The Twisted Spear

Tags: reach, magical

A knobby length of wood, pale as death and hard as steel, tapering to a needle point. The shaft is scored and notched, the tip stained with blood and soot.

The Spear is a potent weapon against spirits and demons. They cannot bear its touch, and its presence makes them deeply ill at ease.

When you wield the Twisted Spear as a weapon, you ignore magical protections and can harm spirits, demons, and insubstantial creatures.

When you first plunge the Spear into a spirit or demon, your mind reels with strange visions. These tasks become known to you:

• Impale a foul spirit with the Spear, and keep it skewered until it burns away to nothing.
• Visit the elder tree from which the Spear was carved, and water its roots with your blood.
• Face the Pale Hunter and survive the encounter.
• Spend a fortnight in the wild, eating nothing, naked and unarmed except for the Spear.
• Pierce your own hand through with the Spear, giving it a shard of your soul and reducing your max HP by 1d4+1.

When you complete a task, mark it off.

Tasks: ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

When you have marked 3 tasks, you unlock the mysteries of the Twisted Spear. Choose one of the moves below; you can use that move as long as you wield the Spear. Each time you mark a task thereafter, gain another move.

Mysteries

WHISPERS

When you grip the shaft of the Twisted Spear, you can ask the GM "What spirits are active here?" and get an honest answer.

PROMISE OF DOOM

When you hold the Twisted Spear and speak aloud an oath to destroy a spirit or demon, you do +2d4 damage against them and −4 damage to everything else. This lasts until you destroy them or forsake your oath. If you forsake your oath, mark a consequence.

ROOTS OF THE ELDER TREE

When you stand with your feet firmly on the ground and strike a spirit, ghost, or demon, you can mark a consequence to send your target coursing through you and into the depths of the earth, where it is bound fast.

DARKNESS LINGERS

When you strike down a spirit or demon, ask the GM for one of its moves and write it down; it is held in the Twisted Spear. When you use the stolen move, roll:

• On a success with a 6, you do it, just like that.
• On a success with no six, you do it, but choose 1:
  • The move is lost, bleeding away from the Spear
  • Mark a consequence

Consequences

• Deep beneath the elder tree from which the Spear was carved, something dark and terrible shifts and strains at the roots that bind it.
• From now on, the first time you Make Camp each session, roll:
  • On a success with a 6, your dreams are unpleasant and claustrophobic, but your sleep is restful.
  • On a success with no six, you dream of that which is bound by the elder tree from which the Spear was carved — take disadvantage on your next roll, but ask the GM what you learn.
  • On a bust, the thing bound by the tree sees you, too. You awake, unrested, and will get no rest this night.
• You are overwhelmed by a vision of the thing bound by the Spear's tree, its past and its terrible desires.
• The elder tree from which the Spear was carved shudders and cracks, still whole but wounded and weakened.
• A lesser evil escapes from the roots of the tree. Ask the GM what is now loose in the world.
• The tree grows sick and weak, losing its leaves and sprouting only a few in spring.
• Some natural thing is tainted by the dark power beneath the tree, and goes forth to wreak evil.
• The tree dies. Its prisoners escape. And the Spear loses all power.