Full Item Description
A simple, even crude spear at first glance, it is not until closer examination that the sheer malevolance of the design of the Legacy of Hatred is fully comprehened. Though the design seems roughly beaten, as if it were flaked, each point, each striation is sharpened to a razor’s edge, though the mottled blade reflects no light to betray this. Its matte surface is discolored, as if it has been soaked in the blood of men and the ichor of monsters, and indeed, it may well have been. This blade is mounted upon a simple shoot of bamboo, strong and ready, despite its dry, splintery shaft, stained with blood where it has bitten the hands of its wielder. The weapon radiates a palpable, malevolant aura - even the blind can sense its presence and it’s rage.
It was deep in the southern jungle that Rulakir Slagsoul found, at last, the beginnings of a path, not in the temple of a god or demon, nor in the forge’s flame. Rather, as he rolled from the mattress of a lady of ill repute, his eyes fell upon a rusted knife, and his mind, twisted as it was by the recreational herbs of the jungle, fell upon an idea. It was insane, he knew, but so was he, and his hatred was overwhelming. He would bring the rot of rust to the children of iron…
He lifted up that rusted knife, with its poor edge, and he used it then to slay the wench, revelling in her pain and suffering as she died from the rough, tattered cut. He would remember that pain and suffering.
It was over the next year that the tainted smith slowly pounded every last purity from the knife over the sooty flame of his forge, fueled with the charcoaled bodies of his victims. It was with agonizing effort that he sealed his hatred into each and every crystallite of the steel, even as the scale of rust fell away, and with brutal, calculated, purpose that he shaped it to a weapon even he could wield.
And when he withdrew it from the quenching oils, the dread blade seemed to gleam with blood and ichor, and it writhed with the desire to fulfil it’s PURPOSE. To destroy and corrupt. For though the blade was mindless, soulless, still, the PURPOSE would fill it, and drive it, now and forever. And Rulakir smiled the smile of evil, for he knew that it was joined to his purpose, and that the magics of the world would see to it that it was sufficient to fufill it.
The Legacy of Hatred, in trained and semi trained hands, will function as a spear of incredible enchantment, if and only if the wielder possesses a hatred so strong that he will be willing to die to destroy the object of his obsession. Otherwise, it functions as a simple weapon of moderate and unholy enchantment.
When it acts in the hands of hatred, however, it is much more than significantly effective weapon, but it is after the initial wound that the real effect of the weapon begins to take hold. Wounds caused by both blade and shaft become stigmata, refusing to heal cleanly without potent intervention. Rot and infection are drawn to these wounds, compounding the difficulty of healing. Whenever the wound is open, moreover, the mystical poison of the blade worms its way through the well of the victim’s thoughts, and brings rot and decay there as well. The victim quickly, becomes bitter and cynical, drained of the ability to feel joy and hope. It is a short step from here that many of the other positive emotions begin to decay as well, leaving the victim an empty, distorted shell of a man, as empathy and love abandon him. It is usually during this phase of the toxin that he strikes out at all he once cared for deeply, for it has turned to ash in his mouth. In the final throes of this rot, the injured man is egged on by the poison, for the discharging acts of hatred bring him physical pleasure. Finally, the victim will die of his mind self destructing before the decay of the poison, if the rot and decay of his body has not already killed him.
The sheer power of this weapon’s purpose is such that if it is wielded by one aligned to that purpose, it is capable of piercing even the flesh of a demi-god, though such are far more resistant to the power of the hatred toxin. Those who wield it in opposition to that purpose effectively weaken the power of the spear, though as it bites wielder as well as victim, few resist it for long…