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I was thinking about black blades and the fact they have their own goals and motives which got me wondering what happens where that goal is either no longer being worked towards or fulfilled?
For the first scenario you have a 60 year old black blade magus who after years of battling to defend people has decided the injuries have built up too much and decided to retire. They buy a nice home in a city and settle in to enjoy their twilight years. Does the black blade just spend its entire time nagging them to get back out there and slay some goblins, does it vanish, does it just go dormant, something else?
Second scenario lets take it a step further and use wrath of the righteous here a black blade magus picks up a black blade with the purpose thwart Deskari's schemes. They go through the wrath of the righteous campaign and at the end thanks to the GM's adjustments the party permanently kills Deskari. His schemes are pretty thoroughly thwarted what with him being dead so what does the black blade do in this situation? Its purpose was to thwart his schemes and now its fulfilled does it just "die" becoming a normal weapon, does it go quiet never to speak again barring time travel chicanery, something else?
What do people think would happen in these scenarios? Personally I think the first scenario would be with the blade pushing the magus to get back out and fulfil its purpose while in the second it would still supply its abilities advice but otherwise just quietly and eternally watch for the situation to change and call it once more to the duty it was created for.
Generally, the goals and purpose of an intelligent weapon are usually open ended. So, instead of the goal being thwart a specific demon lord it would more likely be thwart demons. The weapon may undertake specific tasks to further the underlying goal, but once that task is completed it will look for new ways to accomplish its goals.
Intelligent weapons are just that intelligent. The minimum INT for a black blade is 11 and can go as high as 19. With those stats the blade is going to be able to realize that forcing an old character in combat is likely to get him killed and the sword may end up being in a situation where it has an unsuitable wielder or maybe even no wielder. They should be smart enough to realize that by waiting for a better situation is going to allow it to belter fulfill its mission than being stuck in a treasure hoard of some random monster. Since they are often passed down to characters of the same lineage it could even try and help the original character find a suitable mate so the next wielder can be born.
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You don't stay someones wielder that long without forming some sort of attachment to your user. I'd say best case scenario, the black blade just stays with its original user and becomes a family heirloom/guardian to make sure its users decedents become just as great as its original user. Or it can stay with the with the user until they finally die and then find a place for themselves to rest.
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I admit they are fairly open ended especially if you take something like "Defend your planet from outsiders" in wrath of the righteous as even after the campaign ends there'll be devils, demons and even angels who's actions make them a threat to Golarion and since its "planet" if you were to go somewhere like Earth (winter war) where outsiders are essentially stories the purpose would still continue with you watching for a threat from the outer planes. Still you can end them e.g. "Slay all goblins" would take a very long time but you could theoretically end it by killing all of them.
Its that theory I'm pondering when one can no longer pursue a goal either because you aren't able or because you have succeeded in it. What does the blackblade do then? Hang around reminiscing on the good old days when the worldwound gave it a reason to get up in the mornings and how this earth is so boring as there's not been an outsider on it since WW 1. Does it develop a new purpose as its intelligent? Does it just go quiet waiting and watching in case things change? Does it dissapear to another time/place when its services are needed? The ever popular something else?
Well, let’s consider what we know about a Black Blade:
1. It “… features some personality traits reflecting its wielder.”
2. It “… always as the same alignment as its wielder ...”
3. It “… typically works toward its wielder’s goals, but not always without argument or backlash.“
4. It becomes increasingly more intelligent, wise, and charismatic, and as it grows in power so does the total power and force of its personality.
Now, let’s recall what we know about Intelligent Items:
If the character who possesses the item is not true to … the item’s special purpose, personality conflict—item against character—results. Similarly, any item with an Ego score of 20 or higher always considers itself superior to any character, and a personality conflict results if the possessor does not always agree with the item.
Thus, by default, at level 17 a Black Blade considers its wielder to be a “partner” (per the Archetype’s description), but inferior to it.
When a personality conflict occurs, the possessor must make a Will saving throw (DC = item’s Ego). ... Should an item gain dominance, it resists the character’s desires and demands concessions such as …
- Obedience from the character so the item can direct where they go for its own purposes.
