The bow is a highly intelligent weapon, with memories and plans. The wielder of the bow is a brainless zombie, who is still perfectly capable of wielding the weapon. Together, they're an NPC.
Lyuk Bowen was an archer in the employ of Long-Lord Dunlove Strattett of Bone-River. First-ranked among the Long-Lord's two hundred fifty archers, Lyuk Bowen's skills were well known by those who lived during those times. His dead-eye aim was celebrated by allies and respected by foes. After some time he lost his birth and family name and simply became known as 'the archer', by friend and foe alike.
Though the Long-Lord was warned of the vile wizardry in the employ of his greatest enemy, Long-Lord Dayce Kime of Gray-Heap, Strattett nonetheless ordered a full-on assault on the Gray-Heap's main castle.
Such is the fate of most leaders; they do not sew what they reap. While Strattett sat safe astride his mount, a mile away from the bloody battle, issuing orders and gauging the scene, men like Lyuk Bowen the archer, fought the good fight, peppering the castle walls with their arrows and taking enemy fire in turn.
Eventually the wizard of Gray-Heap, a rare commodity in those times, appeared atop of the city walls, and began screaming in some dead language, gesturing wildly like an epileptic on fire.
What spell was cast by that shriveled sorcerer that day is still unknown. Bedlam ensued, as green fire and blue lightning rained upon Long-Lord Strattett's men. Soldiers burned, melted, and screamed as the wave of arcana took its toll.
Suffice it to say that Long-Lord Strattett's army was routed that day. So many lay dead, that the Long-Lord barely escaped with his dozen personal guards, and few else. Many died in gruesome fashion, but not the archer, not exactly.
Lyuk Bowen was instead somehow tossed to the mercies of arcane chaos, as his soul and consciousness was transferred to his long bow of yew and ash. In turn, his long bow's 'soul', that is to say a mindless tool, was somehow transferred into the body of the archer.
Three days later, chasing ravenous ravens away from its own corpse, the bow made the mindless flesh of the archer Lyuk Bowen arise, and quickly kill the scavengers of the battlefields. The body of Lyuk Bowen now walked forward dumbly, as the bow in his hands thought on its next move.
Lyuk Bowen the archer, to be clear, was now in the body of his bow, an 'intelligent weapon' so to speak, and the body of Lyuk Bowen, now a mindless husk of flesh, controlled by the very bow it wielded.
To this day the intelligent bow and the bow's mindless archer-of-flesh thrall, wander the countryside. Lyuk Bowen the bow, is having thoughts of revenge against his former master, Long-Lord Strattett and his wanton disregard for his own men, while the former body of Lyuk Bowen, now a zombie-slave to the bow, walks one step after the other as the bow speaks to it telepathically, moving the shooter along as need be.
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I was going to immediately suggest that I wanted more content, then saw that it was a 500 word challenge.
I like it.
Love the old school vibe, the crazy names draw me in, the hubris of the Long Lords and the hoary magic of the Grey Heap. I long to play an uncivilized barbarian in this setting.
I do have questions, of course, what happens if the corpse is destroyed? Can the bow raise another body to serve it, what happens if the bow falls into the hands of a PC, and and and.
Good submission.
Good questions. I should have written more here.
Actually, I think I gave the wrong impression with the 'corpse rising' stuff. I meant that the body of Lyuk Bowen survived the battle (though he lost consciousness there for a while literally and figuratively) and lives on as a normal looking man (not a literal zombie nor undead in any way, his flesh is not slowly rotting or anything ). But he is brainless. That is to say his brain is the equivalent of a wooden bow. Lol.
So he's a bag of flesh the bow controls with its thoughts, but not literally, since the flesh bag is brainless. The bow meanwhile, possessing Lyuk's memories and thoughts merely nudges the living husk along through unexplained magic, and perhaps some sort of latent muscle memory on the husk's part.
If the husk is killed the bow would be rather screwed as it can't move around on its own. I'm guessing the bow would eventually go mad too, and I don't mean the angry variety of mad.
Which brings us to what would happen when the the inevitable occurs and a PC gets her hands on the bow. I would imagine the dynamic would be similar to an intelligent weapon and its owner with the bow having its own thoughts, goals, and desires. But not having an overly large 'Ego' the bows influence wouldn't be of the corrupting variety on its wielder. After that, who knows. One thing it would definitely do is try to talk its new wielder into getting revenge against a certain Long Lord. Another thing it could do that just came to me, is actually teach it's new wielder archery and improve their ability with a bow.
Oh boy, I've typed too much and reading this back it doesn't quite make perfect sense to me lol
A pretty unique magical weapon.
A novel concept that has been executed rather well. I can imagine the chaos that would ensure if some PCs mistook this entity for a run of the mill zombie. Btw, would it be possible to communicate with this sentient bow?
Good one, a great platform
It is a little heavy on the history-the description of the battle is overly detailed, while the description of the current bow-zombie combo is underdeveloped.
A neat consequence for magic going awry. I like it!