Man-made sword

This is not what I was expecting from the title! Very dark. I love it.

An interesting coincidence, too, because last night I was working on the timeline for my homebrew and decided that at some point elves invented an alchemical process for extracting metal from a fantasy species of plant. The proportion of metal to organic matter in these plants is much higher than iron in the human body, but the principle is about the same. Still, I was a little skeptical about the viability of this for humans when I read your idea. I did a little digging around the net to get more info, and found this:

"Menghini developed Galeazzi’s research on the presence of iron in the blood, identifying the red corpuscles as the chief site of iron within the organism. He experimentally reduced an organ to ashes, then used a magnetized knife to extract iron particles from it. Since he suspected that the iron particles might be contained in the blood within the organ so treated (especially if it were muscle) he carefully washed out the blood before incinerating it, and found that the number of iron particles did perceptibly decrease. Having thus demonstrated that the iron in an organism is located primarily in the blood, Menghini continued his investigation in an effort to determine which of the three components of the blood—as described by Malpighi in De polypo cordis—actually contained the iron. He used Malpighi’s method of repeatedly washing coagulum to separate the blood into its three parts, then examined each, thus determining that while iron was absent from both the serum and the bleached coagulum, it was abundant in the red corpuscles that remained in the washing liquid." www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830902910.html

Point being, you apparently don't even need to use chemistry to make it happen. It seems like a very laborious process to get a little regular iron, so this firmly belongs in the evil madman methodology, though that's obvious enough given the ~400 bodies you'd need to start making a "man-made sword."

Chemically such a weapon wouldn't be much different from any conventional weapon, but as a symbol (and hence as a vehicle for magic) it'd be incredibly potent. It would take a bizarre scenario where this situation becomes more practical than conventional mining/refining.

I could make the point that reducing something by fire is some of humanity's most basic chemistry, but that's academic. It is interesting to read about the process a bit. I suspect you could use some variation of electrolysis as well, but fire's certainly a lot simpler & probably quicker.

Well if it's going to be a magical weapon, I'm in!

The Screamer
Longsword, legendary, requires attunement to a non-good aligned creature.

You gain a +2 bonus to attack and damage while wielding this weapon. When you hit a non-construct, non-undead creature, it must succeed in a DC 16 constitution saving throw or be stunned for 1d4 rounds as four hundred screams of agony overwhelm its mind and body.




Bloodsteel
Longsword, legendary, requires attunement.
You gain a +2 bonus to attack and damage rolls while wielding this magic weapon. Killing a humanoid creature causes the bonus to become +3 for 24 hours.

Curse: Bloodsteel is a cursed, sentient weapon, and speaks telepathically to its wielder in disembodied voices, urging it to commit murder. For each day that passes without killing a humanoid creature, the wielder suffers one level of exhaustion and gains no benefits from short or long rests.

Another idea is that the blade starts off as a dagger, and grows longer and heavier as it kill and extracts more iron from its victims. Although keeping track of its growth would be terrible.

Following that to it's logical conclusion, you'd eventually wind up with a Masumune-ish 12' sword that nobody could practically wield.

If it must be magic, I think it'd be a pretty good candidate for a sentient weapon. Perhaps the souls of the "raw materials", or what's left of them, fuse together to make a new entity. Perhaps this isn't an intentional feature of the process but more of an emergent property; something the builder didn't anticipate. And perhaps the sword eventually concludes it would rather not be a tool for murder. It may have been created by an incredibly evil process but the weapon itself might be more Good aligned (or visa versa).

I suppose it depends on the table. I would find it more interesting as a vehicle for exploring hypothetical concepts but a group of murder hobos would probably rather have a straight-forward death machine. Not that there's anything to say the party gets the weapon either way...

Edit: No idea why the quote refuses to embed properly... it was "You could keep track of it as an XP type, 1 XP per kill, Level 1 = Dagger, 30 XP to Level 2 = Rapier, 50 XP to Level 3 = Short sword, Etc... "

Cool idea, but I'd recommend against progressing from rapier to short sword, as that would actually represent a loss of power.

Instead, you could let the player describe the weapon however they please, but have the damage dice increase as the weapon gains "XP." 1d4 to 1d6 to 1d8 and onwards, perhaps maxing out as a 1d8/1d10 versatile weapon. Anyone attuned to the weapon treats it as a weapon with which they have proficiency, regardless of how they choose to describe it. Then higher levels of "XP" might make it act as a +1, +2, and ultimately +3 weapon, but with significant XP gaps. You could even calculate out the math with reasonable certainty to guarantee that it reaches those levels at about the right time for the players to be using such weapons normally, so as to maintain game balance.

You could also have some minor properties for the weapon that "unlock" as it reaches certain XP thresholds. (E.g. "Once the blade reaches 50 kills, the wielder begins to hear the whispers of those trapped within the blade whenever he or she holds it.") And at my table, I'd start making the wielder make sanity checks at a certain point...