Onyxblade

The **Onyxblade** is a magical sword. Although the sword itself is not sentient, an evil spirit rests within the red diamond set into the sword's hilt. This spirit injects malevolent thoughts into the wielder, attempting to turn them evil, and combined with the binding curse that possesses it, it has stood as a relic to evil. The spirit that lives within the sword makes claims that it's a fragment of a fallen deity from the 2nd Age, who was cast down by the fledgling pantheon for its ultimate evil.

The sword is made from darksteel, and it radiates a shadowy aura. The blade's origins are unknown, and its metal is invulnerable to all damage. The only way the sword can be truly destroyed is if it clashes with the Sunbringer, the Onyxblade's opposite, which will unmake both of the weapons, causing an intense burst of holy and unholy energies. This burst of energy instantly evaporates all living matter within 300 feet of where the blades struck each other, and the souls attuned to both weapons are wiped from existence.

## **History**

### The Hungering Maw

The spirit within the Onyxblade admits to not remembering its origins, whether it was a mortal or not, yet it likes to make the claim that it is the fragment of a fallen deity of ultimate evil whose name was lost to time. Whether this claim is true or not is likely to never be uncovered, though what is certain is that the Onyxblade has stood as a testament to evil in its purest form.

What the blade echoes now is that it exists to feed an extraplanar void, an infinitely hungering maw that demands souls of all kinds, and it comes to believe that this same starved void is what powers the magic behind such other magical entities that devour souls and various material items, from feared black spheres that obliterate all in their way, to fabled pouches that cause items place within to mysteriously vanish. The Onyxblade's spirit believes itself to be one with the sword, and so it makes attempts to get its wielders to fulfill the weapon's purpose.

The Onyxblade speaks of its history with the gods, mentioning how it was scorned for its usage and that it goes against the order of the universe. At one point in time, when the True Eliderean Pantheon was formed, the blade says that the gods Calrena, Kenrisa, and Zand came together to forge the Sunbringer, a valiant sword of radiance, crafted to mock the Onyxblade and to stand as its opposite. The Sunbringer was given to Ezakale, Zand's most trusted archangel, and was given the orders to travel across the planes, searching for the wielder of the Onyxblade so they can be slain and so the blade can be destroyed.

For generations, the Onyxblade was wielded by numerous individuals over the course of its existence, having been lost in dungeons and found by adventurers who didn't know any better. With each new wielder, the Onyxblade found itself further and further away from Ezakale and the Sunbringer, though the spirit in the sword now lived in unrest, with a paranoia it kept secret from its countless wielders. Eventually, the Onyxblade was lost in the deep recesses of an ancient burial tomb in the swamps of Ranash, and there it was where the sword felt that it had met its end. But, much to its surprise, it was undisturbed and undiscovered for a near two hundred years.

### The Worthy Champion

The sword was awoken from its slumber by an unwary paladin who had plundered the ancient tomb with a group of fellow explorers. The paladin took up the Onyxblade, not recognizing the evil that lay dormant within it, and when he wielded it, the spirit unveiled its presence. The paladin's mind snapped in an instant, and his oath of protection and servitude to his companions and his faith was broken all at once as he slew them where they stood, not even wavering for a second.

With its newfound wielder, the Onyxblade grew to understand the paladin's potential, and gradually leaned the human on a path of chaos and evil. The sword corrupted the knight's mind, blinded his eyes from his religion and took away his hearing of reason, leading him to slay settlements, villages, and entire churches. The paladin took to finding the other followers of his now broken oath, and as he returned to them, he killed them in an unexpected attack.

This massacre shook the Pantheon and awoke Ezakale, who took the Sunbringer and hunted down this paladin. Ezakale was determined to slay the murderer and destroy the weapon, but at the fault of his own hubris, Ezakale was ultimately defeated by the paladin, and the Sunbringer was discarded and lost.

For the next twenty years, the fallen paladin wielded the Onyxblade and became feared across the Nine Kingdoms of Merevar. Countless would-be heroes rose up to kill the paladin or to find the Sunbringer and destroy the Onyxblade, but their efforts were in vain, as they all met their ends at the hand of this paladin. Eventually, it was believed that the paladin had died, disappearing alongside the Onyxblade.

### The 4th Age and the Failed Disciple

At some point, the Onyxblade came into the hands of Warlord Artaxis, a hobgoblin that operated in the ruins of Ashar during the 386th year of the 4th Age. Artaxis was originally a strategic, careful, and precise warlord, but upon wielding the Onyxblade and it whispered the triumphs he would see with it, the warlord became unnecessarily cruel and widely feared, with rumors spreading across the villages of Ashar that Artaxis would behead his enemies to display dominance, where he would never have done this before.

A year later, Artaxis staged a raid against the town of Calder during one of his usual demands for tribute, but was met with a harsh resistance to his surprise, fronted by an unusual group of travelers. Artaxis was blinded by his rage that his attack had failed, and the Onyxblade fueled his anger, so the warlord refused to back down from the battle. This meant his doom as the goliath, Raynor, executed the hobgoblin.

The Onyxblade felt potential in Raynor and sensed his powers as a paladin, which excited the Onyxblade. Raynor took up the Onyxblade, unaware of its evil presence and of its binding curse until it was too late. For most of their travels, Raynor resisted the influence of the Onyxblade, succumbing to its darkness only a few times. Despite the blade's attempts to sway him, Raynor found solace and forged a pact with a celestial deity, distancing himself from the Onyxblade even further. After finding himself in the City of Brass and his mind clear from the sword's nagging, Raynor had a moment of clarity and decided to make the preparations to rid himself of the Onyxblade. Placing the weapon in a lead-lined case and freeing himself of the binding curse, Raynor cast the Onyxblade into Astralis, where its tie to him was severed and it was doomed to float within the Astral Sea for eternity. But that was not so.

### The Wandering Student

Eventually the Onyxblade had found itself free of its lead prison and found itself in the hands of an insignificant gith, who was quickly killed by an equally insignificant drow, who then was killed by yet another insignificant adventurer. The Onyxblade grew tired of this trade of hands, which climbed in the dozens, until it fell into the lap of a peculiar gnomish merchant who was unaffected by the binding curse and the blade's influence. The merchant, being the esteemed Wendleton Whitegrass, displayed the Onyxblade proudly in his shop, until it was stolen by a desperate thief. The thief had fled into the Elderwood, where he thought it best to hide. Listening to the Onyxblade's whispers, the thief became maddened as well as lost. Unable to think straight, the thief perished in the woods, unable to find food or water, and the blade rested dormant once again, choked by overgrowth.

A traveler came across the Onyxblade years later, mesmerized by its unusual design and the glimmer of its blood red ruby.

### The Tales of the Damned

Over the course of the 4th Age, the Onyxblade traded many hands, up until it was buried with a knight some time during the third century of the 5th Age. It rested deep in a catacombs below the port of Darkcoast, where its power was well known, yet it was kept locked away, never to be discussed again.

As the blade slept, the Slayers of the Damned raided the catacombs, driving out the Cult of the Damned from it and taking their hoarded loot. The group fought against the raised skeleton of the Onyxblade's former wielder, and the sword was then picked up by a curious Baltazar, unaware of the sword's origin or what stirred within. Immediately, Baltazar fell into servitude to the Onyxblade, initially acting on his darkest behaviors and tapping into his complicated and malevolent past, but as he wielded the sword further, he was able to bend it to his own will, its darkness balancing out with his own.

Soon enough, Baltazar was able to wield the Onyxblade as his own weapon, rarely coming under the sword's command, which disgruntled the spirit within.