This is a Pathfinder game. Recently, while exploring the ruins of an old civilization, my players found the remains of an old reactor and the strangely-glowing power source inside. After removing the fuel rod (and heedless of the strange glow) they decided to take it back with them.
The party's Wizard wants to make a Greatsword for the Fighter out of it. Obviously, this is a radioactive material, but the idea is cool enough that I'm happy to let it slide.
In light of the above, what properties would a radiation-emitting blade have? I was thinking something like the Fellblade from the Skaven army book, but I'm open to suggestions.
>strange glow
>Obviously, this is a radioactive material
radioactive material doesn’t glow
Magic radioactive material does
whatever you want, then, have it cast entered fireball on target on hit or apply miscast chance if you feel like it
realistically, it shouldn’t even come into play beyond a small enhancement bonus maybe, unless you want the guy to poison himself on 1s or get irradiated after a while or something
you also didn’t mention their level, it could be anything from a +1 sword to disintegrating everything
They're around Level 10.
Yeah, I had a vague idea of a weapon that harms both you and your target by blighting everything in the area, but it harms your target more.
Caesium-137 will
Several radioactive materials do, in fact, glow. More than several under specific conditions. Most don't, sure, but w/e.
I mean.. *other* than giving the wielder bone cancer or killing their natural flora until they puke and shit their own guts out?
Depending how ancient, the rod might not have much juice left in it. The longer the half-life of an isotope, the less active it is. All the highly active waste is store on site for a decade or more, until it's decayed enough to be safe. All the stuff that's stored for millennia in vaults is low active material. Even the Chernobyl reactor is much safer these days and people can walk in areas that would've killed them a few decades ago.
Carrying a spent fuel rod sword around would probably still give them radiation poisoning over time. If we just throw caution in the wind and toy around with using radiation as a weapon, you could make a blade with a control rod in it, and as it's thrust into something, the control rod retracts, causing the part that's pushed into the target to become highly active and irradiating them on the inside. A burst of alpha and beta particles into someone is a good way to kill them (as evident by various cases of it being used as a poison to assassinate someone). Gamma rays would be less ideal, because due to their penetrative properties, they'd be most likely to exit the body due to their great penetration, rather than get absorbed by it like alpha and beta particles.
Sure it does. It can heat up, it can cause Cherenkov radiation, etc.
Go look up the Viridium special material for weapons on the pf srd.
And then let them get some type of wrap/case/etc they can store it in, or some way to negate the wasting sickness.
Or just make them decide whether carrying it around is worth dealing with magical leprosy I guess.
>some type of wrap/case/etc they can store it in
This is VERY important.
>In light of the above, what properties would a radiation-emitting blade have?
Pretty sure a lot of radiatioactive shit is fricking heavy.
Assuming you're not fricking them with radiation sickness and it is magic, stabbing someone should give them radiation sickness or poisoning or whatever.
Hitting a sufficient amount of other radioactive material should cause it to explode like a nuke. I don't care if that's not how that works, it's cool as frick.
Letting it work as a power source would be pretty awesome. I don't know how exactly your game works but if there's stuff to power or the fighter could use some power, it would be fun.
>Hitting a sufficient amount of other radioactive material should cause it to explode like a nuke.
>Hitting a sufficient amount of other radioactive material should cause it to explode like a nuke.
I mean, it's not entirely incorrect, but overly simplified...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-type_fission_weapon
Technically, bringing two critical masses into contact would cause them to go super-critical. But you'd have to do it fast, else the reaction fizzels out. Like needing to contain gunpowder to get it to bang instead of just make smoke and sparks.
Realistically everyone in the party dies an agonizing death over the next few weeks, as does anyone who's been in close contact with it.
If you want to get more pulpy how about granting the user random mutations/superpowers like Red Steel?
In pathfinder Radiation is a poison effect and there are magic spells capable of stopping it and curing it.
>a blade so powerful that the simple act of forging it annihilated the smiths who worked it
Surely the sign of a storied and terrible legendary weapon.
>travel to village in the middle of a dead forest
>everyone's dead
>find a mummified corpse of a smith slumped over his bench
>on it is a sheathed sword
>scabbard is thick and heavy
>an old, unfinished note is a warning to whoever comes
Uranium (or at least its depleted variant) has been known to spall and release flammable chemical aerosols of uranium dust when subject to strong kinetic impacts.
Make of that what you will.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/EQUIPMENT/SPECIAL-MATERIALS/#Viridium
Raw radioactive material give the target leprosy. Adjust DC or effect based on the materials rough radiation output.
considering reactor grade uranium is 5-15% U-235(The spicy atoms) Viridium lines up with an old fuel rod fairly well. If you want a more immediate effect have the weapon deal con damage to the target and wielder under the same circumstances as the leprosy