- Immediate seeking out and slaying of creatures hateful to the item.
- That the character relinquish the item to a more suitable possessor due to alignment differences or conduct.
And there are yet more extreme things an intelligent item can do.
With that in mind, in your first scenario, a Black Blade that has an open-ended mission and whose Magus is set on retiring may urge its wielder—and, if necessary, COMPEL him—to surrender it to someone worthy. At the other extreme, a Black Blade that was wielded by a ruthless and malevolent Magus may not ALLOW the wielder to go into retirement, and may instead force him to continue working toward its goals.
Given that a Black Blade can “sometimes just appear among the magus’s possessions,” it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that a Black Blade simply disappears when its wielder dies, only for it to reappear for another Magus.
To your second scenario, every special purpose listed in the Special Purpose Items table is deliberately open-ended, and the caveat offered by the Archetype is that it serve the needs of an adventure or campaign. Given that most Black Blades are secretive about their mission to begin with, the GM should have plenty of leeway to adjust a special purpose as needed.
The black blade being intelligent and having an agenda is basically a narrative hook. So anything a GM uses this for should be in service of "telling a good story." If the most satisfying thing is to tie together "the blade gets what it wants" and "the magus calls it a career" then you do that.
Since you could pretty easily say that if either party has unfinished business, they're going to draw the other one into it.
But it's also possible that the Black Blade might have an agenda that is simply not achievable in a mortal lifespan, so it might expect to jump from host to host, but if time isn't that pressing they can probably afford to hang out with their current holder well into old age.
Then again, the story you might want to tell could involve "the black blade can't find a new user until their current user dies, so the blade would strongly prefer you sacrifice yourself heroically instead of retiring" since "you are soulbound to an intelligent item that doesn't necessarily want what you want" shouldn't be the most comfortable thing in the world.
You could say that the black blade's power is not based on "how much power the actual entity that is the black blade has" but is more based on the harmony between the soul of the Magus and the Black Blade.
You could also say that "breaking an attachment and establishing a new one" is traumatic, and that the blade is only going to do this when this is the only way to pursue its goals (e.g. your previous user can no longer help, because they're dead.) So the blade is naturally de-powered when it's not attached to anyone. It could even have a somewhat parasitic relationship with its holder.
I will note that the "Hero comes out of retirement and sacrifices themselves to save the day" is a trope as old as Beowulf if not older so the Blade probably isn't going to mind too much if you move into a cabin in the woods and go fishing every day, because you never know when the hordes of the undead are going to come to you.
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So what about my second scenario? I'm fairly happy with the suggestions about dealing with retirement (just bides its time till its either passed on or called to duty one last time and functions as a symbiote growing stronger based on its bonded companion) but what happens when its duty is finally fulfilled or failed?
When every last goblin is dead and the species extinct or a town burnt to the ground and its people killed what happens to a blackblade that had that as its purpose? It exists to kill goblins but all goblins are dead? It exists to defend Hanabre but Hanabre is destroyed, its people dead and the smoldering ruins far behind enemy lines. How does a blackblade respond then?
The thing about a black blade being intelligent and having an agenda is that it's intelligent, so if its purpose becomes impossible it can figure out how to pivot. So if the black blade's goal is "protect something" and it becomes impossible to protect that thing because it has been destroyed, then the black blade probably decides that the thing to do is to go to great lengths to avenge the thing it failed to protect. So it might decide to end the lines of every soldier who razed the city, for example.
The black blade being an intelligent GM controlled entity means it's just like any other NPC in that the GM can decide to make decisions for the NPC that are consistent with what the GM believes the NPC is about.
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The thing about a black blade being intelligent and having an agenda is that it's intelligent, so if its purpose becomes impossible it can figure out how to pivot. So if the black blade's goal is "protect something" and it becomes impossible to protect that thing because it has been destroyed, then the black blade probably decides that the thing to do is to go to great lengths to avenge the thing it failed to protect. So it might decide to end the lines of every soldier who razed the city, for example.
