Sword has been wielded by dozens of dark lords in the past

>Sword has been wielded by dozens of dark lords in the past
>Turns out it subtly sabotaged all of them and was the reason why they all failed

Neat

>"Hey [BBEG]! I got a nice gift for you!"

So if a dark lord doesn't really do much fighting, but owns the sword does it sneak off and change the numbers on his trade deals or something, or is it really only bad for the more martial dark lords?

Not Op but I always like to think that the sword just causes their plan to fail by manipulating events in a string theory sort of way. It just makes it so that no matter what their plan is, the one thing that could stop it happens
Probs made by some god of justice or trickery or some shit.

It slowly drives them a little crazy, a little erratic, so that there are subtle flaws in their planning and their defenses. So that they get violent with their henchmen and make foolhardy attacks and decisions.

Essentially it slowly warps them into dark lord cliches.

It's probably just very sinister and ominous and spooky, while also giving (subtly) bad advice on all things. Which I personally imagine it does with great enthusiasm.

>YEEEES, dark one! Murder them all, leave only the children to tell of your evil!

It makes spellcaster villains want to fight using it

"A good idea! These children whose parents I have murdered, it will be years before they are old enough to oppose me. Living their lives under my iron-fisted rule will break their spirit. By the time they are old enough to pursue a campaign of revenge against me, they won;t have the spine for it anymore. "
"You give me good advice, unspeakable evil sword. I am glad to call you friend."

>Doublecross the assassin's guild! Show them who the TRUE master of sudden death without warning is!

>(Oops.)

Was it forged by a troll?

Nah, by a dwarf. From a troll though.
Did you know petrification victims occasionally contain ore?

>Did you know petrification victims occasionally contain ore?
bloodstream becomes iron or something?

>Well come on, who could have seen that coming?

"Kidnap the princess! With her at your side, you'll surely sway over the peasants for yourself. I recommend locking her up until she loves you!"
"Ah, the good old stocktown syndome, I've read about that back in University. What a glorious Idea my trusted sword."

I feel that it might become a bit vain overtime or seek to get itself spoilt. Stuff like getting a nice service session or getting the bbeg to commission a suitable set of armour to go with the sword.

>"Its simple oh Ruthless One! You should send your servants after this 'hero' weakest to strongest, so as to conserve your resources!"

"I don't know, shouldn't I just kill him?"

>"Whose the ancient artifact of Pure Evil here?"

>Suck the wizard's diiiiick. Suck his diiiiick...

So it was made by those twins from Oglaf?

>turns out the sword contains a spirit who, while a complete dickbag, is a genuinely Good person
>the spirit actively encourages an evil appearance and mythos so that it can infiltrate dark lord plans and sabotage them
>if wielded by an adventurer it mostly just makes snide remarks about the 'hero' and complains if their swordsmanship isnt up to par, occasionally dropping advice
>it may or may not have been a NG rogue in the past
>it also really likes spooky skull motifs

>you could just use me to kill him now, O Evil One, but is that an appropriate demonstration of your majestic evil? Why not construct an elaborate, grandiose death trap to imprison the adventurer in? With your genius there's no way he could escape!

I prefer that the sword is actually evil. It was just made by evil dwarves who tried to put the essence of evil into it, and ended up accidentally creating something with about as much practical understanding of evil as a Saturday morning cartoon villain.

I think it works better as genuinely evil, but also hilariously incompetent.

I dunno, does it have a million attachments and spurts fire.