Who makes the +1 swords?

Partially inspired by this post. I had some thoughts on magic weapons. Where do these things come from, who made them and why?

Let’s assume your game takes place in a sort of medium fantasy milieu, something close to Lord of the Rings. Magic is somewhat commonplace, far more so than Game of Thrones, but far from ubiquitous. Frodo is fascinated and surprised by magic things but they don’t shatter his worldview.

For mechanical reasons let’s assume were operating with three rough power levels of magic weapon/armour here. +1, +2, and +3. It’s possible the game you’re playing is balanced a little presumptuously around these items being things you will stumble upon on your adventures – I’m playing a lot of pathfinder 2nd edition right now and it absolutely makes that assumption.

Greg Staples

So what is a +1, +2, or +3 weapon in the context of our world? How did these things come to be?

Let’s make a handy chart, and commit this to memory because there will be a quiz.

Scale	+1	+2	+3
Small	Rare	Exceptional	Exceptional
Medium	Uncommon	Rare	Exceptional
Big	Common	Uncommon	Rare

Across the top we have the three power levels of magic item and on the left side, we have three scales – small, medium, and big. These are the contexts we put our magic items on and depending on the sort of campaign they may map onto various levels of power players might be operating on and able to meaningfully influence.

Small scale here means villages, towns, and small cities. A big plot in a small scale is one petty lord going to war with another petty lord or a group of deserters becoming bandits and pillaging the countryside. Weapons made and wielded in this context are dealing with extremely localized concerns. Everyone in the kingdom is probably at least vaguely aware that this is happening, but almost no one in the next kingdom over knows. Across the world or on other planes? Forget about it. Seven Samurai is small scale.

Medium scale here means duchies, provinces, kingdoms, or even small empires. We’re talking about big wars here that shake the foundations of countries or continents. Medium scale concerns everyone involved, and to mortals can often seem borderline apocalyptic. News will travel as far as technology and trade allow it to. Opportunistic forces from other worlds watch with interest.

Big scale concerns the fate of worlds. Major supernatural actors are at play, gods put their strongest champions or even themselves on the line. If your setting doesn’t have other planes then a world-spanning conflict is big scale. Everyone everywhere knows this is happening and a lot of them are involved.

In our graph we have rarities, these are going to be what informs our lore for these things. Common means the item while not ubiquitous is unremarkable. Uncommon means the item is prestigious and marks its holder out as elite. Rare means there really are not many of these, anyone who has one is not just elite but a major player, you could make a list of all of these items and it would fit on one page. Exceptional means that it’s possible none of these items even exist at this scale and if they do you can count them on one hand.

So in the context of small scale, say two petty lords fighting one another: +2 and +3 weapons are practically unheard of – if any were present all parties involved would know and their reputation would proceed them. +1 weapons are probably carried by a lot of the major players, each is named and specially adorned, likely passed down several generations.

In the context of big scale that same +1 weapon would be quaint, the demon king crafted 100,000 blades of equivalent quality to give to his warriors, noone even bothered to name such weapons although each wielder may have decided to if they were feeling sentimental.

With this power scale established lets delve into how these things get made.

Well, their production matches the rarity established by the scales. A duke of a small kingdom decides he wants a magic weapon for the prestige of his house… and a slight paranoia of ghosts, you never know when the ghosts of your enemies might come to claim vengeance. This is clearly small scale so that makes a +1 weapon rare. He commissions the finest artisan in his domain to craft a weapon capable of receiving the blessings of his court chaplain – the production is long and (for the duke) quite expensive. At the end of it all, he has a +1 sword and can rest easy knowing he will not be defenceless against the restless dead.

A lich is gearing up to kill the duke that wronged him so much in life, he is an exceptionally powerful caster and has an army of the dead behind him. Fortunately for the duke, his king will come to his aid as will many mortal allies not keen on seeing an army of the dead wage war on such a scale. Things rapidly escalate to medium scale. The lich has five dark and mighty lieutenants, other powerful undead warriors – each wielding a +2 weapon won in long campaigns from ages past – each is unique to its wielder and has a storied history. The liches spectral craftsmen create dozens of +1 weapons to give to undead officers, while practically identical to each other these weapons are still status symbols and are a cut above any typical sword, they become known as the lichblades. Enemy soldiers who capture such a blade keep them, and they become a status symbol to living and dead alike.

The God of Death grows weary of this horrid war and knows her followers cannot put the dead to rest on her own, she decides to join the fray to put the lich to rest herself. The God of War, an old enemy of Death decides that he shall strike the realms of the dead now while Death is away. Alliances and friendships and rivalries bring nearly a quarter of the gods into a vicious cycle of revenge. Within a few years everyone seems to be involved somehow in an apocalyptic conflict for the fate of the world. Were in big scale now. Many of the gods have +3 weapons they either wield themselves or have given to their greatest champions. Such weapons are not forged by mortals but are parts of the setting almost as fundamental as the gods themselves. +2 weapons are created by powerful supernatural smiths as fast as they can for use by powerful angels and demons, although as the war wages on many find themselves in the hands of mortals or lesser magical creatures. For some missions, small armies must be equipped with +1 weapons to even be useful – although these armies are often comprised of soldiers who in any other war would be the elite of the elite.

