Taragarth (Magic Sword)

Taragarth is a sword of steel fire-blackened along the length of the blade so that only the sharpened edges gleam. On the base of the blade, just ahead of the simple crossbar guard, a rune is etched into the metal. The rune is nonmagical and evidently the mark of the blade's maker, but the name of the maker was lost over time.
Taragarth requires strength and stature to wield, but while it is held unsheathed, the bearer is protected from fire (effects equal a ring of fire resistance) and is protected by if feather fall if descending 10' or more precipitously. Taragarth strikes normally but does +3 damage. It does not glow and is not sentient. While gripping Taragarth (even sheathed), the bearer is protected from ESP and detection spells (including know alignment). Such spells simply have no effect. This protection does not affect charm, sleep, other control-related spells, or psionic attacks.
Taragarth is believed to have been forged by Elfgar of Silverymoon in the early days of the North and was given to the champion Aeroth when he led the armies of the kingdoms of the North against the trolls of the Evermoors. The might of the trolls was broken at the Long Battle (nine days' duration) across the moors, and the bloody Taragarth was brandished aloft so often by the valiant Aeroth that it was dubbed the Bloodbrand.
Much later, when Aeroth was gray-bearded, Rayuth of Silverymoon died, and the throne passed to his son. Aeroth, grieving for his lord (and none too fond of the sadistic, proud Tulven, Rayuth's son), took ship west from Waterdeep, sailing first to the Isle of Toaridge-at-the-Sun's-Setting and later to the Moonshae Isles. There, with his wife and six sons. Aeroth founded the City of Vlan. His descendants, the nucleus of a group swelled by other disenchanted or dispossessed mainlanders, were to become the feuding merchant houses of the Moonshae isles. But Aeroth's sword was not seen on his voyage, and most legends hold that he left it in Silverymoon, where it has been lost in some concealed hoard or in one of the many warrens of caverns beneath the city. A few sages know that, in truth, Aeroth hid the blade in a ruined well on the isle of Toaridge so that his argumentative sons would not fight over it.
There it lay while ages passed, until an exploration party of illithids found it and carried it to their underground city on the mainland near what is now Beregost. There it was studied for only a short time before a band of adventurers plundered much of the city and gained it.
The names of the band are now lost: one was a fighter who later took service in the Merchant Guards of Amn and died battling bandits on the banks of the Sulduskoon river. It seems likely that he bore Taragarth, but no word of it can be found after it (presumably) fell into the hands of the bandits, until a wandering peddler offered it for sale in a market at Berdusk. It brought 400 pieces of gold from an adventurer who recognized it, but he mistakenly told a companion what he thought the sword was, and was dead by the next morning. So was the companion, murdered in turn by the assassin Turl.
Turl carried the blade north to the city of Scornubel, using it to pay off a debt to his Guildmaster Iritan. Little is known of Iritan, who evidently ruled the guild with an iron hand for more than 20 winters. One spring Turl appeared in Waterdeep, dying of poisoned wounds, and gave the blade, and more wealth, to the wizard Marune.
Much of Marune's wealth was lost in subsequent upheavals, and the Bloodbrand fell into the hands of an unknown person in Waterdeep. Where it traveled after that is not known, but four winters ago it was brought to Elminster for examination, when he was visiting Westgate, by a swarthy, scarred fighting man of Calimshan who gave his name as Vulph. Vulph lost the sword in a bet (arm wrestling) with a young female battle priest of Tyr.
Category:Encyclopedia Magica Magic Items
Category:Magic Items
Category:Magic Swords
Category:Magic Weapons