The Sword Blooddrinker

Borne by generations of champions through the heart of the most ferocious battles, relic of Senach I, the mighty leader that united the warring clans, the broadsword known as ‘The Blooddrinker' has been the centerpiece of innumerable tales of glory and heroism.

The Warlord's Weapon
Many of the nation's oldest legends tell of Senach I, the mighty leader that first united the warring clans under his rule. This mighty monarch started as a common mercenary soldier in the army of the Clan Chieftan Brahgnahan Mac Doulough (commonly known as Bran Mac Duff). When a warlord was needed to bring together the forces of several allied clans, the wisest of all the land's druids was called for. The Druid-Magus Cuthbad Mac Corhan came to the call of the united clans and devised a ritual combat to test the candidates' worth. The contest was a race to find a golden cluster of mistletoe, hidden within a sacred grove of oaks defended by ferocious beasts, abominations both bull and man. Dozens of other warriors fell in the struggle, but Senach the Invincible emerged with the mistletoe.

Cuthbad found a mighty weapon for the new leader. Crafted of imperishable meteoric iron in an age long forgotten, the oddly misshapen blade was a relic of a primordial time before the coming of man. It had been entombed with the remains of a strange, serpent-like creature, evidently a king or ruler of its extinct kind. When time and the elements exposed the weapon for the fortunate druid to discover, uncounted eons later, the rippling grain of the oddly shaped longsword was still as bright and clear as the moment it was first pulled from the forge by its nonhuman creators. The weapon's jagged, uneven contours seem as though they should weaken the blade, but somehow the random, misshapen profile works to produce a blade both light and solid, flexible and well-balanced.

The sword's furniture, its hilt and fittings, had all crumbled to dust in the millennia after its interment, so the druid commissioned a new hilt and scabbard for the weapon. If legend speaks truly, the hilt was crafted by the Dwarven jeweler Zai-Alaign, one of the disciples of the famous armourer Tor-Gonesh. The sword's hilt is shaped elegantly, with a complex guard and quillions worked in the shape of a leaping gryphon.

The Blade of 1000 Puissant Enchantments
After the weapon and its new scabbard were completed, the Druid Cuthbad retreated to the holy sanctum of Dun Gleash to prepare it with dire magics, enchantments that would make its wielder invincible in battle. For months, he wove layer after layer of his darkest spells into the blade; spells to drive foes mad with fear, spells to make any wound caused by the blade mortal, spells to turn aside foes' weapons before they could strike.

When he was done with his enchantments on the Eve of Midsummer's Day, he gave the deadly weapon to Senach, that Senach would have the power to bring the fractious clans together as one kingdom.

A Day of Loss
The Blooddrinker was carried into battle by Senach I and his heirs after him, seldom knowing defeat. For long centuries, it protected Senach's line and the kingdom it ruled. Nothing lasts forever, however. In the Barons' Rebellion, the royal forces were crushed in the Battle of Answard Fields and the sword was lost, stolen away in the looting of the fallen afterward. It has appeared periodically afterward, in the hands of mercenary captains and lesser nobles; its current whereabouts are unknown.

The Blooddrinker's Virtues
Blooddrinker's alien alloys do not rust or oxidize in any way. Its metal remains as solid and bright as the day Cuthbad pulled it from the Earth's embrace. Over 40' long, the blade is so well balanced that it seems lighter than its three pounds.

Unfortunately, whatever spells Cuthbad placed on the weapon so long before have faded with time. The only magic that remains on the blade is the allure of the weapon's fame and its reputation as an invincible enchanted sword. For many, that is enough. It would draw a massive price from any collector, nobleman, or captain of soldiers.

More importantly, some legends claim that Blooddrinker will one day return to the hand of the crown's true heir, the man destined to reunite the land under a strong and virtuous rule. If these legends are true, perhaps the enchantments on the blade are only dormant, waiting for the ruler that will usher in a new golden age.