New Race: Weapon Spirits

Today’s article is a bit of a special thing – one of our community members, Avara Sheridan, made a homebrew race for Reclaim the Wild a little while back. And today, we’re presenting it here on the blog!

This isn’t just some random bit of dashed-off napkin scribblery, though. Avara put a ton of work into designing this Race, iterating on it with other members of the community, and through it all, held herself to the same standards that we used in creating the Races of the Core Rulebook.

So not only is this a cool bit of homebrew design for the system, it’s also an excuse for us to show that players and GMs have started adding their hand-made additions to our Homebrew Wiki – and to show that, if your own homebrewed content goes through similar steps, you might find it featured on this blog, too!

Anyway, that’s enough preamble from me. Check out Avara’s cool Weapon Spirit Race below!

As a homebrew addition to the game made by the community, the latest version of this Race can be found on its page on our Wiki. The version presented here was current as of this article’s publication (May 1st 2019).

Weapon Spirit

For some, the sword is a warrior’s soul.
For others, the sword has its own soul.

Overview

Average Height: 4’ – 8’
Average Weight: 80 – 300 lbs.
Life span: Effectively immortal
Skin colors: Any, based on weapon form
Hair colors: Any, based on weapon form

Play a Weapon Spirit if you want…

…To bring out the best of your chosen weapon.
…To be one half of a legendary duo.
…To finish the business of your previous wielders.
…To clear the name of your weapon’s legacy.

Weakness: Fire or Electricity, depending on Weapon Form’s material. Fire for Wooden weapons, Electricity for Metal weapons. If your Weapon Form is turned into an Ancient Weapon, your weakness becomes Darkness instead.

Bonuses:

You have a single Rank 1 weapon of your choosing (known as your Weapon Form), which upgrades, repairs, and recovers Durability like a Weapon with a Weapon Spirit, recovering 2 Durability with every Extended Rest. When reduced to 0 Durability, it merely becomes unusable, instead of breaking. This weapon can be Enchanted, and used to harvest Materials, consuming Durability as normal. This weapon form may be wielded by others, but cannot move more than 16 squares away from you. If it should be moved past that distance, it will disappear, reappearing on your person.
You can inhabit your Weapon Form to be wielded by others, your humanoid body disappearing in the process until you stop or are disarmed from your wielder, entering and leaving your Weapon Form as a Minor Action. If you leave Weapon Form while being wielded, you can appear in any empty adjacent space. To inhabit your Weapon Form, you must be within 1 square of it.
While inhabiting your Weapon Form and wielded by another person, you both act on the higher of your initiative rolls. You share a square with your wielder and cannot move on your own, moving along with them when they move. While inhabiting your Weapon Form, you cannot be Knocked Prone or Pushed, but can be Disarmed, and you lose all Movement speeds until exiting your Weapon Form. When Disarmed, you count as Knocked Prone until picked up again, or until you stop inhabiting your weapon and stand on your own (the status condition persists between forms).
While in weapon form you can perform Standard Actions, Minor Actions and Reactions, using your own traits to resolve any attacks, spells, techniques or maneuvers. When hit by a Blast, Burst, Cone, Line, or Sweep, both you and your wielder are hit by the attack. For single-target attacks, the wielder is targeted by default, but the Weapon may, as a Reaction, choose to take the hit instead. You can still use Reactions, such as block or parry, to reduce incoming damage, but only when that damage is targeting you.
As a Free Action, you may sacrifice one point of Durability during a battle to increase your Weapon Form’s Accuracy by 2 or Attack by 3 for the duration of the battle.
Your Weapon Form is able to function as a specific type of Harvesting Tool of Rank equal to (Weapon Rank-1) without losing Durability. The type of Harvesting Tool your Weapon Form functions as is chosen at Character Creation, and cannot be changed.

Description

Souls of weaponry come to life, spiritual beings that agreed to give life to armaments, the grudge of a cursed blade. However it came to be, spirits and weapons unite to become artifacts of legend. For good or for ill, Weapon Spirits are ill-suited for obscurity–and few know better than a weapon’s own soul how to bring out its best performance.

