Arbus the White Avenger
by Demos Sachlas+3 two-handed sword, +5 vs. orcs, undead, and dragons
Powers:
1. Can emit light in a 15 foot radius three times per day.
2. May cause all magic within a 20 foot radius to glow three times
per day.
3. Can find all invisible and hidden objects and creatures within
a 20 foot radius.
Extraordinary Power: The user of the white avenger may inflict four times the normal damage on each hit. This power lasts for 1 to 10 rounds when commanded, up to three times per day.
Languages: Arbus can speak (and read) goblin, hobgoblin, orcish, gold dragon, common, and magic.
Intelligence: 12 Ego: 6 (Will Power: 19)
History: Arbus was forged in Blackmoor to serve as a companion blade to the famous White Sword. Unfortunately, it was stolen before it was ever used in Blackmoor by agents of the Empire of Thonia. It was subsequently turned over to a Thonian paladin by a devious emperor with none the wiser to its abduction. The White Avenger obtained its nickname in those days as the great paladin - Sir Galladon of Etheria - used it to smite the hordes of chaos throughout the land. Sir Galladon finally met his match, however, on a trip to the elemental plane of water - where he was defeated by an ambush of several crab-like ice creatures known as hydraxes. The leader hydrax took the blade, and kept it for several hundred years. When a wizard from the prime material plane bound the hydrax to his will, the hydrax finally terminated the arrangement by offering the wizard the sword. The wizard (known as Krios of the Peaks), gave the sword to his guard captain Juniper. Time passed, and the wizard died, leaving Juniper to pursue a solo career. This was an age when the earth was entombed in ice - and when the current owner of the sword died, his body and the sword were placed in a cave which was soon inaccessible due to the advancing glaciers. A thousand years passed - and then came the day when a Nithian adventurer looted the tomb and recovered the sword. However, Arbus would not let him wield it, so he sold it to the Nithian sorcerer Kepet Thoth. The wizard had no better luck finding someone to wield the blade, so he kept it stashed away until the day that Nithia was destroyed and her civilisation thrown to the four winds. It was merest chance it would seem, then, that a passing Traladaran hero by the name of King Halav should find the blade sticking out of the desert sands of what are now the Emirates of Ylaruam. He used the sword in his campaigns with his two great companions for a few months before it was lost at sea. For well over a millennium Arbus lay covered in mire in the briny deep. Eventually, the sword was found on a treasure hunt by a great Ierendian adventurer. This warrior used the blade to win the kingship of the Ierendian Archipelago. When he was defeated in the annual tournaments by the current King Palfrit, Axel Kars travelled home to his native Darokin. There he gave the sword to his brother - a merchant - in exchange for their ancestral lands. Aster Kars was slain, however, by a group of chaotic shadowelves which he saw on the borders of Alfheim failing to bring news of their presence to any of the proper authorities. The leader shadowelf tried to grasp the White Avenger - and when it burned his hand he dropped it with a curse and cast a powerful dispel magic upon it. This made the weapon fall silent and lose all abilities save the light on command. It also decreased its magical abilities in other ways - though the intent of the evil elf had been to destroy it. Thus the weapon was taken to Glantri, where the shadowelves and the subversive faction known as the Peoples Spell-Casters Company were making tentative steps at an alliance. The sword was given as a token of good faith. When wizards of the P.S.C.C. detected for magic, they received such a powerful glow that they immediately safe- guarded it against further detection. When the adventurer Bran McGriff smashed the P.S.C.C. with his companions, he was able to take the sword after a routine check by the authorities revealed nothing much. The shadowelves, in the meanwhile, cut all connections with the Principalities.
(addendum: to learn about the
subsequent history of the White Avenger, if enough interest is
shown, the last owner (a Klantyran paladin of the Claymore) may
respond, as he lurks on the list)