Slayer

Full Item Description
A plain wooden stake of oak with one end sharpened.

History
In the early days of the administration of Queen Amber of Vallermoore it was a bad time for the honest. With all the prisoners released when Amber mistakenly threw open the prisons without checking why those inside were locked up, crime grew to a plague and it was then that The White Knights were formed as a popular alternative police force. It was not just human criminals that were terrorising the region; vampires and other fell undead things had travelled from far and wide to prey on people.

One of the early White Knights was a priest of the Goddess of Justice, and had remained faithful to her in those dark days when her worship was forbidden by law and captured worshippers risked being thrown to the lions or to a Wrapper . He was a poor man, for thieves had stolen most of what he owned. He placed one of his few remaining possessions, a plain wooden stake that had been ignored as not worth stealing, upon the altar and prayed to her to lend her power to it, to make of it a weapon to fight evil with. She was touched by his plea and that night, enchanted it into a powerful tool on the side of Good.

In the next few months he slew many Undead with it and many violent criminals as well, and when struck in a fatal spot those who were so slain rotted and crumbled into dust quickly, not just if they were Undead but if they were human as well. The weapon gave him the strength to fight those who were incredibly strong, even those who had been vampires for many years.

Times changed however and eventually the majority of the criminals were slain, jailed or chased out of town. A year after the founding of the Knights, they held a final parade and were praised publicly by Queen Amber for the good they had done before being disarmed and sent back to civilian life. Whilst most were willing to disarm, there were those who thought such a thing would be a betrayal of their cause and decided to reform the organisation illegally as a vigilante movement, and the priest was one of them.

They began picking on people who were guilty of small things and occasionally upon the innocent, and in one of these cases Slayer was used. Instead of turning the body to dust, however, it just killed in the normal way. Thinking it had forsaken him, he tossed it away before sticking the body under a cart. He was to regret that bitterly when the City Guards traced the Slayer to him and connected him to the murder for it. He named the members of his cell in the hope that his life would be spared but instead all five of them suffered the painful ignominy of hanging on a public gallows as punishment and an example.

The Slayer was forgotten and spent a long while gathering dust before being stolen by an enterprising thief, who, unable to use its powers for himself, sold it for a few copper pieces at The Black Market .

Magic/Cursed Properties
In the hands of a truly good person the Slayers powers are immense. It boosts his or her strength so that it is equal to any human or humanoid foe. It has it's limits-it does not grant any magical powers to it's owner, so a magical opponent such as a Lich is still a deadly danger. And if something like a Dragon attacks, the best thing to do is to run and hide, it will not grant superhuman powers to anybody.

If it slays an evil opponent then the body will crumble to dust, be it Undead or alive before the moment of being slain, and the soul will be banished to hell.

Against good or neutral opponents (eg a Bear who is defending it's cubs) it is just a normal wooden stake and if the owner wins the fight the body will not rot away at once but will just decompose normally.

Acts of minor lawbreaking as small as dropping litter by the owner or his or her close friends will lower the powers of the Slayer. After a while the Slayer also reaches into the mind of it's owner and makes him or her into a puritan, a police officer type, a guardian of moral order even when that is not the best policy. It also makes him or her into a prig who will repremand his or her friends in public. (PC with the Slayer to other PC "Pick that litter up, you can't leave it here!")Whoever can unlock it's full powers will not be a very nice person to spend time with. Any *bad behavior* might make the Slayer decide to *act up* a bit when the fight happens and not grant it's full powers.

Acts of major lawbreaking or other acts of Evil will in the short term at least nullify the powers of the Slayer altogether and make it into just a normal wooden stake. It is possible however that it might overlook being used for an assassination if the target is Evil enougth.