Thousand Knight Weapon (3.5e Equipment)

Thousand Knight Weapon
"With a flash of green light, the longsword vanished and only the gauntlet remained, flickering with faint flames for a moment."

Like most artifacts, a thousand knight weapon isn't a single weapon, but rather a group of weapons enchanted with the same power. Unfortunately, in modern times, the secrets used to make these weapons has been lost, but the enduring enchantment of these weapons remains.

Introduction
A base thousand knight weapon is a +1 magical weapon with a peculiar special enchantment. It is this special enchantment that allows it to do unusual things. This weapon can leech enchantments from other magical weapons into itself to improve its own enhancement bonus as well as leech special enchantments (such as the Keen special ability). Let it be noted that it cannot leech from intelligent weapons or weapons attended to by others. As normal, a thousand knight weapon may still be enhanced via typical means for magical weapons.

Attuning
The wielder of a thousand knight weapon may attune himself to it with an hour of training. Once attuned, the wielder instinctually knows how to use the weapon to draw power from other magical weapons as noted below.

When attuned, the wielder can cast identify 1/hour with a command.

Empowering Itself and Leeching Other Weapons
This magical leeching requires that the thousand knight weapon be held by the wielder. The weapon to be leeched and the thousand knight weapon must be touching for one full hour as he casts identify. Once the hour is complete, the wielder must be able to identify the weapon to be leeched in order to proceed (since other artifacts cannot be identified, he cannot leech from them). Once identified, the wielder may choose which enchantments to leech. If he reduces a weapon to remove all of its base enhancements, the leeched weapon vanishes in a flash of light and is lost forever.

Increasing Enhancement
To increase the enhancement value of a thousand knight weapon, it must leech off of a weapon with a higher enhancement value. Doing so minimally drains the leeched weapon of a value equal to the thousand knight weapon's current enhancement value +1. Special abilities measured in values of gold pieces are not calculated into this equation. The wielder of a thousand knight weapon may choose to leech a higher value if such a higher value is possible.


 * Example: The thousand knight weapon currently has a +2 enhancement bonus and the wielder identifies a +5 light mace and decides to leech from it. The thousand knight weapon must minimally leech a value of +3 from the light mace, leaving it as a +2 weapon. The thousand knight weapon would then become a +3 weapon.
 * However, the wielder of the thousand knight weapon may also drain off all +5 from the light mace to become a +5 weapon itself. Though, if he does so, the light mace, without any base enhancement value, is completely leeched and vanishes in a flash of light (even if the light mace had remaining special ability enchantments, such as Flaming).

Gaining Special Ability Enchantments
A thousand knight weapon may also leech special ability enchantments. Special ability enchantments come in two varieties: those measured in costs of total enchantment value of the weapon, and those with set prices in gold pieces. These two varieties are treated differently.

A thousand knight weapon only has so much "room" on it for special ability enchantments. We'll call these "slots". A thousand knight weapon gains more slots by completely leeching weapons with more filled slots that it has total slots.


 * Example: A base thousand knight weapon has 1 slot, which is filled with its +1 enhancement. Enhancement slots are always filled whenever it gains a greater enhancement, but special ability slots can be left open, or filled, at the will of the wielder of a thousand knight weapon. A base thousand knight weapon leeches a +1 longsword of Shock. In order to gain a second slot to fit the Shock (a +1 value special ability), the wielder must leech the longsword's +1 enhancement as well, since he must minimally drain a leeched weapon of a value equal to the thousand knight weapon's current enhancement value +1. The longsword is completely drained, and then vanishes.
 * After leeching the longsword, the thousand knight weapon gains a second slot to be filled by the Shock special ability. Additionally, an attuned wielder may choose to "remove" any special abilities by focusing on the weapon for 1 hour, leaving open slots to be later filled from other leechings. Special Abilities removed in this fashion are lost forever.

For special abilities valued in gold pieces, the wielder of a thousand knight weapon may leech a total of 500 gp worth per +1 enhancement of his weapon. As normal, he must minimally drain a leeched weapon of a value equal to the thousand knight weapon's current enhancement value +1.

A thousand knight weapon may not have duplicate special abilities. Duplicate special abilities are automatically excluded, as are any enhancements that cannot be enchanted upon a weapon of its given type (such as Throwing on a bow), though, the thousand knight weapon may still gain open slots from these special abilities where applicable.


 * Example: A thousand knight gauntlet eventually becomes a +2 Holy (a +2 valued special ability) thousand knight gauntlet with an open special ability slot (a total value of +5). The wielder finds, and wants to leech a +3 Keen Ghost Touch Undead Bane rapier (valued at a total +6 value). So, he first wants that +3 enhancement, so he knows the weapon will be completely leeched in the process. He can't keep the Keen special ability, because his gauntlet deals bludgeoning damage, so he instead automatically gains a slot used for something else. His thousand knight gauntlet, after the hour of focus, completely leeches the rapier and becomes a +3 Holy gauntlet with an open slot for either Ghost Touch or Undead Bane. He chooses Undead Bane, filling his now available 6 slots (3 with enhancement and 3 with special abilities). The Ghost Touch is simply lost.
 * Optionally, in the process, he could choose to drop Holy and gain Ghost Touch and Undead Bane in its place, leaving him still with an open slot.

The whole process might look something like this:

The thousand knight weapon takes on small changes in appearance after it has completely leeched a weapon, such as polish, gemstones or design detailing.

Curses and Drawbacks
Curses and drawbacks automatically transfer over to the thousand knight weapon (regardless of how much of the weapon was leeched off) unless the thousand knight weapon ends up with curses or drawbacks of a conflicting nature, in which case there is a 50% chance they cancel each other out and a 50% chance that the new curse or drawback is ignored.

Final Notes
Thousand knight weapons have a tendency to weaken over long ages when unused. If left unused for over 100 years, a thousand knight weapon reverts to its base form, as presented here.

To determine this weapon randomly, see: Table: Weapon Type Determination and the following tables. Often, thousand knight weapons are made from special materials.