[Dragaera] Great Weapons --- Spoilers

[J C]

I've been thinking about Great Weapons as a result of the revelations in 
Dzur.

I think that the Serioli forged souls into the strongest of their weaponry, 
but, being rather exacting in creating only the most potent morganti blades, 
were also similarly exacting in choosing souls for their sacrifices.

Only souls who were constantly being tossed back into the mix would be used. 
  Or, if their forging pre-dated the Gods rebellion against the Jenoine, 
then they used some means of determining which souls were of high import to 
the chain of events.

What's cool is that this obviously doesn't chain the souls to the blade with 
anything more than a chain of "fate" which, given Delnan's comments about 
GWs and fate, makes perfect sense.

So a soul can be recast into the world, but will eventually end up in the 
weapon.  In fact, it could be a victim of a previously normal (except for 
being extremely powerful) great weapon.

But, to my knowledge, only 1 GW was ever "de-forged" so I guess that last 
bit's a bit moot.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that GS has 3 major components, at least.  1, 
the blade itself, one that was chosen by the Jenoine when they gave it to 
Vlad because they knew both its fate and its ability, perhaps seeing them as 
one and the same, and mistaking the periods of time that it would take to 
get the job done.   I mean---give the Jenoine more credit--surely they can't 
be so single-purposed as to be narrow-mindedly focused on access to the 
Lesser Sea to the exclusion of all their other goals, ie, the (eventual) 
destruction of one or more of the Gods.

The second component was of course the chain.

The third is the soul that goes with the blade, ie, Teldra's.

Vlad's use of sorcery mixed with witchcraft only replicated the combining 
process of the forging of the weapon, though it could be argued that Vlad is 
a component of GS as well.

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The powers of the weapons:

GS has the ability to remove magical effects.   Not in the way that those 
purple stones can restrain chaos and direct it, but it actually NEGATES it.  
If you don't think this is one HELL of a powerful ability, you're smoking 
something strong.  Consider, if you will, some object that has the ability 
to render the laws of physics non-functional.  This object could easily take 
over the world in the right hands, given that all of our armies are now 
useless.  I would not be at all surprised if Godslayer, upon wakening, can 
cast its negation-properties in a beam from the blade, or maybe even raise a 
shield around the bearer...Dragaeran sorcerors get wtfpwned...

The uses we have seen GS put to:  destroying a Jenoine by removing his 
defenses, and killing him like a normal weapon kills a normal person.  
Removing the defenses of the SiG.  Removing the magic effects of the Jenoine 
weapon aimed at Verra (healing Vlad as a result).  Eventually, the blade 
will kill Verra.  We've seen it intercept untold number of spells.

Can GS "dispel" pure chaos?

Basically, GS is a overpowered "dispel" spell as one might find in the World 
of Warcraft.  It dispels positive buffs on enemies, and dispels debuffs cast 
against the user.

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Iceflame is too shrouded in mystery to speculate about.

-----------------------

Blackwand serves as an all-purpose "Increase spell power by X" device.  
Which means that, in a duel, Morrolan loses big time versus Vlad.

HOWEVER.  Remember that Vlad says that even GS can't protect against 
"indirect" sorcery, ie, dropping a building down on top of the target.  So 
if the fight took place underneath castle black, then Vlad might turn out 
the loser :P

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Nightslayer seems to be a regular Morganti writ large.  It wants to kill.  I 
imagine that it's phenomenally good at doing so.  Even worse than Blackwand, 
though with less of a sorcerous bent to it.  It might be "Increase attack 
power by X" or soemthing like htat.  I don't currently own a copy of Dzur, 
so I can't remember what Telnan described  Nightslayer as, in Serioli-speak, 
so  I could be wrong.
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Pathfinder is a little bit more mystical.  It serves as a foil to the 
apparent world defending capabilities of Iceflame, and basically serves as a 
means by which a world's defense might be converted into a world's attack.

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