Sword Magic

[fete67]

I recently began creating a tribe of barbarians in a story, and i wanted to make them have magic involving their swords. In my world I have arcane magic, which includes magic that is studied and blood magic. I have no divine magic although deities can grant certain powers to their worshipers. I do not want the barbarians to study for their magic and I do not want them to be sorcerers (except maybe a few random barbarians). Does any one have an idea how to accomplish this?

 

[Phoenix]

Maybe they dip their blades in blood before battle? Their savages so maybe their special attribute is when their blood pressure sky rockets they have super-human strength. Make it a natural solution that way they don't have to study.

 

[fete67]

That sounds very interesting because my world is based on everything has magic in it. I was also thinking something like runes on the blades but that would limit what each blade could do. I would also have to solve how they know the runes without studying. Does anyone have any ideas for runes?

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

They don't all have to study; maybe there's an old lorekeeper in each tribe/village who's responsible for keeping track of the runes and inscribing them, or teaching the few basic runes that are needed to each warrior. They don't necessarily need a lot of teaching, but maybe part of their warrior training when they're young is to learn the Five Blood Runes, which is something that only takes a day or two, and then (like all martial arts) you practice with it a lot. Or maybe there's no lorekeeper guy at all, it's just something that's passed down from warrior to warrior (a mentor-student relationship).

 

[Phoenix]

Also maybe they use some weird magical earth-metal for their blades? That would give them some magic, and put them over a little bit on their opponents. Is their anywhere I can hear more of your story? Barbarians interest me.

 

[Grizzly Bear]

Perhaps you might want to consider a wooden blade that has been repeatedly wiped down with blood until the magic between the blade and blood create a sword that is stronger than steel? You could give the wood a name like Bloodwort and the inherent properties in the wood do not begin to manifest themselves until there is enough blood soaked into the wood to activate them.

The idea would be that a loremaster would have to begin the process after the new owner has shaped his, or her blade. By involving both then the properties they are looking for would have a better chance to manifest itself. I can't remember the name of the book but one author used the blood oil from a tree to harden and activate his swords. The oil was very difficult to harvest and only a warrior that could prove their mettle, prove they were worthy, could harvest it.

 

[ThinkerX]

I recently began creating a tribe of barbarians in a story, and i wanted to make them have magic involving their swords. In my world I have arcane magic, which includes magic that is studied and blood magic. I have no divine magic although deities can grant certain powers to their worshipers. I do not want the barbarians to study for their magic and I do not want them to be sorcerers (except maybe a few random barbarians). Does any one have an idea how to accomplish this?

Rune Magic. The master smiths for these tribes jealously guard knowledge of a handful of potent runes that can be pounded right into the blade during its forging. The Rune has to be drawn exactly right, and the smiths will do this only for the quality weapons. Even a top notch smith is not going to know how to inscribe more than three or four Runes.

Tolkien alluded to something similiar for the origin of certain of the magical swords in 'Lord of the Rings'. A smith or two in Martins 'Song of Ice and Fire' use spells in the course of their work.

Here in the real world, the Norse (Vikings) were big on Runes, which were worked onto everything from drinking cups to shields to swords. Magic and smithing were also linked in the medivial mindset, to an extent.

 

[Devor]

Skip the runes, keep the blood. I think runes have been done to death, and unless you want to take the time to do it really well, it wouldn't feel new to me. Or barbaric, as runes are often used by civilized societies in many stories. Are these barbarians a tertiary group? You might not have the time to make the runes distinctive and right.

Maybe the blood has to be mixed with a mixture of oils and other magical elements before it can add magic to the sword, which will give you a ritual priesthood devoted to its preparation. It would also keep people from doing it themselves. Victims in war could be pulled off the battlefield and drained of their blood just after the fight, or human sacrifices kept specifically for the purpose of building up their magical reservoir. And depending on your story, you might be able to find plotpoints based on the rare substances they're adding to the blood.

Just a quick thought.

 

[SeverinR]

Since my D&D days, I have always considered the ultimate evil sword enchantment would have to be forged in blood.
Red hot hardened blade instantly cooled by the blood of a human. (Probably by impaling the blade into the victim while alive.)
Even more evil make it the traditional virgin sacrifice for that extra powerful evil. I guess the ultimate evil if you have them, would to be cool the sword in a unicorn, or with unicorn blood.

