Here’s a magic item I’m working on:

Here’s a magic item I’m working on:

The Sword of Leadership

My players are questing for an intelligent sword that will help them raise an army to reconquer the party’s fighter’s barony from his evil usurper brother. I figure a custom move is appropriate:

When you attempt to bend the Sword to your will, roll +CHA. Take +1 on your roll if you have recently proved yourself worthy. Take -1 to your roll if you have recently angered the Sword. *On a 10+, the Sword summons an army that will do your bidding for 5 days. *On a 7-9, the Sword will summon an army. Pick one: (a) The army will do your bidding, but only for 1 day. (b) The army will do your bidding for up to 5 days, but you must Defy Danger +CHA at the start of each day to retain control.

You can prove your worthiness by:

1. Doing what the Sword wants you to do.

2. Demonstrating great leadership.

3. Defeating a personal rival.

I have a few ideas on how to prevent the Sword from being abused:

A. Limit how often the Sword’s army-summoning power can be used (maybe once per month, adventure, or campaign; or maybe the Sword’s wielder can only use the power once ever).

B. The term “army” is not very specific. An army could be 30 soldiers or 100,000. The Sword may be capped at a certain number of soldiers (say 30 or 50 or 100) or maybe the Sword makes its own determination how many soldiers to summon each time.

C. The army may have a limited ability to recover from losses in battle. If the Sword has a 30 soldier army and 10 of them die in battle, maybe it takes a week or a month to replace each dead soldier.

I can see lots of ways to have fun with this as a GM. On a failed roll on the custom move, the army might be completely out of control or attack the party. Even on a successful roll, the army might be made up of orc soldiers or some other monster (how will the civilized world react to the party leading an army of monsters?).