Item Seed: Gemul.

Gemul – Google Docs

Gemul

Description: A handmade dagger, made out of what appears to be a leaf spring from an automobile.  The edges are supernaturally sharp ,if a little irregular; and the ‘hilt’ is simply a section that has been heavily wrapped in duct tape. It looks like it should be about to rust, but never has.  It’s light to both hold and use, too. Scratched into the hilt are Hebrew letters that, when transliterated, spell out ‘Gemul.’

Behold Gemul!  Yes, that’s right!  This is the very dagger used to kill Walter Arnold Foehrkolb!

…Yeah, nobody else on the scene had ever heard of him, either.  Dude was one of those losers in something called the Silver Legion of America; it was a pre-World War II fascist group that never went anywhere, then popped out of existence right after Pearl Harbor.  Foehrkolb, who had been a minor functionary in the group, went on to have a gratifyingly unsatisfying life, right up to the point where he was found dead in a cheap Indianapolis apartment on July 5th, 1976.  The day before, somebody broke into his room, beat the elderly man to the point of serious internal injuries, and then shoved Gemul right through Foehrkolb’s heart.

The case was never solved, but Foehrkolb’s funeral was surprisingly well-attended; the psychic echo from the murder could be heard as far away as Chicago.  There was the usual entertaining little scuffle as the usual factions schemed against each other to smuggle Gemul away from the evidence locker — and, just as usual, it ended when a coalition of the largest players on the underground magical scene agreed to take joint custody of the item, in order to discreetly study it.

They’ve been doing that for over forty years now, and there’s a general consensus that Gemul used to have a lot of power associated with it, but not any more.  It’s not exactly broken, but it definitely doesn’t seem to be recharging.  It’s still fairly indestructible, supernaturally easy to wield, and so sharp that it cuts through magical wards — but Gemul currently does nothing that’s beyond the range of top-level enchanters.  Oh, and the shade of Foehrkolb doesn’t have a clue as to why he got murdered. Yes, researchers were both amoral enough, and curious enough, to go down that particular road. This mystery fascinates the higher-ups.

Today, Gemul is kept under reasonably secure lock and key, in a secret museum dedicated to such things.  Every so often somebody tries a new test or scrying, in the hope of finding out something new. They never do, but the state of the Art always advances.  Eventually they’ll figure it out, surely.