Austen’s Fang
Description: in appearance Austen’s Fang is a pretty little thing, while at the same time being a repellant little thing. Strictly speaking, it’s more of a misericorde than a stiletto: the green blade is thinner and longer than you’d expect it to be and still be functional; the black hilt is very short; and the tarnished silver cross-guard is almost non-existent. Austen’s Fang does register as magical in scans, but not on sight.
Yes, ‘Austen’ as in Jane Austen. This was reputedly her favorite enchanted stiletto. There’s not really any sort of evidence that she ever personally murdered anybody with it, mind you; but Austen’s Fang has killed at least three hundred people in the last two hundred years, which does make one wonder. Especially since it really is an enchanted weapon.
Don’t be so surprised. Look, what do people actually know about Jane Austen? She wrote a bunch of books, yes. Never married, died relatively young, the primary source for her life is a Victorian biography written fifty years after her death; there’s not much to go on, and what there was has been openly sanitized. But there’s still Austen’s Fang. And, trust me, the occult community is well-aware of it, and its history. After all, the Fang has killed enough of them.
Austen’s Fang is very specifically a weapon for assassinating mages, in fact. Aside from the usual enchantments that keep it from rusting or losing its edge, anyone stabbed with the Fang immediately loses the ability to speak, communicate, and read. The effect only lasts for about five seconds or so, but that is typically enough time for the attacker to pull out the Fang and stab her victim again, which resets the process There are defenses against this: Austen’s Fang can be deflected by the right spells. But being stabbed by the Fang is still enough to immediately disrupt any ongoing spell that requires chanting, gestures, or even concentration. And, of course, once the stabbing begins the mage will mostly likely not be able to cast any new spells.
The magical community keeps muttering about how they’re going to destroy this artifact; but somehow, they never do.
Does slicing someone’s cheek also remove their ability to speak and read? I can imagine using this to torture people if so.
No doubt the inability of the magical community to destroy the weapon is also part of the enchantment.
“Look, what do people actually know about Jane Austen?”
She was also kidnapped by an evil alien overlord, and ultimately freed by the President of the United States of America, as shown in the documentary, Saints Row IV.
Typo in last sentence of paragraph 3. (missing an n)
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Please remove this comment once typo is corrected to preserve the sites’ air of grammatical infallibility.
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Mew