Why did the PC find the intelligent sword?

[AlexanderHowl]

Exalted has a 2nd circle demon that takes the shape of a spear who takes over its wielder, so there is precedence.

[khorboth]

A thought on your sword:

When the sword was used to strike down a priest of the same god as the paladin, the priest gave his power (but not personality) to the sword. Now, the sword cannot be held by undead or demons. Deprived of his weapon, the demon was defeated and the sword was lost, though more powerful.

The god, however, knew where it was. The god then gives a PC the task to rescue a paladin and help him in his quest. At the end of the dungeon, the PCs find out that the paladin is a sword. They are amused or angry as their nature dictates but still have the quest to help the paladin complete his quest to kill the lich.

It's a little high-handed, but gods can do that. The paladin can straight-up bargain his services in exchange for the party or his wielder adhering to a code. Or maybe checking on his family.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

The archetypal intelligent sword to my recollection was Stormbringer - other connoisseurs of early fantasy literature can probably recall others of similar "source" vintage. That was certainly not a good model for something you want in a roleplaying campaign - but got kitchen sinked into "that RPG" and became a core trope in fRPGs as a result.

However thematically cool it might be in literature for a sword to have its own agenda - let alone hijack the protagonist - your players will probably hate you for it in a game. The alternative - a sword which is merely either silly or annoying is scarcely better and smacks of kid-and-robot sci-fi.

But if you can figure out a way to make it work with your group, why not?

Intelligent items in general abound in literature. The One Ring is probably the most popular.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Intelligent items in general abound in literature. The One Ring is probably the most popular.

I've used Tolkien's style as part a few artifacts in past games. There's the suggestion of intelligence and certainly of a will, but no cartoony voices and verbal repartee. (Tolkien also had a quasi-sentient sword in The Silmarillion, Anglachel, but I don't remember many of the details there.)

I've never carefully statted one of these things out in GURPS terms, but I would basically have a list of bonus powers and detrimental effects that could apply depending on whether the item was being used in support or opposition to its own goals.

[Black Leviathan]

I appreciate well-crafted explanation but it's still very cinematic. The Lich would actually be going to greater effort to keep his enemy around where he could come back to defeat him again rather than to give him his Final Rest and ensure he cannot be brought back. That said, it's about as good of an explanation as it gets. The idea of swords with opinions is an admittedly silly sci-fi idea like planet busting bombs with their own AI or training dinosaurs to plow your fields.

@AlexanderHowl had drawn the comparision to a Soul Jar sword to an AI and that's really what it comes down to as a story element. A spirit trapped in an object would be there to make it smart or smarter than the person holding it. For a sword that wouldn't be required for swinging, but maybe it's needed for a dangerous magical ability you can't trust an idiot to use responsibly or as part of a great destiny that the sword understands it has to fulfill, like fitting into a sword-shaped lock at the appropriate moment of the future. Or perhaps it's just a formidable magic sword and the Soul Jar spirit is just there to counsel whoever holds it to pursue the politics it's maker wanted that sword to fight for, constantly pressuring the holder to take up the battles of the Enchanters guild.

[Varyon]

There are plenty of in-setting reasons for an intelligent sword. Binding the soul of an ally/friend can allow him/her to live on in a sense if resurrection magic isn't available. Stealing abilities from a foe to place into a weapon may by necessity require you to bind their soul to the weapon. Torture and sheer sadism also make sense - sure, you're running the risk of the weapon being one day turned against you, but capital-E Evil characters do all kinds of stupid stuff for teh evulz. With an unkillable foe, sometimes the only way to stop them is by turning them into Sealed Evil (or Good, Law, Chaos, Neutral, Squid, Bunny...) in a Can, and either the Can can be a sword to start with (like the Soul Reaver in Legacy of Kain), or it can be something else that some idiot later comes up with the bright idea of incorporating into a sword (Blackshard, from the webcomic Darken, was a skinchanger who was imprisoned in a gem, that someone later bound to a weapon). The intelligent weapon could even be an experiment - in Warbreaker (and now The Stormlight Archives), Nightblood was an experiment in using magic to Awaken steel.

