Help! Souls on weapons

[Moon]

I have gotten a weapon with 2 souls bound to it. A good souls and an evil soul. I want to separate the souls into two separate daggers by dividing the weapon through magic or other means. Is there a way to do this?

[mr beer]

Sounds like a GM decision and very much dependant on campaign settings and assumptions.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Moon

I have gotten a weapon with 2 souls bound to it. A good souls and an evil soul. I want to separate the souls into two separate daggers by dividing the weapon through magic or other means. Is there a way to do this?

This sounds rather like a custom magic item, in which case it's up to the GM (if you're doing this with GURPS Magic, you're dealing with two magic jar spells, and you just counterspell one of them to make the evil soul go away).

[Varyon]

There are few reasons to bind both a good and an evil soul to a weapon, and most of them are such that you wouldn't want them to be separated. Keeping them in close proximity, and likely wielding them together, is probably necessary if it's an option to split them apart.

As for splitting them, I'd say you'd need both a skilled weapon maker and a skilled enchanter (and/or necromancer, depending on the nature of the soulbinding enchantment). The armourer reforges the weapon into two smaller ones, while the enchanter/necromancer maintains the soulbinding and properly divides it up. This is likely to be dangerous - for obvious reasons with an evil soul bouncing around, and the good soul may have become somewhat unhinged as well (or "deranged from years of imprisonment," as it's said in Soul Reaver 2). It will not be cheap, and it would be appropriate for the GM to build a small quest around getting the workers, materials, etc to make it go smoothly.

[Black Leviathan]

Mechanically I would think this would just be casting Soul Jar on one of the souls, resisted by the spell level that the soul was originally attached.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by mr beer

Sounds like a GM decision and very much dependant on campaign settings and assumptions.

Absolutely this. Your GM is the final authority over whether or not this is possible and is well within their rights to assign you a whole campaign arc over it, assuming it is permitted at all. To paraphrase Chesterton, you had best be extremely certain why the sword was forged in the first place before you go breaking it.

Originally Posted by Varyon

There are few reasons to bind both a good and an evil soul to a weapon, and most of them are such that you wouldn't want them to be separated. Keeping them in close proximity, and likely wielding them together, is probably necessary if it's an option to split them apart.

As for splitting them, I'd say you'd need both a skilled weapon maker and a skilled enchanter (and/or necromancer, depending on the nature of the soulbinding enchantment). The armourer reforges the weapon into two smaller ones, while the enchanter/necromancer maintains the soulbinding and properly divides it up. This is likely to be dangerous - for obvious reasons with an evil soul bouncing around, and the good soul may have become somewhat unhinged as well (or "deranged from years of imprisonment," as it's said in Soul Reaver 2). It will not be cheap, and it would be appropriate for the GM to build a small quest around getting the workers, materials, etc to make it go smoothly.

I'm reminded of an old D&D 3.5 adventure, probably from Dungeon whereby the prison-tomb of something nasty was guarded by both an angel and a devil - similar ideas might work for various magic-squid. Dismantling the sword might well be a very bad idea indeed.
Also, remember that good doesn't always mean safe or nice - even if you can separate the two, the products may not be what you expect (say, for example, the good soul turns out to be a nearly ungovernable spirit of righteous anger whilst the evil one was a counterbalancing power of sloth and decay designed to keep it in check...).

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Also, remember that good doesn't always mean safe or nice - even if you can separate the two, the products may not be what you expect (say, for example

... that the good Captain Kirk becomes uncertain and indecisive, not to mention an excess of compassion rendering him gullible :)

The OP doesn't really say why the souls were bound or what the effect of binding souls to weapons is. The Soul Jar comments are apropos given that we know no more than that. But presumably the GM had some idea in mind, or at least there's a mechanical effect we don't know about (if it's one of those settings where all magic is done by binding or compelling spirits, at least in fluff text). So we can speculate and extrapolate, but the real conversation does have to happen with the GM.

[Prince Charon]

Aprapo of nothing much, this thread being right below the 'Gun Abuse' thread leads to weird thoughts, though really, it could be a concern, in-game. So could ensouled weapons that are abusive of their owners (not just physically, emotional abuse should also be taken very seriously).