Pivoine d'Fer

Full Item Description
The Pivoine d'Fer is technically a greatsword, requiring two hands and a great deal of strength to properly swing. Like such swords, the blade is a generous five and a half feet in length and nearly three inches wide at the base. Thankfully for the swordsman, the blade narrows after half of it's length. The last foot of the blade has a wave pattern to the edge of the steel like the Flamberge style of swords.

The thing that makes the Pivoine d'Fer a unique weapon is the foot wide ornate flower and rays disc near the middle of the blade. This baroque piece of metalcraft renders the weapon nearly useless in battle as the weight is very much in the blade and even the most bosic of swing is likely to badly damage the metalwork and compromise the strength of the blade. Should a PC be foolish enough to try and use it in battle, assign appropriate penalties for the weapon being grossly imbalanced.

History
The Pivoine d'Fer does not come from any grandiose background and has great claims to being forged by a master artisan or enchanted by a great sorcerer. Instead, it is an unexpected result of improvisational weaponry and magical hemorraging. Strange things come out of the blighted lands, and the forests are no exception. The Fae there are strange, even by the Fae's odd standards, they have been warped by the same forces that broke the land.

But iron still causes them great harm. It was an unknown winter many years ago when a family of farmers who lived near the edge of one of these regions of magical pustulence was set upon by a wild and furious Fae. The creature laughed as it turned the livestock into bubbling rivers of liquid fat and sobbing kernals of wheat, and doubly so when the wheat in the fields rose up and cut at it, drawing blood from the insane thing.

The farmer knew of the fair folk's weakness and took up the largest implement of iron he had, a large weathervane for the roof of his recently built barn. Clutching the makeshift weapon, the farmer challenged the mad fae to a duel, hoping to draw the thing away from his family and home. The creature took notice of the man and attempted to adjust the farmer to it's perspective. This had a tragic outcome as the Fae had completely enveloped the iron weathervane and had already shaped half of it before being blown apart. Of the farmer, naught was left but his smoldering boots and the weathervane.

Oddly, the weathervane was half changed into a sword, but the blade still was decorated in the fashion of the farmer's floral motif weathervane and was no stronger. The odd blade was passed to the farmer's oldest son, who passed it to his son, who passed it on to his son until the Pivoine d'Fer was all but lost to history. It pops up on rare occasion, and always to the detriment of wild fae.

Magic/Cursed Properties
The Pivoine d'Fer is a magical weapon, a fusion of two forces that are strongly opposed to one another, that of iron and fae magic. While as a weapon for melee combat the Pivoine d'Fer is borderline useless, when wielded against the fair folk, ala a crucifix against a vampire, the sword shines. Literally. When exposed to the essence of a fair folk the blade resonates with the initial magic and attempts to draw it in and negate it as per the potency of iron against said creatures, but the fae magic in it is also seething to alter the fae being defused by the weapon.

This sensation is enough to send most partially sane fae fleeing and can destroy weaker fae with short exposure. It radiates strong faerie magic, and if a fae is actually struck or contacted with the Pivoine d'Fer, it has to make a saving throw or be dissolved by the power of the blade. It is not all powerful as often the weilder of the blade suffers a much similar fate. A few fae scholars believe that oddities such as the Pivoine d'Fer are the source of many magical hybrid monsters.