Magic Item: The Jerusalem Swords

The Original. No-prize if you
know who.

The Jerusalem swords appear to be very high-quality swords with expensive hilts and etched blades of glowing metal, throwing, at the wielder's will, light equal to a continual light spell, so that darkness spells are completely negated within 20' of the sword.

Probably only 7 of these exist, of various types but excepting that there are no short Jerusalem swords (roll as normal if placing randomly but count short swords as bastard swords instead).

The blade itself is of +4 enchantment and possessed of a great and terrible power: those which it slays are slain forever and their souls or spirits destroyed. This power applies even against beings of the outer planes who are fought away from their home planes.

The swords are all aligned to Lawful Good and gripping the hilt of any of them does damage equal to 1d6 per step away from this alignment (so neutral characters suffer 2d6, chaotic or neutral good 1d6 and chaotic evil 2d6). This damage is repeated for every blow struck by such a user against a being of Lawful Good alignment.

If using the "bleeding out rule", any character not killed outright (by damage which takes them to 0 or -3 hp as the DM rules) is not subject to the swords' special power, although if used to administer a coup de grace the power does operate, of course.

The power operates even if all but the final hit point of damage was caused in other ways than the sword, and the power does not operate if the final blow is from another source even if all previous hit points were lost as a result of the sword.

If combined with the rules for "unusual swords" on p166 of the DMG, then the power counts as an double extraordinary power with regard to Ego (ie, 4pts) and all ego damage is in addition to that listed above.

Each sword has a proper name, which is what is etched into the blade in the language of LG devas.

The power of the swords is such that it may only be overruled by a wish from a greater deity, not "merely" such as are found in rings and so forth. How this interacts with very high level casters is up to the DM, but the objective is that such swords are greatly feared by devils and demons, even those with access to wishes.

Xp value: 3,500; gp value: 14,000gp