Drain Your Enemies with Cursed Lifestealer Weapons

The world presented in fantasy RPGs are effortlessly filled with magic and mystery. The oddities of magic are harnessed by some as a power source, while flashing lights become magical parlour tricks. It's interesting to see where the line goes. When the magic of a world is truly everywhere, realism has to make people wonder how powerful wizards haven't taken over the world with their immense power.

Magic is in everything I write in my fiction, when I GM a game, and right here on this blog. I try to put a nicer spin on things, even the immense horrendous beings that stalk the night have layered history. Sometimes magic isn't nice. Past blogs have looked at the monstrous and places where adventurers can go. Now is the time for something an adventurer can use, at their own peril.

The axe draws the blood in - Bloodforged Battle Axe by Alayna Danner

Lifestealers

A weapon having the strange properties of endless, literal bloodlust is the stuff of nightmares. A force unethical and unthinkable to use as it mutually assures destruction for both parties in a war.

The lifestealer is a kind of magical armament that can be added to most mundane or magical weapons that deal piercing or slashing damage.
While attuned to this magic weapon, the wielder has a +2 to attack and damage rolls. Hitting a non-undead, non-construct creature with a weapon attack with one of these weapons draws the victim's blood out, dealing an additional 3d6 necrotic damage. This necrotic damage causes the wielder to gain that many temporary hit points until the next dawn.
While the wielder has at least 1 of these temporary hit, they are suffused with strange thoughts. Until they have no more of these temporary hit points, they feel compelled to strike another hostile creature to gain more of these temporary hit points. If a creature is able to gain temporary hit points from creatures over three concurrent days, the weapon's abilities change.

The call for more carnage is irresistible - Bloodthirsty Blade by Jason Kang

After this point, on a hit against a creature, the weapon still deals 3d6 necrotic damage. It also causes the bearer to gain hit points equal to the damage dealt. A creature hit this way gains resistance damage dealt by the weapon, and a temporary madness setting them to determinedly attack you, the lifestealer holder. If a person who has this madness is not slain by the same lifestealer within the next hour, that madness becomes permanent, putting them on a destructive urge toward the bearer of that that lifestealer.

If the one attuned to the lifestealer slays more than five creatures this way, the weapon starts to thirst for its blood. At dawn the one attuned to it must make a DC 5 Constitution Saving throw. On a success, nothing happens and the DC increases by 5. On a failure, the attuned creature falls into a pile of blood and dies, with no chance to magically bring them back.

Cursed Relic

The rage and literal bloodlust that a lifestealer weapon inspires in its user and those hurt by it has made it a sought after weapon for warlords who wish to make their soldiers more hardy at the expense of their sanity. Some see their use as abhorrent, and to be avoided at all costs.

Now we want to hear from you. How would you use a profane weapon of this kind in your games? Would they be commonplace or a strong curse to avoid and fear? Let us know in the comments below or on our Discord server.

Adam Ray contributes much for adventurers here on Apotheosis Studios. As co-founder of fantasticuniverses.com, he writes about card gaming and PC gaming to a corner of the internet he carved out himself. On Youtube, he can be found game mastering for No Ordinary Heroes, or editing the antics on The Hostile Atmosphere. Follow his Twitter @IzzetTinkerer.