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 Add depth to your campaign's weapons that will make each PC treasure these items even more! This supplement provides a wealth of information on magic weapons with rich histories. The book includes many predefined weapons, outlining their names, history, powers, stats, necessary rituals for unlocking their powers, and adventure hooks. How the weapons can gain power is discussed, as well as the feats with which they might be used. Also included are discussions of other magic items such as magic armor, rings, and staves. The excerpts below include introductory information, three sample weapons, plus a creature who has some unusual abilities. For more excerpts from this book, check out the June 2005 Preview.
Introduction
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The raging red eye wept hellfire tears.
Aedwar, called He of the Steely Heart, gazed into the heart of the inferno. The fiery portal returned the look -- undaunted, uncaring.
Chanting fiends surrounded and bolstered the portal's appalling intrusion. Summoned by the Dire Cabal, the demons were immune to the threats of mortal steel and magic. With each syllable they repeated, the searing aperture yawned wider.
But Aedwar had something that the Dire Cabal had not reckoned on.
He of the Steely Heart flipped back his cloak, revealed in grip a dull black blade, scribed with runes of grim promise. Once a blade of storied guile and soul-swallowing repute, it was now a blade redeemed.
It was Exordius.
White light streamed from Exordius's edges, and rays of brilliant clarity flooded from the jewel in its pommel. The demons flinched, and their chant faltered, but resumed a moment later. After all, what need had they to fear a mortal blade? While they maintained their rite, they were immune to the cuts and insults of all weapons, even those consecrated by the powers of good.
But the dull black blade had a legacy behind it, a convoluted story of loss and gain, transformation and redemption.
Exordius's powers were not confined to the merely mortal, or even the merely good.
Aedwar waded in, and as the slaughter began, the dull black blade began to glow as it drank in the lives of the foulest spirits of the Abyss.
Such is the power of a weapon of legacy.
More Than Meets the Eye
Mythic history is replete with tales of singular weapons of legendary champions, magic staffs of remarkable heritage, and rings that grant powers undreamed by most mortals. Such wonders stand in ability as far above standard magic items as a magic item surpasses its mundane counterpart. A ring of feather falling is a handy thing to have, but few would not give it up for Bright Evening Star, whose radiance illuminates the darkness and sears its enemies. And who wouldn't trade a +1 crossbow for the chance to wield Flamecaster's Bolt, that storied weapon prized for its lethal sway over fire?
Finding these items of legacy, forged in the heat of momentous events and wielded by legendary heroes, is just the first step. Prospective wielders must also learn how to unlock their powers before using them to their fullest capacity.
What's Inside
Weapons of Legacy describes magic items that are more than what they seem, granting great power to those who can discover their nature.
The first chapters present the basic rules for items of legacy, as well as information for adding them to your campaign. They also detail a variety of options available to characters who wield legacy items, from feats to spells to a new prestige class.
The book then offers forty-nine fully detailed items of legacy, including swords, staffs, and wondrous items. Full histories of each item are included, along with rituals to unlock their mysterious powers and adventure seeds to introduce them to a campaign.
Sections on tailoring the items to a Forgotten Realms or Eberron campaign are also provided in many cases.
DMs and players then learn how to create customized items of legacy as their characters and campaigns evolve, as well as explore a range of variants on the legacy item rules, such as mutable legacies, epic legacy items, and even monsters that embody legacy abilities.
After thousands of years of epic history over an infinite and expanding stage of worlds and planes, certain stories still resound with mythical significance. Of those, tales of mighty weapons, relics of exceptional power, and artifacts of previous civilizations are especially potent.
Who doesn't thrill to the tale of Excalibur, the sword that can be drawn from the stone only by one worthy to rule? All shudder to think on the soul-drinking blade Stormbringer, and the price that its wielder must pay. So, too, do we read in awe of the One Ring, with its ability to confer on the wearer powers so vast that only those of already exceptional ability can unlock the ring's potential.
These are weapons of legacy. Many are items crafted in a long-ago age when legends walked the mortal world. These mighty tools have since been lost, secreted away, or destroyed, so that now they are no longer within the reach of mortals.
Perhaps they are still among us, but unrecognized as the mighty relics once hailed throughout the lands. The world also holds new heroes, who are creating new legends and forging new items of legacy in their telling.
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