Artifact: Dragonslayer Spear

In-Game Art

Something from Dark Souls, a Dragonslayer Spear. This is a powerful weapon used by one of four great knights of legend. Let's tinker with putting this together.

Background

This weapon is used by a legendary hero in the game Dark Souls who is famous for killing dragons. He is extremely fast, and he uses abilities to impale and heave enemies with his spear. One special ability of the spear is the capability to shoot lightning bolts at the expense of damaging the weapon. In Dark Souls, this damage is not permanent and can be fixed by any competent smith. The in-game flavor text accompanying the weapon is as follows:

Cross spear born from the Soul of Ornstein, a Dragonslayer guarding Anor Londo cathedral. Inflicts lightning damage; effective against dragons. Two-handed thrust relies on cross and buries spear deep within a dragon's hide, and sends human foes flying.

In GURPS terms, this seems like a divinely powered weapon with a special follow up of burning, shocking damage.

Statting It Out

First let's start with the fact that it is definitely a spear. In Dark Souls, it is relatively heavy for a spear, so let's use the stats for a Heavy Spear from Martial Arts. I'm going to use Low-Tech this time for some numbers. The weapon is especially well decorated so we will say it gets +4 CF, or Cost Factor, which effectively means adding 400% to the base price of the weapon. This gives a +2 to reaction rolls mechanically as the weapon is impressive to behold.

We will also add 49 to the CF for a Very Fine Spear, this will add +2 to the impaling damage and make it harder to break.

It has hooks on the side that do not look sharp, which adds a flat $25 and no weight according to Martial Arts.

After everything is done, the mundane spear before enchantment is $4,975.00, weighs 6 lbs, and does thr+6 imp damage. It is capable of using hook techniques, and gives a +2 reaction. Other stats are similar to the Heavy Spear described in Martial Arts.

Now, let's see what we can do for the special effects. Starting with the easiest one, we need a small follow-up shocking burn attack. I want it to be +2 burning, so looking at the Innate Attack entry in Basic Set, we see that for Partial Dice on this burning attack it is 0.25 levels for each unit of damage, so 2 HP is 2.5 points. It is a follow-up instead of its own attack, divine, and induces shocking. So statting that out we get:

Spear Follow-up (+40%): Innate Attack (Burning) 1/2 (Follow-Up +0%; Divine -10%; Side Effect, Stunning, +50%) [4]

This comes out to 3.5 points total, rounded up to 4. Now, for the projectile attack, lets keep it simple and say it is a 3d impaling electrical move that damages the weapon. 24

Lightning Projectile (+50%): Innate Attack (Impaling) 3 (Divine -10%; Side Effect, Stunning, +50%, Surge +20%, Incendiary +10%, Costs Hit Points 2 -20%) [36]

This ability uses the spear's own HP, which is equal to its HT. Rules for repairing a damaged weapon can be found in The Basic Set on page 484.

This is an even 36 points. With the follow-up attack we have a total of 39.5 points. Using the craft modifier for sorcery, this adds up to 18 EP, Enchantment Points. This only requires $100 worth of raw materials, so we are safe here. Enchantment Labor is $5,760, and likely to take just shy of 4 months.

In the end this weapon, at retail, probably costs $16,495.00 in a TL3 setting and requires 18 EP.

Conclusion

This is a powerful, but expensive and heavy weapon. It has extra options owing to its hooks, and can fire lightning bolts. Lightning bolts cause the spear to deteriorate though, and can require expensive maintenance in terms of money. Even without using that ability, this spear requires great strength to wield gracefully as it is unbalanced, but if someone is strong enough, it can be extremely deadly.