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by Neophyte42

...bind the spirit of the paladin to his own sword. So the sword has a drive to vanquish evil, and is especially irritated at said lich.

Knowing this, the lich bound the spirit of his necromancer apprentice (whom the paladin slayed on that fateful day) to the scabbard of the sword...

I ship it.

I don't see the Paladinsword being much use to a Death Knight - it will turn in his hand at the first opportunity, and its powers won't be much use against innocents. The Death Knight might use it anyway, because it's a statement of his skill and power that he doesn't need a serviceable blade, and he defies your gods.

I imagine encountering a scene in which the Death Knight is curb stomping some pathetic adventuring group or city militia, all the while apparently monologing "See another 'good' man dies, does Thor save him? It is you who struck him down. Do you like the taste of his heartblood? Lets give you some more. Did Thor help that time? Oh he's going to try to parry, hm... no Thor yet." All the while the blade groans like a stressed cable.

The party could leap in to try to save the adventurers, but if they apply skills and knowledge first they might notice he's talking to the sword, and that the sword would make a great weapon to defeat the death knight.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Engurrand

I ship it.

Sword and scabbard. Doesn't take much of a stretch, I suppose.

Originally Posted by Engurrand

I don't see the Paladinsword being much use to a Death Knight - it will turn in his hand at the first opportunity, and its powers won't be much use against innocents. The Death Knight might use it anyway, because it's a statement of his skill and power that he doesn't need a serviceable blade, and he defies your gods.

Depends on how much/if the spirit is able to influence the sword and the surroundings. If the soul is a captive without any ability to control the sword, but still lends it certain abilities (healing of the wielder, enhanced durability/damage, etc), it could prove useful in the hands of even one it hates. It may be particularly useful if the death knight goes to war against the lich's rivals, as the sword is likely to be particularly suited for destroying undead (at least, the ones the death knight can't use the scabbard to command) and other evil creatures.

To make the weapon more interesting, the paladin could learn over time to influence the sword in certain ways, with the apprentice learning similarly with the scabbard. If the two were to come to an accord, they could have some ability to dictate who wielded them, and what they were wielded for. If they don't come to an accord, then unless the two can be separated you'll have a long string of owners who were fatally betrayed by either sword (for not rising up to the paladin's standards) or scabbard (for not descending down to the necromancer's standards).

[Engurrand]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Depends on how much/if the spirit is able to influence the sword and the surroundings. If the soul is a captive without any ability to control the sword, but still lends it certain abilities (healing of the wielder, enhanced durability/damage, etc), it could prove useful in the hands of even one it hates.

When I hear 'Paladin' I think "Pact Limitation." If the Paladin's power supply is extrinsic, ie flow from their God, then that God will simply revoke the abilities when an axiomatically opposed entity attempts to use them. If the powers are intrinsic, I permanent gifts from their God, that's a different story of course.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Engurrand

When I hear 'Paladin' I think "Pact Limitation." If the Paladin's power supply is extrinsic, ie flow from their God, then that God will simply revoke the abilities when an axiomatically opposed entity attempts to use them. If the powers are intrinsic, I permanent gifts from their God, that's a different story of course.

You can have more complicated situations, of course. DnD comes to mind immediately, where fallen Paladins who become Blackguards actually gain benefits from their otherwise-useless Paladin levels (similarly, a Cleric who starts worshipping another god stays just as powerful, but with a different portfolio), implying there's something internal to it, but there still needs to be some sort of divine empowerment to use it. You could potentially also have an odd case where the sword represents a loophole in the divine contract, basically stealing power from the god for use by his/her enemies (a sword cannot be held responsible for what is done with it, so the god cannot terminate his end of the bargain because the soul he empowered isn't at fault). The abilities of the weapon could also be unrelated to the fact that the imprisoned soul once belonged specifically to a paladin, instead being appropriate for any man (or woman) who is powerful, a warrior, and/or a force for good that is bound to a sword by evil magic.