Broadly – an excellent mortal craftsman or a capable immortal craftsman can make a +1 item, but they require a considerable amount of resources and support to do so. The mayor can bankrupt himself to commission this, the duke can raise taxes one year, the king can hire a few of these guys instead of building that cathedral he was planning, the emperor has a dozen of them on retainer.

The best mortal craftsmen might be able to make +2 items, but such an endeavour will always be extremely lengthy and expensive. To spend so much time on one piece while you only have so much time to live makes it impossible to not put a little bit of yourself into your craft. +2 items made by mortals always have big quirks and are in some way meaningfully unique.

Only the absolute best of immortal craftsmen can make +3 items and they do so over time frames that are impractical to model during game time.

What does all this mean at the table?

When you come across a +1 weapon it has three possible origin stories:

This unique named weapon was crafted in a small context. Its story is wholly unique but also somewhat quaint on a “cosmic scale”. Maybe it was commissioned for a local folk hero to protect the town. Maybe a bitter business rivalry could only be settled by a duel and one of them sunk their fortunes into getting every edge they could get. Maybe it was created for the creator’s sake: the son of the blacksmith was ridiculed as a drunk and a gambler – so he decided to make a +1 weapon just to prove he could.

But maybe it comes from a different scale, you find it now as a bunch of low-level adventurers divorced from its original context. The +1 sword is one of the lichblades. Theoretically, there are many like it but its been centuries since the war. The weapons while originally mass-produced, it has now seen multiple owners and even passed violently from one family to another. Perhaps it carries something from that past, either literally or figuratively.

Just because something wasn’t unique at the time of its production doesn’t mean it can’t hold a thematic weight. Think about the legacy of real-life weapons.

What does a Kalashinakov mean? We can look at the context of the gun’s production. It was made after the end of WW2 in the Soviet Union – this is a firmly cold war gun. It was made to fight a war against the forces of global capital that never got fought in full. We can also look at the context of the gun’s use, the AK47 is easy to manufacture and maintain and is famously reliable in a wide array of environments. There’s a reason it became a mainstay of insurgencies. To many in the imperial core, it is a weapon associated with terrorism. To others it can be a symbol of freedom and resistance against that imperial core. It’s impossible to talk about the symbolism of this weapon without talking about communism, capitalism, imperialism, and proxy wars.

It would be hard to argue this weapon doesn’t have symbolic weight, heck Mozambique put in on their flag!

What would a magic weapon defined by the context of its production and use look like?

Perhaps the king, anticipating a war with his neighbour commissioned a truly massive number of magic weapons. He was a wealthy man and could afford a few +2 weapons but he would rather make more +1’s. The equipping of his soldiers became an obsession and he tanked his treasury hiring smiths from the world over to make more magic weapons. Before the war could ever be fought his own kingdom collapsed in on itself, most of the king’s swords being seized by deserters who ended up taking up banditry. To some the “kingsteel swords” became infamous weapons of petty tyranny, a symbol of whomever has violently seized power at the moment. To others the swords were liberatory, a weapon seized by lowborn soldiers who could protect themselves and their communities from the tyranny of nobles and those who wielded “rightful” authority.

What about another weapon, let’s look at the Bazooka!

This weapon is almost entirely defined by what it does. Specifically, it does something (blow up tanks) that you just could not do with a smaller handheld weapon. I see the weapon and I imagine two guys, waiting in a crater for an hour until their prey comes along. The tank seems to be an impossibly huge beast of metal, utterly impervious to their sidearms and with a cannon that could collapse a house with a single shell. The guys lie in wait, waiting for the metal mammoth to get closer. They know from experience that it will only penetrate armour on a side or rear hit, and it has to be square too, too severe of an angle and it will just bounce off. The tank approaches quickly until there is a shout from inside the vehicle and it stops for a second before going into reverse, the cannon slowly rotating towards our bazooka guys who fire – half because they know they’re not getting a better shot and half out of sheer terror. It’s just barely good enough, the turret is disabled and our boys reload and pursue the now helpless beast.

They couldn’t have done that with anything smaller, and they couldn’t have hid with anything larger. The weapon has the thematic weight of hunting great beasts and David and Goliath because of the unique things it enables.

