New weapon help

[dszabo]

I currently have a bone-hilted ethereal espadon. I'd like to get it altered, dwarven-ish. This is all I've come up with so far, if anyone could bounce some ideas back at me...I'm not very happy with my blade description.

An ancient bone hilted ethereal bastard sword.

The petrified tsark bone hilt emanates a ghostly blue, ethereal substance writhing in the loose shape of a hand and a half sword blade. The pommel is studded with lengths of ebon glaes which starkly contrast the grayish white bone. Wrapped in blue roan leather, the grip compliments the hue of the blade. Etched across the guard are Dwarven runes inlaid with silvery mithglin causing them to shimmer in the other worldly light emanating from the weapon.

In Dwarven it reads:
Redeemer

[Ardwen]

how do non dwarves know what it says in dwarven?

[dszabo]

They don't, it says they see something written in the dwarven language, but not what it says.

[Ryvicke]

Double-hyphens suck-sticks.

Also--the ethereal weapons are really cool because they're ethereal, would you really want to take that off of the 15/15/15? Or at least find a different word for ethereal. Also--I would guess you might have a hard time making it look like anything that does not specifically point that out.

[dszabo]

Haha, thanks, I forgot I took that out of the 15/15/15. I didn't want to and thats why I post here first. Thanks Ryvicke.

[Jymamon]

A petrified bone hilted ethereal bastard sword.

The tsark bone hilt seems to emanate a ghostly blue ethereal substance writhing in the loose shape of a hand and a half sword blade. The hilt itself, carved from a petrified tsark bone, has been inlaid with strips of ebon glaes giving stark contrast to the grayish white bone. Wrapped in blue roan leather to match the ethereal substance, the hilt is etched with Dwarven runes around the base and inlaid with silvery mithglin.

In Dwarven it reads:
Redeemer

Without intending to change anything significant in your design ...

A petrified bone hilted ethereal bastard sword.

The petrified tsark bone hilt emanates a ghostly blue, ethereal substance writhing in the loose shape of a hand and a half sword blade. The pommel is inlaid with lengths of ebon glaes which starkly contrast the grayish white bone. Wrapped in blue roan leather, the grip compliments the hue of the blade. Etched across the guard are Dwarven runes inlaid with silvery mithglin.

In Dwarven it reads:
Redeemer

...

If you're not famaliar with the parts of the hilt, http://www.realarmorofgod.com/basic-sword-parts.html has a decent reference picture. At least in my mind, the descriptions read much better if I don't see the same word ('hilt" in this case) so many times.

[dszabo]

That was the problem then, yours reads great. Thanks for the help! I had to change it to ancient, instead of petrified, I think it sounds better, and now it fits the 15/15/15 rule.

And updated the description.

[Archigeek]

My only suggestion is to try not to do too much. If you're averaging 2 adjectives per noun, you're probably over-doing it. Frankly, I wouldn't mess with a weapon like that, but that's just me. The way I see it, is that it's something of a one-of-a-kind weapon. You don't alter it because you didn't make it. That's just my feeling though, and I know there are reasonable people who don't agree.

But skipping that for the moment, when I compare:

"a bone-hilted ethereal espadon" with:

"an ancient bone hilted ethereal bastard sword"

The second one just sounds kind of clumsy. You're falling into the trap of believing that the more adjectives the better, and are using too many words.

[dszabo]

I know it sounded kind of "clumsy" but I couldn't think of another way to do it. I wanted the age to show in the look also...I don't want it to be seen as having a stark white fresh cured bone handle. I wanted it to be yellowed/greyed with age.

And for your first point I'm kind of with you. I am altering my weapons to fit my personal, very narrow, taste. I know that I'd have to, more then likely, offer alters, or accept a lower price, to get rid of them, but I'm prepared for that as I intend to keep them. 90% of the time I don't like other people's specific alters.

I do appreciate the input, and if someone can help me out with the descriptor I'd appreciate it...I didn't want to convey any feeling of stark white or whatnot in the description was all.

Thanks!

[Drakefang]

If I wanted more of an individualized blade I'd slip away from bastard sword and espadon, since they are most used, and go with hand and a half sword.

Not sure how you'd work that in, but I enjoy it much more than bastard sword.

Also, I don't like ancient because it's a pretty broad descriptor. One man's ancient is another elf's new toy. If you want ashen or yellowed with age, then use those words. Personally, I'd leave all the age descriptors in the show because it's much easier to indicate age there.

If I was you, I might be more inclined to indicate what the bone came from instead. A jaw bone hilted ethereal hand and a half sword. A tsark bone hilted ethereal hand and a half sword. A thigh boned, etc... I did not check for 15/15/15 but I believe you can remove hilted if you needed. A jaw-boned ethereal hand and a half sword, perhaps.

Ancient is just so...well loose and over used within the short/longs of weaponry. It's just ideas and opinions. I do hope it works out for you.

[petroglyph]

Bastard sword is going to be problematic, because "ethereal bastard" is 16 characters, and they're going to want the noun to be "sword." You could use a synonym for ethereal--"a bone-hilted ghostly bastard sword"? "a bone-hilted tenuous bastard sword"?--if the GMs will let that fly.

"Hand and a half" is 15 characters all by itself, so that pretty much leaves you with "an ethereal hand and a half sword," or maybe "a ghostly blue hand and a half sword."