Weapon Spirits look like they’re made of the same material as their Weapon Form, whether that be Metal, Wood, or (after sufficient upgrades) Ancient Materials.They lack visible irises or pupils, and their body, clothing, and coloration often reflect aspects of their Weapon Form, whether its base or eventual fully-upgraded form. They often look very humanoid, but not entirely, and not always–they may have limbs made up by a cloak, for instance. Weapon Spirits also have gemstones protruding from one or more points on their body, such as the forehead and chest.

Weapon Spirits don’t truly have a native territory or domain–they happen where and when they happen. Likewise, nobody is truly sure of how a Weapon Spirit comes to be born except the Goddesses. While some are spirits who agreed to take on this existence, others have never known any other. Relatedly, Weapon Spirits don’t have actual sexes. While that doesn’t hinder their appearances nor gender identities, whether that might be masculine, feminine, or somewhere inbetween, they lack any biology needed to reproduce on their own.

Playing a Weapon Spirit

Weapon Spirits are known for their faithfulness to their chosen allies and wielders. Even after a thousand years, they’ll still be trying to fulfill the goals of those they’ve lost, or to resurrect them entirely; time is no factor in their immortal minds.

Weapon Spirits’ interests in new cultures varies from individual to individual, but for those who face decades or centuries of disuse between outings, it can seem pointless to bother remembering the details. For those that frequently interact with new people, on the other hand, they might find it more worthwhile to put effort into meeting people on their own level–even going so far as to use Impa’s Disguise to facilitate interactions without being seen as frightening, or as ‘merely an object.’

There are two quintessential ways a Weapon Spirit can participate in battle. The first is inhabiting their Weapon Form, supporting another Hero in their trials. In this way, the Weapon may allow the wielder to use techniques they don’t normally know, or bestow supportive effects–spells and techniques used by the Spirit.

Alternatively, the Weapon Spirit may choose to stand on the frontlines themselves, wielding their Weapon Form. This lacks the natural synergy of weapon and wielder, but allows them to make their own story and support their allies in other ways. Ultimately, a Weapon Spirit will likely use a mix of both methods across their lifetime.

Lastly, in case a Weapon Spirit is worrying that they don’t recover enough Durability at once, remember to make friends with your local blacksmiths. Weapon Forms, as Repairable Weapons, can recover Durability by being repaired at a Forge.

Characteristics: Loyal, Perceptive, Decisive, Patient, Sharp, Bold, Theatrical, Calculating

Weapon Spirit names, despite what one might expect at first, share little in common with the name of the weapon itself. Instead, the spirit will often find a name by taking an onomatopoeia or other word related to their original weapon type and cutting it down into a one- or two-syllable fragment. Later in life, they may take a more normal-sounding name from another race, to help blend in and interact with them.

Names: Swi, Fu, Cho, Shu, Fwi, Tho, Tsuru

Reach Heaven by Violence

It may seem obvious on the face of it, but a Weapon Spirit’s existence is defined by their being the personal incarnation of a weapon. What isn’t immediately obvious, though, is how this can affect the spirit’s mentality and views on various matters. That a Weapon Spirit would be more comfortable with and quicker to suggest violence as a solution is only the most readily apparent such instance.

For example, a weapon is constantly in close proximity to its wielder, and invading an enemy’s personal space is inherently necessary to attacking them. As such, Weapon Spirits can often develop a distinct lack of concept of personal space, moving in closer than others are comfortable to get their points across, or just as a casual gesture.

Another way being a weapon can affect the spirit is their concept of purpose and fate. A weapon belongs to others, and is always a tool of violence, whether to attack or defend. For many, this translates as a firm loyalty and acknowledgement that violence is a part of life, though how far one goes in each is up to the individual. Others, however, may question this–and question why they, themselves, have to exist as part of it. Rebellion is not impossible, just rare.

Feats

Dousing

6 Tokens
Trait Requirement: 6 Civilization, Arcana, or Nature; Weapon Spirit
Effect: When searching for the Material type harvested by your Tool function, roll twice and take the higher result.

Enchanting Spirit

6 Tokens
Requirement: Quest Reward or GM Approval Only
Trait Requirement: Any three traits at rank 6; Weapon Spirit
Effect: Your Weapon Form is able to receive a second enchantment, as per normal for non-player Weapon Spirits.

Master Mode Rule

If the injury Master Mode rule is active, you can spend {6-(Fort./2)} Durability off your weapon form to take off a point of injury. On the other hand, if your Weapon Form reaches 0 Durability, you take a point of injury.