So.. I had a little bit of an idea

So.. I had a little bit of an idea...

a really really good idea

If you ram a sword all the way into something to where it covers the guard you've done something wrong

the gem would be in the blade, of course. the hilt was just a demonstration of the idea.

>using melee weapons against creatures that can fly and have organic flamethrowers
Seems questionable.

I suppose it would be wise of a dracolich to give this sword to a powerful minion who can fly swiftly. Anyway, I don't think attaching your soul gem to a projectile, like an arrow or a catapult stone, that could be easily lost would be very smart.

Could be kinda cool. The "Destined Sword" of dragonslaying then releases a greater evil on the world

Are you thinking of having one of the PCs find the sword and use it happily, until one day they kill a dragon and find they've awoken something much worse?

That sounds cool to me, but I'd say you should make the sword clearly magically powerful,
probably far more than it should be (and evil, if examined by a paladin or something) - make it seem suspicious

This is a really fun idea.

What if the dragon slayer winds up killing a wyvern, and then the dracolich gets BTFO and stuck in a shitty wyvern body?

It transforms the body over time into its original dragon skeleton form.

Ok now you're just being a dick.
Please teach me your ways, OP.

>transforms the body over time

So the dragon slayer can kill the obviously reforming dragon?

>tail coming out of the middle kf the spine and ot where the tailbone is

Still better than being without a body. I mean, an undead wizard wyvern is still above most other things in the food chain.

The only thing I don't like about that is the fact I didn't think of it. Do it, OP.

When you learn how to draw by looking at anime and not real life, you develop shitty art skills.

if i were to use it, i'd definitely make it more powerful, maybe combine it with a vorpal sword or something.

my original plan for it in my current campaign was to make the villain use it, because there is a good aligned dragon. the villain has no idea what the sword does

reading the monster manual, and just thinking.

i don't think people use dracoliches very often, which is a shame, because they're kickass. a dragon AND a lich.

yeah, just read lore and think of how the fuck you can use it

If the adventurer is skilled/high level enough to kill a dragon with a sword like that, they're also very likely to be gallivanting around different planes.

I was actually planning on making it a bit more powerful, by making it instakill a dragon below a certain hp level.

which serves twofold- making sure the one with the sword gets the kill, and making them want to use it


it also depends on the tier of dragon. an ancient dragon, probably not. if the sword is enchanted and important enough, it might be bound to one plane itself, but the gem would not be.

Dragonbane:
You gain a +3 bonus to attack and damage rolls made
with this magic weapon.
When you hit a dragon with this weapon, the dragon
takes an extra 3d6 damage of the weapon's type. For
the purpose of this weapon, "dragon" refers to any
creature with the dragon type or any draconic ancestry, including dragon turtles, kobolds, dragonborn,
and wyverns.

In addition, when you hit a dragon which is below 15% of its health with this weapon, the dragon will die instantly

curse: the blade contains the phylactery of a dracolich. if you ever kill a true dragon with this weapon, the dragon will be resurrected as a dracolich. in addition, the weapon gives the user a strong compulsion to kill any dragon or dragonlike being he sees, including dragonborn, kobolds, etc

New twist on an old classic. I like it.

Also, this dracolich lives in a crazy crystal thicket that grew from an elven man-o-war's wings that (partially) survived the ship's crash centuries ago and continued to grow.

aw fuck, i knew it would exist already.

it's too good to miss

It's risky as fuck. If the adventurer fails to kill a dragon (which is likely) the sword if forever lost in the huge pile of other dragon's treasure.

Yeah, the basic idea has been done before, but it looks like you're making it your own. Dracolich revival worked differently in 2e, for one thing. When a dracolich spirit inhabited a new corpse, it wouldn't get its full power right away. It'd be stuck as a somewhat crummier "proto-dracolich" until it could find and devour what was left of its old body. This one can infect anything dragon-like.

Now all you need to do is come up with a specific character for your dragon and give the sword some motifs and powers suitable to that. Dretch, The Monarch Reborn lives in a crazy magic thicket and spends all his time tending it into a deadly maze filled with traps so his sword gets plant powers. Who was the dragon whose phylactery is set in your sword?

Yeah. That's where the Cult and Dretch's (potential) allies with Gemjump come in, but it's still a BIG risk. It's actually really appropriate for the character, though. As I recall, into complicated plots and trickery (as typified by his labyrinthing lair) and thinks he's smarter than everyone (hence the smug pun).

i haven't even started making a story for it to be honest. i just saw the entry in the monster manual for dracolich and the idea just popped into my head

"smart dracolich puts his soul into a legendary sword"

However this could be also a potential twist. Adventurers slay a dragon, only to watch in horror as it turns into a Dracolich because Dretch was waiting hundreds of years for this moment buried in the pile of gold.