The black blade being an intelligent GM controlled entity means it's just like any other NPC in that the GM can decide to make decisions for the NPC that are consistent with what the GM believes the NPC is about.
So your saying it'd find a way to bring the goblins back then keep a breeding population in captivity so it always have new goblins to slay rather than sinking into dormancy till something wakes it?
EDIT
To be clear as online removes tone this isn't sarcasm, you actually prompted a plot hook idea about a black blade dominating people generation after generation as it jelously guards a small population of some nearly extinct species and every year rewards itself with a sacrificial group of victims to fulfil its purpose. Said group of beings having come to view it as a god that protects them and every year some are honored by being claimed by their god.
The black blade is basically Stormbringer. Stormbringer exists in multiple dimensions so a black blade could also exist in multiple dimensions. So even if it fulfills its purpose in this dimension that does not mean it has fulfilled it in other dimensions. If it completed its goal in one place it would probably move to another place where it had not. Since there are infinite alternate dimensions, it can never really complete its mission.
So what about my second scenario?
...When every last goblin is dead and the species extinct or a town burnt to the ground and its people killed what happens to a blackblade that had that as its purpose? It exists to kill goblins but all goblins are dead? It exists to defend Hanabre but Hanabre is destroyed, its people dead and the smoldering ruins far behind enemy lines. How does a blackblade respond then?
There is no 1 answer to this question because the answer is, whatever the DM decides it is and there are alot of DMs. My answer to this specific example would be, how does the BB/magus KNOW that all goblins are dead? Some ideas;
goblins on other planes,do goblin souls count,
how about an unkillable goblin,
reincarnation into goblins
@Valandil
Which is why this is in advice not rules as I'm looking for advice on how to handle it.
So ultimately, if it's a case of the Magus retiring, you need to determine what personality traits the Black Blade has, and whether those would lean toward it going dormant, disappearing from his possession (and re-appearing in another Magus's possession), or forcing him to continue pursuing its singular purpose via the intelligent item rules.
If it's a case of the singular purpose have been completed (or on the verge of completion), you as the GM need to consider whether or not the goal you set was too limited. In that case, you may use your imagination to appropriately expand it ("Actually, it was goblinoids, not just goblins), expand its scope ("Follow me to a new world tormented by these creatures"), or shut the Black Blade down as part of the PC's retirement.
It should also be possible for the Magus to change the Black Blade's mind. A good magus whose blade wants to "kill all goblinoids" would probably see that agenda as straight up evil, and try to convince the item that a less genocidal kind of revenge is better.
If nothing eise than "you are a scimitar, I cast shocking grasp- we're unlikely to kill billions of people no matter how long we keep at this- goblins are spread over every continent and probably breed faster than we can kill them even if I stayed up all night every night stabbing."
The GM has to be willing to let the Black Blade reconsider some things (even if it's fundamentally not reasonable) because things might happen like "one of the other PCs is a goblin, and you don't want PvP."
Right, but avoiding those kinds of pitfalls is what we’re advocating. For example, the distinction between “destroy goblins” and “destroy all goblins” may be subtle, but it’s nonetheless massive: one is an open-ended imperative, while the other is a probably unattainable goal.
Since the black blade and the magus share the same alignment, they will not end up with alignment issues. So, unless the magus is evil the sword is not going to have a purpose that is evil. There may be some personality conflicts, but not alignment conflicts.
@Mark Hoover 330 as @Senko pointed out this was asked in the advice forum, not the rules. Your answer is actually correct in regard to the rules, but that is not really what is being asked. What @Senko seems to want is some ideas on how to handle the situation, which might me they are the GM. Saying the GM needs to handle it in that case is not really addressing the question.
While the black blade is a class feature of the archetype it should also have a history and personality. How it responds when it is unable to pursue its purpose is going to depend on its alignment and personality. There is no reason a black blade cannot have a history prior to the current wielder gaining it. Personally, I would its creation into the background of the magus. An item like this has too much potential to be ignored. I am not saying it should dominate the campaign or even the magus, but it should be an important part of the story. Figuring out why it has its purpose is likely going to determine how it will behave.