Woe-Blade

This land is sick and dying. Anything you make from it will share those qualities.

Woe-blades are terrible weapons of rot and decay, forged from iron mined in Darklands. The necromantic energies that bleed across the underworld taint the land of the living touches upon the ore still found there and remain when made into weapons of war. Sometimes called Grave-Iron, this metal is infused with entropy and leaves terrible carnage in its wake.

by Rock Cafe.info

Beyond the Grave

Woe-Blades carry with them the perpetual decay of the Darklands. Even light wounds made by a Woe-Blade fester with rot within moments and spread gangrene like fire. Deeper ones often spawn broods of Grave Grub from within the unfortunate victim, damning them to an agonizing demise as the grubs consume them from within. Grave-Iron is still iron and Woe-Blades chip and breaks like any other weapon.

Holding a Woe-Blade is not immediately harmful to the living, but carrying one for any length of time is to invite disaster. Some risk it anyway, keeping the weapons in massive cases of lead to use only when the need is great, but few trusts those who would use such a horrible weapon.
The Undead suffer no such ills and woe-blades are usually found among the corpse-empires who form in the Darklands.

Fortunate for the living, Woe-Blades lose their power if exposed to sunlight for more than a day and become nothing more than rusty iron wrecks.

Bringing Woe

Despite the name, Woe-Blades come in all forms from arrowheads to great hammers. Spears and arrows are particularly favored by Undead, while mortal assassins favor small, compact Woe-Blades. The Corpse-empires able to manufacture the weapons on scale remain rare even as the world bleeds and rots, so Woe-Blades are still relatively rare.

Some enterprising assassins have instead taken to grinding grave-iron into a fine powder and use it to lace food or drink, to terrifying effect.

Even nameless blades are feared and despised relics in the world of the living, while Greater Woe-Blades are heralds of doom.

Across The Multiverse!

Be warned, citizen. You are entering an info-hazard area.

— Scrum

Show spoiler

Woe-Blades is mostly confined to places within Scrunk with a darker take on things in life. They don't mingle well with others but aren't necessarily inherently malicious and so Scrum has not sent them to the Bin. The idea of the tragic sacrifice sometimes finds appeal in other (some would say better) places and through that the idea of Woe-Blades travel further afield in Scrunk.

Darklands
Darklands are places where the realm of the dead and living merge. It is a land in decay though never truly dead, shrouded in perpetual gloom and haunted by undead terrors. Darklands are rare and the cataclysms that create them thankfully few.
Read More About Darklands

Greater Woe-Blades

To the skilled and ruthless, Woe-Blades are easy to enchant. The energies that already infuse the blade can be coaxed and sharpened to deadly effect. These enchanted weapons are known as Greater Woe-Blades and each carry both a name and a terrible legacy of carnage.
Read More About Greater Woe-Blades

Unlike regular Woe-Blades that can be used a short time without cost, there is always a consequence for the mortal who chose to grip the handle of a greater woe-blade.

Grave Grub

Magical creatures made from necromantic and unwholesome energies, grave grubs resemble black maggots with course black quills and spider-like eyes. Their teeth are long and sharp, made out of black stone. Always hungry, they will devour any flesh they come across although they greatly prefer that of the living.
Grave Grubs spontaneously emerge from rotting flesh left out in the Darklands and very rarely in the land of the living. They are considered pests in the Corpse-Empires, constantly plaguing any zombies being employed to work.
Read More About Grave Grub

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