Xánwyr

Xánwyr, colloquially known as the Black Blade, was a semi-mythical sword closely tied to the history of the world. It was a black hand-and-a-half sword which reaped the souls of its victims. Its sentient whispers led its masters to hubris and death, so it could find another, more powerful wielder. The first great betrayal of Euluskan history (the murder of the great unifier, Regulus Kingmaker) was committed with the blade, tainting its history.
== A Relic Name ==
The sword bore multiple names throughout history and at different times, including Zaahnwir, Northstar, the Black Dragon, the Black Blade, the God-Slayer, the Dust Sword, Háceron, Crux, Reign, and many more depending on who you asked. The original name for it was in the Alder language of the wood elven smiths of the Alderei in the moors - Za-hun-wir means 'Rose-of-Gods', and its name was an epithet to honour the forest gods.
Its name Xánwyr followed Old Euluska conventions, which hinted at its ancient nature:
* In Modern Euluska, the letter X represents the 'shh' sound [ʃ~ɕʲ], the accent over á represents the sound /aɪ/, and the letter Y represents the vowel sound [ʏ]. 
** That would make the name sound like 'Shane-Wur' (rhymes with Chain Fur)
* However, in Old Euluska, the letter X represented the 'z' or 'zh' sound [z~ʒ], the accent over á represented a long /ɑ/ , and the letter Y was pronounced the same as the letter i, as in, [ɪ]. 
** With Old Euluska pronunciation, that would make the name sound like 'Zan-Weir' (rhymes with Sand Deer).
== Origins ==
Xánwyr was built by the master swordsmith Alanahaela, a crafter from the long-since destroyed Kingdom of the Alderei, in the year -33 TE. She forged it from a black metal that came to the planet on a crashed comet that previously passed by once every 900 years. This metal was called Eol Anglachion by the Alderei smiths, meaning star-steel.
Its blade was a metallic black that seemed to reflect the stars, even on a sunny day. Its crossguard was fashioned to look like silver thorny tree branches, and its pommel was a silver diamond shape. The sword was about 1.3 metres long and weighed around 2 kilograms, fairly heavy for a longsword (due to the density of the black metal). The leather of its grip was taken from the soft belly skin of a black dragon slain by the folk hero Carastor Casimir the Thoughtful. Carastor was best friend of the smith, and would also go on to tan this leather for the sword. Carastor went on to be the final King of the Alderei before the kingdom mysteriously fell c. 100TE from a forgotten attack by theorised sea people raiders.
Alanahaela and Carastor, ordered by their king Qin Len, were making a sword as a gift for the first ever Euluskan Emperor, the formidable Regulus Kingmaker. Alanahaela named the sword Za-hun-wir, meaning 'The Rose of the Gods'. From hereafter, the movements of the sword were known only to it and its fickle whims. Many of its wielders may have met unfortunate ends, whilst during long periods of time it might have sat dormant in a mudbank, chest, or mass grave, waiting to be discovered.
== Golden Age Wielders ==
=== Regulus I, the Kingmaker ===
Regulus I Kingmaker, (Reku Olos Rekuäiza) first Euluskan Emperor, proudly carried the Black Blade, or as he called it at the time in Old Euluska, 'eiValok Notayrza'. Emperor Regulus was eventually betrayed and assassinated by one of his viziers, Weyloran, around the year 26 TE, and the sword disappeared during the short ensuing one-year war of succession. Euluska legend says that Rekuölos was buried in a wonderful golden tomb beneath the Lyskeiön Capital Territory, his body entirely encased in a giant piece of amber that preserved his body for thousands of years.
=== Weyloran, the God Slayer ===
From Regulus's death in 26, until the year 37 TE, the sword was wielded by a powerful betrayer and cultist named Weyloran. Full info is on her page! She was killed in a duel in 37 TE at Withering Ridge by the knight Rhona Azoälda, Rhona left the sword in the Malphur marshes near the neolithic huts. 
=== King Lažlo Vhander II, the Vanquisher ===
The Dzewvreigardts Vreigardt king, Lažlo Vhander II, son of Vuradh, had ownership of the blade after a courtier brought him it as a gift. He earned his name as The Vanquisher in the year 1120TE when he led a Vreigardt army of orcs and goblins to capture the city of Datria during Dead Man's Siege. He killed a spy named Nils with the Black Blade. However, five years later, the Euluskan Navy re-invaded and reclaimed the city. Vhander was killed in the Anoq marshes and impaled on a pike, his body paraded through the city. The sword was lost in the muddy bogs. 
=== Unknown ===
During the early 1300s in the Fallo, a group of now unknown adventurers wielded the sword, which they called the Dust Sword, because it could instantly slay any foe.
=== Rezmyr, the Knight ===
In 1470s TE, the folk hero and black-dragonborn knight Rezmyr captured it from an enemy during one of her crusades. She retired to a village in the eastern Burning Hills in the diocese of the Blackfeld Abbey. She was later assassinated by Yarran Malfa Weyloran in 1489. 
=== Jarren, the Descendant ===
In 1478 TE, the warrior Yarran ive Malfa Wajilaran (anglicised as Jarren Weyloran, and a distant descendant of the cultist Weyloran) snuck into Rezmyr's house at night and killed her, taking the sword. Yarran was killed in 1479 by Vezrath in a duel on the Valari prairie. 