Back to fantasy, we can imagine a nation in a panic from an undead invasion. Their holding off the skeletons and zombies fine but the wraiths, the fucking wraiths, scythe through every position they attack without a casualty. Wizards can oppose them fine but there are only a few of those and the wraiths simply refuse to engage them. A decision is made and there is a daring quest for magical metals in a mine occupied by a mighty dragon. Many soldiers die, but the metals are secured. Without sleep, the finest smiths and wizards work the metals into twenty magic blades, when the last blade is cast – one of the most important smiths, the one leading this whole project, dies from his fatigue. The twenty swords are distributed to the bravest and most faithful soldiers, the Archbishop names these warriors “Paladins”, and they are sent upon their perilous mission. They blend in with the common soldiers and defend an essential watch tower, intelligence is leaked to the undead that the wizards are in a town elsewhere. The wraiths come expecting easy prey, the paladins only draw their blades at the last moment. The fighting is quick, three paladins fell valiantly, but for the first time in the war mortals saw the wraiths flee in terror. The weapons continued to be produced at a slower but more sustainable rate – but those initial twenty blades are renowned forever in the nation’s history.

Mechanically speaking these are all +1 swords.

Lets look at a last historical weapon, an SS honour dagger.

Now unlike the previous two weapons which have symbolism sort of thrust upon them this thing is right off the bat just covered in deliberate symbolism. Its called an honour dagger, it has words on it, there are two swastikas – one of which is worked into a nordic rune, three skulls, and the SS lightning bolt rune appears four times! There is so goddam much to unpack here.

The first layer of symbolism that this weapon works on is informed by history – this thing is just inescapably evil. This isn’t a Luger, a gun that while used by nazis both predates them and was used after them. This is a nazi weapon wielded by the nazi-iest nazis there have ever been. I love weapons and history and even if this thing wasn’t covered in hate symbols I’d still feel vaguely nauseous if I owned one. It can’t help but inherit some of the evil of nazi atrocities, and it actively invites that inheritance with its design.

The second layer of symbolism is the intentional symbolism of it, what it’s supposed to mean to the people who used it. This is a weapon given only to members of the SS, its almost entirely ceremonial (I’m sure at some point some of them were used in anger but the vast majority of these were never used as anything other than a pretentious ornament), its name and inscription “My honour is loyalty” hint at a clear intended meaning.

This is a weapon that sets the owner, a member of the SS, apart from the chaff! You aren’t some disloyal ordinary soldier who fights cause he has to – no, you are the elite chosen few with the principles to fight and die for a higher cause! (Genocide, slavery, and the whims of a meth-addled narcissist.) These values that make you elite are ancient (see the rediculas tassle, the way the swastika is worked into the rune, the SS symbol, and the extremely roman-esque bird) and you are the proud inheritor of this noble tradition!

The hierarchy this dagger reinforces is also replicated within the daggers themselves. Higher ranking members got a dagger that instead had the inscription “In warm camaraderie, H. Himmler”. So even the dagger telling you that you’re the bestest most elite most master race boy in town has a more elite version that doesn’t feel the need to stress the importance of loyalty and instead basically just reads “love ya bestie”

So weapons, even ones that were mass-produced, can be extremely intentionally symbolic. And these weapons more than any other also inherit symbolism like wildfire as any of their attached symbols inheriting symbolism will rub off on the weapon.

Returning again to fantasy. Let’s say the elves, few in number but long-lived. Ensure that each and every elven warrior has a +1 spear. These weapons are intended to be alike in appearance and quality – they represent an equality between elves (and an unsubtle inequality between elves and men), even the queen wields a weapon that would be lowly and unremarkable for an immortal leader of her renown to maintain this balance. However, styles change over time and inherit different meanings. Some older elves wield a spear with a longer blade and an elven inscription “to thine own be true” that was common during a period of extended war between elves and non-elves. These weapons, whether inherited or still wielded by their original owner represent a darker more cynical period of elven history. Older elves yet have spears of two vastly different styles, from when dark elves and high elves fought one another – the spears were not so standardized back then representing different houses and cultures. Disputes between elves are always resolved with their spears, even if they prefer to use other weapons in combat and tremendous weight is placed upon losing ones spear – especially if your spear was inherited. Elves are taught at length the stories of who wielded their weapons before them – and remember these are elves so these are first and second-hand stories even when talking about people who have been dead for a thousand years. Elves take their spears very seriously, so when that motherfucker Malekith rolls up with a legendary +3 demon spear its a scandal! The audacity of this bastard to insist he is better than all other elves!

Why don’t you, an elven adventurer start with a +1 spear? Same reason your partying with humans. You’re an exile, a disgrace. Getting a proper elven spear could represent a powerful return to your culture. Choosing to use any other magical weapon instead is a deliberate rejection. If your not an elf and you stumble upon a dying elf warrior – will you return their spear? Taking it for yourself is going to make you some powerful enemies and returning it will get you the gratitude of some powerful allies… but this is better than any weapon you’ve got and you could probably sell it for enough money to buy a small mansion.

That’s all I got! Go forth and thinks about the contexts surrounding +1 magic swords!