DURINDANA
CHAPTER 3
ITEMS OF LEGACY Illus. by W. England
Ardtan held the vampire rooted to the spot until the Durindana is an austere longsword. Those familiar sun rose and disintegrated it. Shortly thereafter, the with the arts of the forge might recognize the church rewarded young Ardtan, enlisting him into the service of the order’s oldest and most craftsmanship as dwarven, but the style experienced paladin, Tram de Carnag. (DC of the blade is distinctly human. A faint 18; First Station of Saint Ardtan) tracery of Celestial script runs the length of the blade, naming the weapon Durindana During his years with Tram de Carnag, and proclaiming its role as the reliquary for Ardtan continued to demonstrate his piety and the fingerbones of Saint Ardtan. devotion. He possessed an uncanny ability to seek Nonlegacy Game Statistics: +1 longsword; out and destroy evil undead, while at the same Cost 2,315 gp. time helping more benign undead go to their afterlives. In faraway scablands, the pair disrupted Omen: The script on Durindana is intelligible to anyone, even if you are illiterate. In a necromantic cult of Nerull and rescued direct sunlight, the blade gleams with a many unfortunates who had been kidnapped and brainwashed by the sect. hard, sharp edge, as though it draws the sunbeams to it. Tram was slain during that battle. It then fell to Ardtan to return the old HISTORY knight’s body to Tram’s homeland Durindana is a blade sacred to the for proper burial. Ironically, Tram’s faith of Pelor, forged by a dwarf weapghost lingered behind, his need to comonsmith eighty years ago to house the finger plete Ardtan’s training being greater than his desire to move on to his reward. According to bones of the legendary undead-hunter, Saint Ardtan. Ardtan was slain defending a dwarf the lore of the church, Ardtan simply smiled at the spirit, and Tram saw the glories of Pelor stronghold from a plague of vampires. In gratitude for his sacrifice, the dwarf thane reflected in the boy’s face, instantly revealing presented the church of Pelor with this his task was long done. The old paladin let go of sword to honor the hero. When Ardtan was the concern fettering him to the physical world canonized several years later, the hilt of the and rose to Pelor’s side. (DC 25; Second Station sword was hollowed out to serve as a reliquary of Saint Ardtan) When he returned to his temple with Tram’s for the saint’s fingerbones. The church kept Durindana in its securest vaults, allowing it to body, Ardtan was hailed as a hero and a saint in be used only by the holiest persons and only the making. The church immediately knighted in times of dire need. Even though many of him. After receiving his spurs, Ardtan was informed of a dwarf settlement in the northern its wielders have died in battle, Durindana always finds its way back into the hands of mountains that was suffering a plague of mysterious deaths. The clerics of Moradin believed the church. (DC 15) the killings were the work of a vampire and, Saint Ardtan was raised as a ward of the having heard the tales of the renowned Ardtan church of Pelor, after his parents died in a of Pelor, requested the young paladin’s assistance. plague while he was still an infant. From an Ardtan waited only long enough to attend early age, Ardtan showed signs that Pelor’s favor was upon him. When he was eight years his mentor’s funeral before riding north. The dwarves greeted him with a hero’s welcome, old, Ardtan claimed that he could speak to the ghost of a former archdeacon of the temple in sure he would deliver them from the evil plaguwhich he was then living. Ardtan was able to ing their hold. When he finally did locate the source of the murders, Ardtan was taken by surhelp the archdeacon pass on a message to his prise. It was not one vampire, but an entire pack surviving family, resolving the ghost’s ties to the Material Plane and allowing him to asof the creatures at least twenty strong, Durindana is the revered weapon cend to his proper rest. When Ardtan with several more vampire spawn at their of a legendary undead slayer command. The battle was fierce, but even was ten, he snuck out of the temple to track down a vampire menacing the city. He cornered Ardtan could not stand against such numbers for long. the monster. Then, by pinning it with his fiery gaze, He fell, but at the instant of his death, a blinding flash
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