Magic Item: Midnight's Claw

As the year turned and the skies grew dark, Jie Chue meditated on corruption.

A worthy subject, as he deemed it; one does not understand a thing without touching it at the core. Very well, so should it be. A month and a day did he consider this.

In the darkest nights of winter, the smith returned to the forge and brought forth a blackened talon.

This, he mused upon; then gifted the blade to a wandering swordsman whose heart was blackened and whose way was lost.


Midnight's Claw: With blade and hilt forged of one solid length of pitch-black steel, Midnight's Claw is a massive and yet surprisingly maneuverable weapon. Simply ornamented, the sword's hilt is wrapped in white wolfskin, the pommel a heavy ring; down the blade runs a series of etchings that resemble a lacework of frost.

Midnight's Claw is a two-handed sword +2. With every successful strike, the blade freezes the victim's flesh, inflicting an additional 1-6 hit points of damage unless the victim makes a save vs. death ray; the wielder may choose instead to envelop the victim in darkness, rendering them permanently blind. By sacrificing a point of Constitution for a day, the wielder of Midnight's Claw may invoke a netherbolt of roiling, clinging black "lightning" that inflicts 3-18 hit points of damage -- healing the undead, and inflicting half again the damage to Lawful creatures -- and paralyzes for 2-7 rounds.