What is a Vorpal Sword?????????

[BG4evadude]

Someting that made me curious.

What is a Vorpal Sword?????????

Dont insult me for this.

[Boris]

In D&D/BG, a Vorpal Blade (not necessarily a sword - might be an axe or halberd) is a weapon capable of beheading (thus killing, usually) an opponent with a single hit, regardless of HP, etc.
The exact mechanism varies - with the Silver Sword, it's a 10% chance plus the victim must fail a saving throw (if memory serves), with the Ravager, it's a straight 10% chance per hit.

In original edition D&D the Vorpal Blade was specifically a Holy Sword, useable only by Paladins, which gave the weilder high Magic Resistance as well as beheading on all to-hit rolls of 18+! Ah, those were the days...

The term comes from the poem Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carol -
"The vorpal blade went snicker-snack..."
Where he got it from, I've no idea. He was a very weird guy...

[fable]

Originally posted by Boris
The term comes from the poem Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carol -
"The vorpal blade went snicker-snack..."
Where he got it from, I've no idea. He was a very weird guy...

He wasn't that weird. He was a Church of England cleric, a theoretical mathematician of minor ability, and a writer of varying skill. When he wrote whimsically on either of his two favorite themes--math, or the world of children--then his love of humor and fantasy broke through. When he wrote directly for the Victorian adults of his generation, he was boring and condescending. The Victorian love for nonsense verse and parody made a big success of the light poetry in the Alice novels; and Jabberwocky is a straightforward parody on Beowulf and similar epics, with key words deliberately replaced by nonsensical ones to make the epical emotion seem vaguely ridiculous.

[nephtu]

The Annotated Alice is a very rewarding read - IIRC Charles Martin (of the paleozoic Mathematical Recreations column in Scientific American) put it together - it includes groovy stuff like the source poems where there are specific ones that he parodied, as in "'Twas the voice of the lobster" and "How doth the little crocodile", as well as a mass of supporting material - and Jabberwocky en francais and auf deutsch

[Sir Redweed]

Boris

I love your referencing the original D&D not to many old timers left out there.

Fable

Thanks for the lit/history lesson. Definately something I did not know.

What doesn't kill you will make you stronger.

[Mirk]

wow, and i used to think that being on this board is a bad childish habit i must fight against...

[Sir Redweed]

Never fight the child within you. Besides it gives you something to do at the office.

[fable]

Originally posted by Sir Redweed
Never fight the child within you. Besides it gives you something to do at the office.

Got that right. Mirk, Sir Redweed, check out the Speak Your Mind (SYM) forum on this board, if you want to go slumming in some of the lowest and classiest spam dives. We've got lawyers, scientists, college attendees, writers, artists, junior high school folks--all of them throwing out nonsense to one another. It's heaven.

Incidentally, to keep this post unspammy, there are quite a few literature references in other RPGs. You just need to know what to look for. Usually, it's nothing more than a name out of a book, or a title. As an example, an inn in the RPG classic, Betrayal at Krondor, was named The Green Cat. I spoke with the producer and actually accused him of being another fan of Fritz Leiber (the great fantasy author, whose most enduring creation were the novels featuring Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser). He laughed, and acknowledged it. The Green Cat was one of the less well known Leiber works.

[Fer'or]

Sorry to bump up an old topic, but I figured this would be better than to open a new topic about the same blades.

Where can I find these blades, and do they work against every opponent?

[garazdawi]

The vorpal weapons I can recall on the top of my head are the ravanger (which u get in the underdark IIRC) and the silver sword (forged from silver hilt and silver blade). Hope that helps, see the walkthrough for a location of the silver sword parts...

[Fer'or]

I'll see if I can find them.

Thanks

[nephtu]

Silver Sword (as described) -
Axe of the Unyielding (ToB - Watcher's Keep + upgrade)
Ravager I remember as ToB, but I could be mistaken
Planetars also have (non-droppable) vorpal weapons

Many bosses are immune to vorpal effects, for obvious reasons.

[garazdawi]

Ravager +4 (HALB10)
Location(s)
[ToB] Yaga-Shura's Lair (Level Two) - Loot from Imix

just check the walk thorugh, I was thinking of the Blackmist +4 halbeard.