Swordtember – guardian

Eyes Of The Moon

A shimmering silver sword — a silvery longsword, mounted in same, its grip engraved with overlapping scales (or maybe feathers?), its quillions slightly spiraled and capped with small silver spheres, its pommel a moonstone that changes its face as the moon does.

A silver sword just a little awkward to fight with, perhaps, as its blade is loosely, perpetually garlanded in indigo-blue cords and strings of tiny silver bells.

But that’s alright; the Eyes Of The Moon isn’t looking for battle. Not like that.

* Bells and garlands notwithstanding, one can fight with Eyes; there’s no great bonus to gain while doing so, however, as the blade is effectively simply a well-made longsword. It does bypass lycanthropic immunities, that said.

Kept at one’s side is where Eyes Of The Moon belongs, where it can gently whisper advice about one’s situation (it is a wise sage in matters of courtliness, politeness, gift-giving, falsehoods and white lies, and the whims of nobility in general and lunar highborn in particular) and — should its bearer actually be threatened — will animate and attack of its own accord in a nimbus of silver-white, interposing itself to block blows (armour as plate mail) and to disrupt underhanded spellcasting (2-in-6 chance to detect such, attacking caster if possible). Eyes will also watch over a sleeping bearer, hovering silently at times or perhaps murmuring soothing melodies.

* Though the Eyes Of The Moon can and sometimes does relate small anecdotes about former bearers (usually incorporated into its advice), no comment is made about the origin or creation of the sword save for the avowal that it, indeed, stems from the moon itself. The Eyes also retains a lingering affinity for its prior bearers and will absolutely refuse to cooperate with any who have claimed it by simply snatching it from its bearer’s cooling corpse or taken it away from a home — or grave — without cause or negotiation.

Some of the stories swirling around the blade include the exploits of Maruek Lightweaver, a sixth-son who came to carry the sword, the time an assassination attempt at a treaty-signed was thwarted by Eyes and the swift-thinking lady who listened to her blade’s warning, and the snow-silver figure of the Winter Knight, first known to have carried Eyes Of The Moon — and wore the bells in their hair that seem a very great deal like those now garlanding the blade.