Vesper's Rapier
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| This elegant blade is tinged blue, a color repeated in the facets of three cabochons set in the crossguard. Scaly green-black leather wraps a hilt seemingly made of woven, hair-thin metallic fibers. BARDIC As shameless a self-promoter as any bard ever was, Vesper arrogantly held his own legend above that of any other. In doing so, though, he effectively obscured the most remarkable element of a life full of adventures, renaming his stolen sword after himself. For ages untold, both those past and those still to come, Vesper's Rapier didn't belong to Vesper—it belonged to Shyka the Many, one of the Eldest. Belonging not to one individual but to an untold number, the name “Shyka” is a title held by all who have ever and will ever claim the name and its position of rulership among the Eldest. This multitude shares dominion over Shyka's realm anachronistically, allowing each the opportunity to rule for short periods at all points in existence, from the ancient past to modern times to the distant future. Most who visit Shyka's realm find the seemingly ageless being different with every visit, sometimes changing mid-conversation. So it was when Vesper entered Shyka's realm, where he met Shyka as a being with rust-colored skin and hair like fire. Unlike most visitors, however, Vesper found that Shyka had been waiting for him. Cryptically, the Eldest informed the mortal that his time hadn't yet come, that he still had much to learn on Golarion, and that if he was to survive to his “determined moment,” he would need a protector. With that, Shyka granted Vesper his blade, a weapon that was at once his and also a host of swords carried by all those who were and would be Shyka. In Vesper's hands, the weapon took the shape of a rapier—the weapon of one of Shyka's incarnations that the blade mistook him for. Vesper's travels eventually led him back to Golarion and to numerous other well-documented adventures. Despite Shyka's prophetic words, Vesper's life ended on the waters of Mist Lake in Bloodsworn Vale, when a group of demonic assassins ambushed him seemingly without provocation. Vesper's Rapier somehow eluded the demons, though, and years later turned up at the Pathfinder lodge in Woodsedge for a brief period. The weapon proves maddeningly difficult to track, as its shape—but not its rich decorations—changes from wielder to wielder. |
RAMIFICATIONS
Any who claim Vesper's Rapier find themselves embroiled in a mystery spanning lives and ages.
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