeled about in chariots how about a once/day and once/night effect of being able to move at chariot (galloping horse) speed?

Both Apollo and Artemis were gods of archery. Some kind of bonus to archery whilst carrying the blade might also be in order if the player is already bow equipped.

In 5e vorpal blades are instant kills on SPECIAICALY a nat 20 not a crit, on any creature that needs a head to live, if it does not need it to live, or if it is immune to slashing or has legendary actions, the target takes 6d8 damage instead.

I dig the greek god stuff. Though the setting is very much classic Arthurian mythos with a young squire having become the "eternal king", forming several knight holds, the spear Rhongomyniad is a warlock hexblade patron

I forgot some ingredients they collected, the sold gold horn of a ancient gold dragon. The characters own death blood (they died once already and when they her brought back they collected her spilled blood)

[Pauly]

Well in the Arthurian context knowledge of Greek/Roman gods and myths was very much a given. It is possible that the Greek Gods are old forgotten barely worshipped Gods in your setting or even old myths that have been revered and studied so long that the myths are starting to come to life.

Anyways in D&D some of the most potent anti-undead spells are wall of moonlight and sols searing orb, the death blood and the character worshipping a god of life really makes me want to make a sword with serious anti-undead properties.
How about a Larpov (reverse Vorpal) blade. The nat 20 instakills undead and does 8d6 damage to anything else? It does kind of commit you to running undead frequently to give the sword a chance to be in the spotlight.

Gold dragons are a bit bland. Trying to steer away from the breath attack = magic item effect, so maybe the it gives the wielder frightful presence at a really high DC. Useable once/day and once/night.

[ShedShadow]

I don't have too much experience with 5e magic items, but have you asked your player what they were envisioning? Getting a couple of abilities is cool and all, but having your player help design them would probably give them a greater sense of ownership and satisfaction.

That said, a light/dark blade could bestow some of the following:
- darkvision
- light spells of different levels as spell-like abilities
- dark spells of different levels as spell-like abilities
- Turn undead
- Turn fiend (Demon, devil, whatever)
- Make it intelligent
- radiant damage
- cold damage
- dark damage
- ignores AC
- Has stunning capabilities

[Phhase]

Hmm, here are some ideas:

Gain THP proportional to damage dealt, potentially with some limiting factor.

Just copy Distant Strike from Horizon Walker Ranger.

Dimensionally Anchor struck creatures (cause them to be unable to teleport or plane shift).

Allow the user to hide in shadow without cover.

Allow the user to briefly turn into a beam of light, moving in a straight line to a space they can see as long as no natively non-transparent marterials are in the way. You can make turns during this movement if a reflective surface is bounced off of. Creatures whose space you pass through take radiant damage.

Allow the user to smite when hitting a melee attack. It deals cold/radiant damage and the target must save versus blindness while darkness grants the wielder partial concealment for a time after.

Allow the user to attack all creatures in a cone area of effect by slashing a huge wave of light that arcs through the air.

Cause enemies to be revealed and unable to hide, defend against divinations, or turn invisible (Faerie Fire-like effect, but stronger).

Automatically dispel illusions in a radius.