For barbarians, they might use blood from an animal, making the blade thirst for blood of any kind.

I am not sure how to enchant a sword without a mage, unless they call on a diety to enchant their weapons.

Have not used this yet, but will probably use this someday.

 

[Seth son of Tom]

what if they had conquered a place where the swords had been forged with magic already in them

 

[fete67]

I'm definitely feeling the oil or blood idea. Blood is a little to "evil" idea for me because the barbarian tribe is neutral. They are territorial, they reside in a small patch of hill lands. Centuries before the tribe was once part of a large kingdom but they fled when a cult of wizards destroyed the realm and turned it into the "Dead Lands". Their weaponry could have come from that era but I'm not sure how they would get new weapons so I might do the oil and some sort of ritual.

 

[Devor]

I'm definitely feeling the oil or blood idea. Blood is a little to "evil" idea for me because the barbarian tribe is neutral. They are territorial, they reside in a small patch of hill lands. Centuries before the tribe was once part of a large kingdom but they fled when a cult of wizards destroyed the realm and turned it into the "Dead Lands". Their weaponry could have come from that era but I'm not sure how they would get new weapons so I might do the oil and some sort of ritual.

I'm glad you've found what you were looking for.

Blood doesn't have to be evil. Maybe the blood of a recently deceased elder is used in some way, so that it becomes a form of ancestor worship.

 

[Steerpike]

Steven Erikson did something similar to what some have suggested in this thread. His character Karsa Olong had a "bloodwood" sword, and something called "blood-oil" is rubbed into the sword, subsequently hardening and lending it strength. The blood-oil is used for other surfaces as well. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

 

[Devor]

Steven Erikson did something similar to what some have suggested in this thread. His character Karsa Olong had a "bloodwood" sword, and something called "blood-oil" is rubbed into the sword, subsequently hardening and lending it strength. The blood-oil is used for other surfaces as well. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

. . . . . . . drats.

One of these days I'm going to have to post a list of all my ideas and ask which ones have been used elsewhere. I don't think I have the courage, though. I probably won't be able to stomach the response.

 

[Steerpike]

. . . . . . . drats.

One of these days I'm going to have to post a list of all my ideas and ask which ones have been used elsewhere. I don't think I have the courage, though. I probably won't be able to stomach the response.

There is so much out there that I think we'll find many of our ideas in existence, in some form or other. But I believe you can continue to use those ideas to good effect. For all we know, someone did the blood-oil/wood idea before Erikson. There is always room from the skilled artist to take what exists in the art and make it her own.

 

[Phoenix]

I think the Barbarians should keep to the blood. Its crude, just like their culture. I liked the blood sacrifice idea though.

 

[fete67]

I had the barbarians forced out of their homeland centuries before, so maybe they brought their secret oils with them or something. I'm becoming opposed to the use of blood because it does seem evil and that's not the road I want to take with them.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Did you know that the traditional way to forge a katana is almost a lost art? Every step in the process from the chemical composition of the metal to the temperature of the forge to the length of time of the smelting process to the decoration and presentation of the sword is precise.

I don't know if something like that^ could work as a (rare?) method of creating sword magic (or magic swords?), but it's the first thing I thought of that didn't involve a friend, foe or beast having to die.

 

[Hans]

Red hot hardened blade instantly cooled by the blood of a human. (Probably by impaling the blade into the victim while alive.)

That actually happened in reality. In times before the process of steel hardening was discovered you can imagine the legends that come from this event. When the people discover the sword was actually harder and kept its sharpness longer after the glowing execution.

 

[AlexanderKira]

The blood thing sounds kind of interesting, but what you keep stressing is that they're not crude and evil. I like the using of the Elder's blood as an ancestral ceremony, but using blood does seem a little crude. I can't really think of anything good right now, so I don't know why I'm posting, but my advice is to try and get something that seems crude to the outside world, like blood I guess, and make it ceremonial and honored to the barbarians. Because the term barbarians really a term that means uncivilized to the people that named them, like the Romans called the Germanic tribes barbarians because they didn't live they way they did. So these people that call them barbarians, it would depend on how they live, what they considered barbaric. So these people could be really sophisticated, but the "civilized" people hate them because they don't do what they do. Aha, don't know where I was going with this.