=== Vezrath, the False Defier ===
However, Jarren was dueled only a year later and killed by the tiefling lich Vezrath Startouched. Vezrath then used the sword to wreak a campaign of havoc on the saintly powers he despised, and among the heavens, he killed Tyrian, the Xantic diaspora God of Justice in his angelic palace, and he took the soul from the forest goddess Lira, but left her effectively mortal. Vezrath was killed by Trajan in the phlogiston and fell into the infinite abyss.
=== Trajan the Terrible - and not Karrus the Reclaimer! ===
The imposing but heroic humble knight Trajan the Terrible and his party chased down and duelled Vezrath, and bested him. Trajan killed him with the blade, but in doing so, accidentally killed the forest goddess Lira at the same moment. At this time, the cultist Karrus Weyloran (child of Jarren) was seeking revenge for the death of their father Jarren Weyloran by Vezrath, and asked Trajan to take them along so Karrus could help kill Vezrath and get Karrus's father's sword. Trajan instead fled the Danderillon around the entire world before finally taking up residence in an extremely remote part of the mountains of Rakkimar. Karrus chased him to the corners of the known world before in Rakkimar, they were frozen alive in a snowdrift and lay in suspended animation for over fifty years. Trajan was duelled and killed by Luke Stormwind in 1552 TE in the Kaserini mountains.
=== Sir Luke Stormwind, the Noble ===
The noble and just storm-knight (sensing a pattern here) Luke Stormwind and his party needed a sword that could kill any being. They tracked Trajan to his ice cave in the Kaserinis in Rakkimar in 1552 TE - en route, they freed Karrus from the ice they had been stuck in for decades. Karrus watched in envy as Luke bested Trajan in true single combat. Finally relieved of the sword, Trajan was not sad or defeated, but instead knelt and said 'Finally, I am free of its curse.' before letting Luke strike him down - he had been kept alive into extended old age, white-haired, grizzled, frostbitten, and repentant for his sins (I forgot to mention that in Trajan's rush to chase down Vezrath to the Plane of Justice, he inadvertently released the goddess of blight, Talona, who unleashed a virulent plague that killed a few percent of the whole world in 1490-2). Luke Stormwind then used the sword to murder Velarin Naysayer in Bracken- Velarin had had a Wish cast on him by the black naga-dragon Wishmother such that 'the Gods can never war whilst Velarin lives'. Yes, a black dragon-esque creature. Again. I know... Luke Stormwind went completely missing in the ocean much later.
== Collapse Era Wielders ==
=== Zhila Greymoth, the Ravenous ===
In the year 251 C (1945 TE), the Vistu werewolf Zhila acquired the sword and used it against a group of tenacious foes she had been in conflict with. Whilst she nearly killed multiple of them, she was disarmed and killed by the magic-cursed knight (fucking hell, the pattern again) named Caricc on Bard's Crossing.
=== Caricc, the Betrayer ===
The accursed knight Caricc, who had also contracted lycanthropy from Zhila's second in command Karov the Cruel, wielded the sword next, from 251 C. It nudged him to collect a tear of grief. He did so by using the sword to murder Mercury, the Father of Cranberry Brook and collecting the tear from the Copper, Mercury's adoptive sibling. After being arrested a week after killing Mercury alongside the gang he was running with, Xánwyr was confiscated from him. Five months later, Caricc killed Warden Thûrn Ironfoot but then was killed by the Warden's Scion bodyguard 'Slicer' during an otherwise successful prison riot. 
=== Lucrezzia Reeves, the Merchant Queen ===
Caricc, and the Wildecards gang were ambushed in autumn 251 C by Carmguards, Accipiter Snappers, Wildegards and bounty hunters funded by Lucrezzia Reeves. Lucrezzia rode into the camp with the wildegard Silvia d'Abavël once the party had been detained. She took Xánwyr from the pile of confiscated weaponry, taunted Caricc, and then left once the prison convoy returned to Accipiter. Two years later, whilst she was in Jarren's Well, the Wildecards returned. Lucrezzia sought a parlay, because the gang had caused a lot of damage and were becoming worrisomely powerful. At this parlay, however, they attacked Lucrezzia. Yarak disarmed her through a pillar of flame and Nael rem Arvus briefly took the sword for a few moments.
=== Moredred Marrow ===
Once the Wildecards had acquired the sword, it passed hands over the course of two nights amongst Yarak, Kala, and even a Private of the 12th Ambercoat Grenadiers, Vaöma. Finally, the tinkerer Moredred was given it as he was the least power-hungry among them. Two days further, Moredred let the sword be buried in the rubble down the well of the Di'Romila castle ruin, where it stayed...
== Powers and Abilities ==
The sword boasted numerous notable features. 
* The first and most obvious was that it seemed to change size to perfectly fit its wielder's grasp, and felt exactly as they expected - cold and lethal for some, warm and protecting for others. This is seen by the relative diversity of its wielders' sizes - from the tiny Moredred to the huge imposing Trajan or Sir Luke.
* Its key ability that set it apart from all others is that it seemed to attack not the body, but the very soul itself, which it reaped from its foes with a single touch, capturing and killing them forever with no hope, not even through God, of bringing them back. Regulus Kingmaker's body was found without a single wound, but the very soul had been severed from him. In some occurrences, it caused grievous black rotting wounds which could not be treated.
* It was also known for being one of the few weapons that could slay Outsiders with a single blow (daemons, angels, and even gods) - it killed Tyrvok, Lira, and Tyrian.
* Furthermore, it incited its wielders to hubris and to cause pain or sorrow, which it relished. 
* Some of its wielders were able to use further mystical powers, like projecting slashes at a far distance, controlling darkness, or extending their lifespan.
Category:Weapons
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