Stormspike
"Didja see the way way I nailed that, Marty?" "Thunderingly effective!"
Full Item Description
Stormspike, on the surface, appears much the same as any normal iron spike. It's about a foot long, it's metal, it's round, it's pointed on one end, hammered down on the other. Somehow, though, it hasn't accumulated any rust, despite the beatings it's obviously taken.
History
When the Henglun mansion got destroyed by a massive lightning strike, Ol' Ben Whassit, the local blacksmith, somehow managed to wheedle himself salvage rights to all the metal bits. Some say, he slipped a bit of Fairy Dust to the inheriting daughter, and prevailed on her that way. In any case, the man got himself a great deal of scrap to use in place of fresh stock in his day to day work. And he set about using it in that day to day work.
One particularly jagged chunk, which he cut himself on that day, he threw into a batch of iron spikes he was making for some particularly crazy local youths that fancied themselves to be Aaadventchuuuuers. Or something like that. Cussing up a storm as he hammered away, he did finish the batch on time, and handed them all over, completely unaware of what he had made, ignorant of the Shard of the Storm he had just lacerated himself with.
Magic/Cursed Properties
Like other iron spikes, the obvious use of Stormspike is to spike or nail something, particularly, storms. Whenever Stormspike is hammered into the ground, the local weather pattern, within tens of miles, will become absolutely immobile with respect to the spike. If it's clear, it'll stay clear. If it's raining, it'll keep raining. If it's a monsoon... it'll stay a monsoon.
Secondly, the Stormspike has come to associate the sound of cussing with the force of being hammered. Any one who repeats any of the smith's choice of colorful vocabulary will effectively hit the spike on a direct line between his or her mouth and the center of the spike, with the force of a full sledgehammer, or more, if the word is shouted. This can be used to drive the spike in any given direction.
Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Consider this humor.
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? Responses (7)
Very useful for weather control.Does the spike impale swearers?
An interesting concept, amusing and quirky. I like the profane "command words" needed!
In order to make it more useful, I'd want to amp down the power level quite a lot: "Nailing down" the local weather could be really potent. I'd say that it temporarily pins the weather in place, but the spike tends to work itself loose. This effect would be quite rapid if the weather being held was particularly severe or differed greatly from the surrounding weather. Additionally, local nature spirits and elementals notice objects like Stormspike, and become greatly aggravated when they are used frequently. Those wielding the spike should avoid using it for more than a few hours each week unless they choose to fight the local spirits of the earth and air.
Edit: Linked in the Shard of the Storm. Remember, most of these are supposed to be pretty crazy.. Local nature spirits probably run like heck from it, because they don't want to get caught in the backlash if the Storm Queen notices it.
I didn't find anything humorous about this submission, so i see no need for such a disclaimer. If you really felt it was lacking the gravity of a normal sub you could have used the iSilly/i freetext in addition to the others you used.
As it is, I think it is probably one of the more useable of the Shards of the Storm subs. Nice work.
I did smile, and still consider the item useful. The 'toning down' is proper, not necessarily because it would lack the power, but because weather simply cannot stay unchanged for long... you can't nail down chaos, though you may happen to keep some particular aspect for a while.
Weather changes. Get used to it, mortals. :)
Given that it is an artifact-level level item, its power does not bother me. In the case of bad weather, someone will investigate, or perhaps even the effects of the weather could loosen the spike.
What would happen if you spiked 'good weather with strong winds' to the deck of a ship?
Short clean and with an interesting power, nailing the weather down. I like it. If only the sisters of the Nonnberg convent has know of this they would have had at least one of their questions answered.
