The Singing Sword
Solitary, small, magical, amorphous
HP 19 Armor 5 (made of metal, quick)
Cutting, thrusting, and slashing: [b]2d12 damage (hand, messy, 2 piercing)
Qualities flies; made of Maker-fine steel
• Make strange music in the dark
• Strike a warning blow, deft but nonlethal
• Block their way with a razor’s edge
This naked blade needs no wielder. It dances about the air, making music as it moves: every bob a hum; every slice a whistle.
It was set here long ago as guardian of this crumbling hall. Those who forged it fell and for ages it has kept its vigil. Yet, this is not some mindless thing waiting to cut down foes. It remembers, longs, yearns for the days in which this hall was filled with light and laughter and–joy of joys–music!
And so it waits. In the dark. Singing songs to itself that have been not been heard by any living mortal ear. It waits, dutiful, and worries that it has misremembered the songs it once knew. It waits. In the dark. Alone.
Instinct: to defend the hall, to ease its loneliness
If they make noise: respond with strange music
If they enter the hall without making music: try to scare them off
If they flee: let them go
If they persist: draw blood
If they sing or make music: respond enthusiastically
If they then make to leave: wail, moan, and stop them
#Stonetop
I love these “if X then Y” things that Johnstone Metzger started 🙂
The if/then is cool. Where did Johnstone Metzger start them?
I remember someone mentioning that it started on the Something Awful forums, but Johnstone’s had them in pretty much all of his DW products. It’s a really solid tool for communicating a monster/NPC’s behavior.
Yeah, people over at Something Awful started doing tactics with their DW monsters first. I think it might have been a thing from some version of D&D maybe? The monsters in the Ravenloft boardgame do something similar. I thought it worked so I stole it.
The version in Awful Good Games 10+ Treasures is really cool too. I gave one to my Bard once which kicked off a really cool few sessions following as he needed to get it reforged for his diminutive stature.
I too dig the if/then idea and will steal it sans remorse.
Yoink. Gonna use this in my next game: perfect strange guardian in the dark for a tomb i’m making. Thanks Jeremy 🙂
So, I did use this in my last session 🙂 Worked really well: the party managed to start teaching the sword some new songs as it led them through a dark maze, but not before it had made them very, very worried with it’s spooky singing in the dark and slow scraping of metal on the walls causing sparks in the dark… I probably held back on it messing them up a bit longer than I should have though… hehe. Thanks again!