Adamantium Weapons (sage ability)

Adamantium weapons is a sage-status sage ability in the study of Weaponwright, enabling the character to create +2 or better magical weapons made of metal, as well as fabricating added special features to weapons, such as luck, throwing, elemental influences, venom, wounding, slaying, life stealing, sharpness and holiness, besides a great many more. Success is more or less certain — except that the time necessary to create truly powerful items is long and arduous, and full of set-backs, while inculcating a given power into the weapon requires the character to possess that power, or something very like it, or convincing a being with the necessary magic to take part in the weapon's making.

In fact, the material used is not pure adamantium, but an adamantium-mithril alloy, which must be provided by someone able to make it. This must be available in steady supply, especially if the character wishes to forge a truly monumental weapon, which would surely take years. One-twentieth of the weapon's weight is used or wasted during each fortnight, or two-week period, while the weapon is fashioned. The fortnight is used as a measurement throughout this page.

If a part of the weapon is made of some other substance, be it stone, ceramic or wood, then the character must either possess at least authority-status in that material, or have an individual with at least expert-status as a consultant, or else the weapon cannot be adequately made. If the weapon is in no part metal, or the metal is of incidental importance, such as a club, bow, sling, godentag, bolas, bo or jo stick, quarterstaff and so on, then the character cannot make the item.

Preternatural Weapons

This includes those weapons that possess an attack or damage bonus, but no further abilities. Weapons with a +1 bonus can be fashioned using only mithril, when the character reached expert status. Thus, preternatural weapons requiring this page's ability have a bonus of +2, +3, +4 or +5. Preternatural weapons with a greater bonus cannot be made in the game universe.

Just as a +1 weapon could be fashioned within two or more fortnights, a +2 weapon requires at least six; a +3 weapon requires at least 18; a +4 weapon at least 54; and a +5 weapon at least 162. Each fortnight requires an ability check, or as termed here, a "design check." This reflects the character's creative process, as designs are tried, elaborated and improved upon, steadily over time, until the object is complete. Each failed roll only puts off the character's eventual success, as a failure only indicates that particular strategy didn't work. Failure allows another strategy to be tried, and another, and another, until the final product is at last managed.

Design Checks

The bard's primary attribute is charisma ... which is of no use in this sort of project. In making a magical weapon, there are many difficulties to solve: balance, weight, magical reliance and equalisation, fragility, thrust and many more, but these don't have to be listed. The character chooses to deal with them each fortnight with finesse (dexterity), problem-solving (intelligence), force (strength), sweat and toil (constitution) or research (wisdom). Choosing the best stat, the player rolls an ability check; if it succeeds, another fortnight is managed, bringing closer the fruition of the weapon. Yet any success presumes that the problem has changed, and must be dealt with differently. The same stat cannot be used two weeks running, and the stat that achieved the last success cannot be used at all until another success is recorded.

For example, Jarod has a strength of 10, an intelligence of 12, a wisdom of 14, a constitution of 15 and a dexterity of 16. He has just gained a success with his dexterity, bringing his total succeeded fortnights to 16. To move on, he must now use one of his other stats, most likely his constitution. If he succeeds with that, he can go back to dexterity the next fortnight. Conceivably, through finesse and sweat, going back and forth between dexterity and constitution, he could succeed in the whole project.

But suppose instead, he fails with his constitution. Trying wisdom, he fails with that ... and then he fails with his intelligence. Now everything rests on his 10 strength. And he fails with that too. He has tried every stat he can to solve the problem, one that dexterity has no chance at all to solve. He's come to a dead end. At this point, he subtracts five fortnights from the 16 that he's collected, reducing his total to 11. His stat use is completely restored and he can do the next check with any stat he wishes.

This penalty conveys the notion that while he was succeeding, it was in the wrong direction — which, while heartbreaking, happens in design. Jarod can take comfort in knowing that the chance of his failing with all four of his lowest stats is just 1 in 66.67.

Once the number of required fortnights has been succeeded, the weapon is made; the character can stare in stunned shock, realising it's finally happened.

Knowledge Bonus

The character's knowledge can make these checks more likely to succeed. For each pt. above 100 the character adds a 0.1 to each stat they possess — remembering the character must have 100 pts. to even possess the sage ability.

Thus, if Jarod had 105 pts. of knowledge, his dexterity would count as 16.5, not 16. This would mean that if he rolled a 17, which would normally be a failure, he'd have a 50% of succeeding anyway. Once Jarod had accumulated 150 points of knowledge, he'd have enough to adjust his dexterity and constitution to 20 or more ... whereupon, he'd no longer be able to fail a check.

Egoistic Weapons

To create weapons of even greater power than preternatural weapons, an "ego" must be induced with the weapon. This grants the weapon a degree of self-awareness, or intelligence, which empowers the item with knowledge of what it's attacking and towards what purpose. Further, the ego gives a necessary aid in putting a desired power in place. For the most part, and with most weapons, the ego is quite benign and obedient. However, the more powerful the weapon, the greater must be the ego's consciousness, and consequently the less cooperative the ego becomes.

To invest the weapon with intelligence, a point of that ability stat must