Our heroes find loot of not only questionable value, but questionable character...
Nerd By Northwest #362 - "Magic Swords Should Be Seen and Not Heard"
(Click on the image to see the full-size version)
Thanks to everyone for being patient with the long hiatus between strips (or at least not posting hate comments 😏). I've been helping my mother with a bunch of to-do tasks and household maintenance, and combined with keeping up with Bitcoin and market action that leaves little time for anything else. Can't say when I'll be back on a more normal schedule, but hopefully I'll find more time to crank out more comics after we return home to Mongolia next week.
Anyhow, this strip borrows from the actual loot our party got from running the "Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl" adventure. We did in fact get the Frost Brand sword, Staff of Frost, and Ring of Fire Resistance in the space of one hour of play. Normally all great items, but in that arctic setting and against cold-immune monsters they're all about as useful as a condom inside a nunnery...
Now one thing I DID change for the strip was making the frost brand sword sentient, with a personality and will of its own. Such things are a long-standing staple of D&D and fantasy fiction... quite often they are malicious personalities that seek to influence or control the wielder into committing evil acts or pursuing a path to self-destruction. But what if the magic weapon's personality wasn't evil, but was simply just a douchebag? You know, the guy who likes to correct everyone on trivial stuff that doesn't matter, eats the last piece of pizza when he knows it was yours, and constantly says inappropriate things that make ladies uncomfortable like "Hey sexy mama, you got a twin sister?"
The only thing I'm missing is a name for this magic sword. So let's crowd-source this sucker... what do YOU all think its name should be? The winner gets their idea memorialized forever as the name of the sword in this webcomic! Which in real terms means that, along with a couple bucks, would get you a gas station cup of coffee. 😁
Want to see the other Nerd By Northwest webcomics? Use the convenient links below!
You just reminded me that Terry Pratchett had a talking sword in one of his early books that was a bit of a bore.
I know Bilbo had a sword called Sting. This one could be Schwing!
!LOLZ
And we have our first name suggestion! Given that two of the secondary characters have the names Wayen and Garth (the half-drow monk and dwarf cleric, respectively), this name is a solid contender! 😉
lolztoken.com
He drank his coffee before it was cool.
Credit: reddit
@northwestnomad, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of steevc
(1/4)
Delegate Hive Tokens to Farm $LOLZ and earn 110% Rewards. Learn more.
There was a mod for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind which granted a talking sword named "Lilarcor" who has voice lines when drawn or sheathed, and complained about being idle for too long. It also changed and became more powerful as you got kills with it, so it wasn't very OP at the start of the game. Just a steel claymore. But it changed into better swords as you used it.
For this frostbrand, what if it had a muffled "mfmrmnrnmmm" complaining voice when it got bored in the sheath? Also, it obviously is a lecherous flirt, so it probably tries to neg or drop pickup lines to everything the party wants to kill if it is even vaguely female.
I like it! Though I think I'll tweak that a bit and go with annoying passive-aggressive humming. Especially when the party is trying to sleep... 😏
For some reason my X feed has been abuzz with D&D lately (mostly hate on WOTC for their care bear art), but there was just a discussion on intelligent swords. I'm not sure which edition it was in 1E or 2E, but in one of those, to craft an intelligent sword required it to have a soul, which in turn required someone to sacrifice their life for that sword. Now THAT is commitment!
I was thinking just along those lines, actually! After all, it would seem strange that a newly-created personality for a magic weapon would somehow turn out to be a lecher... unless the essence of that personality was taken from a mortal. So yes, that is definitely the case here.