Revenant Blade
1d4S·Simple·Knife·One-handed
Runes +1, striking, decaying
The mortal agents of powerful necromancers are a varied lot, but they tend to share two things in common: a deep and abiding fear of death, and a desperate hope that loyalty to their foul masters might be rewarded with some means of transcending it. To most of these wretched souls, this simple +1 striking sickle is as close as they will ever come to realizing that desire.
Revenant blades are usually created in large numbers to arm a necromancer's mortal troops before sending them into battle, and despite their name, they can be crafted from whichever base weapon is best suited for the expected conflict. Whatever form it takes, every revenant blade is adorned in some way with a small gem of deep black onyx. When you invest in the weapon, a small portion of your soul is transferred into the gem, bonding it to you and granting the weapon the effects of the Decaying rune for as long as it remains invested.
Should you die in battle while invested in a revenant blade, its gem shatters, and your corpse rises 1 round later to continue the fight. You become an undead creature under the GM's control, although you generally retain the motivations and loyalties you had in life. The GM chooses what type of undead you become, selecting an appropriate undead creature that has a level no greater than your level – 5, to a minimum of 0. You can't be raised from the dead by any means short of a wish ritual until your undead form is destroyed.
Traits
The multiple attack penalty you take with this weapon on the second attack on your turn is -4 instead of -5, and -8 instead of -10 on the third and subsequent attacks in the turn.
You can use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls using this melee weapon. You still use your Strength modifier when calculating damage.
A character can invest only 10 magical items that have the invested trait. None of the magical effects of the item apply if the character hasn't invested it, nor can it be activated, though the character still gains any normal benefits from wearing the physical item (like a hat keeping rain off their head).
Something with the magical trait is imbued with magical energies not tied to a specific tradition of magic. Some items or effects are closely tied to a particular tradition of magic. In these cases, the item has the arcane, divine, occult, or primal trait instead of the magical trait. Any of these traits indicate that the item is magical.
You can use this weapon to Trip with the Athletics skill even if you don't have a free hand. This uses the weapon's reach (if different from your own) and adds the weapon's item bonus to attack rolls as an item bonus to the Athletics check. If you critically fail a check to Trip using the weapon, you can drop the weapon to take the effects of a failure instead of a critical failure.
Effects with this trait heal undead creatures with void energy, deal void damage to living creatures, or manipulate void energy.
The target takes 1d6 persistent bleed damage. You gain an item bonus to this bleed damage equal to the weapon's item bonus to attack rolls.