The Taxonomy of Magical Weapons

Weapons 

DEAR SWEET JESUS IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME PLEASE SKIP DOWN TO WHERE I START TO TALK ABOUT CLASSIFYING WEAPONS but hey, reading my rant is cool. 

5e has bounded accuracy as a massive mechanic, which has the effect of limiting magical weapon bonuses a lot more than previous editions. If PC's can't hit the monster more easily

SIDENOTE: increasing AC with increasing CR means largely that 20th+ level PC's have roughly the same chance of hitting a 30 CR monster as 3rd level PC's have of hitting a 5 CR monster without a ridiculous amount of buffs and modifiyan. I think. END SIDENOTE

 then they have to murderize it more easily. Ergo, PC have to do more damage to stay competitive, instead of just increasing every bonus (and monster AC) to ridiculous levels.  What this means to me is that magical weapons that serve the purpose of increased usability do so through damage. Since any given magic weapon with its +1 or +2 bonus won't massively increase the amount of times one hits the tarrasque, it has to have some sort of bonus that makes it worth using. Moar damage. Slap a +1 on a sword, give it the ability to deal +2d6 fire damage on a hit, done. Flametongue. Add ribbons (sheds light in x radius) to give thematic flavor, and you have a classic weapon. 

MAH SWORD A FIRE

Synthpostapocglitchbeat

This is the poem that, rephrased, would eventually become my contribution to Synthexia. Thanks to +Arnold K.  and Usher for inspiration and +Patrick Stuart  for phrasing writing well. Patrick, this is where I went to fucking fly.

The Main Feature

beat

flash

PULSE

beat

shine

pistons screech

hair spins in a wild, wild halo, prismatic beads of oil and synth-sweat and blood frothing over the strands as I dance

and dance

and dance

feel us throb and pulse to the half-rotted ventricles of our hearts and the wavering dust of our high-giving beat as we writhe and wave and froth to the beat

beats love

beats life

beat pulses beneath my skin, sinuous and amoebic and rainbow colored like the crysgolems as they pound across the floor jerkily

sway

thump

jump

can you do this?

Our decaying flesh wafts under our noses like a hot summer breeze after a slaughter

rich

coppery

fills your mouth with saliva as you gag

we don’t care

we’re gods on beat

we’re gods on beat

if you can’t feel the pulse, pulse, pulse of the floor and dance to the beat, beat, beat, you’re dead to us

if you can’t keep up we’ll trample you

put you out of your hollow, beatless misery

So dance

dance with me

dance to the beat

feel it fill your cavities and sinuses

doesn’t it just light you up?

cmon

burn your candle at both ends

you need to replace these fleshy tendons anyway

they fray and snap and need food

sashay your way onto the dance floor

cross that party line!

aha

no you can’t go back

watch that the PASTE doesn’t shred your organic feet

don’t worry, stop screaming

here I’ll surf you to a meatsmith

he’ll give you some swag legs

just tell him you don’t want to be a bloodspeaker

oh

well, I guess the meatsmith wanted to make a bloodspeaker

whatever

the PASTE twines around my metallic legs and my recently used mercystills still glistening with putrid bloodsludge

mercystills are for putting down fallen dancers

swift thrust silent death hsssh whisper krch thump

lose myself in the flash

in the spectacle the gleam the spark of madness

dodge the lazers ripping out of the neoniron girding

manned by ten million rubbery green scampering gretchlings

keep up with the beatmasters each limb they have revolves, revolves, revolves with their thrashing separators

That Old DJ has 18 arms and 20 legs spread out between 4 torsos and 3 heads

he ripples and flashes and blurs like an ocean while getting down to the beat

the beat polishes his fluid synth-skin, pulsing and animating it to the soundwaves that come from the speakerhives

fat techno-bees scurry around the bloodspeakers in the speakerhives, draining them of boiling pus and producing dust-paste to drop into our ravening frothing champing mouths

we don’t eat

that’s an organic thing

we indulge

one of the techno-bees pulses too close to the Disco Balls and is vaporized by soundwaves pulsing out from it, shaking any dancer who approaches it to bits

legend has it the First DJ entombed themselves in there, all his organics disintegrated but his brainship still extant, still calling out the steps and still shuffling the songs

others say the Beat Crystal now calls the beat

who can say no?

yes is the only way to go

do you wanna dance? Yes

want some beat paste? Yes

want to surf to a meatsmith? Hella yes

wanna taunt the PASTE? Yes

if our dance is an ecosystem, the PASTE is the scavenger and natural selector

we call out as we step to the beat that a fragment of a dying hemorrhaging brain called out to its biochip to move its limbs and as connexions broke down the chip reached out to the nanobot-infused half-congealed blood and made it ripple in a giant slushy wave

and then again

and again

and then the connexors responded to the dead-beat’s call and tore themselves out of synth-sockets and joined the blood paste

now the PASTE feeds off our corpses and the weak

strips them of metal and meat in a darkly pulsing, screeching maelstrom of metal shards moved by slurried blood

and surges on like a wave, coiling around our ankles and knocking an unlucky few of us off our feet

they get pulled into the PASTE by its trailing metallic undertow of slivers and die screaming upwards, the stars hide their faces

I haven’t seen starlight in millennia

who wants stars when we have lazers and pulse-beams and stickylights?

lazers to flash brighter than an organic eye can take (don’t use meat eyes!) and shine on, light up, show off, throw down

pulse lights to strobe to, flashing several times a second

if you can sync yourself to the pulselights you are Applauded

stickylights to slow you down like flies in amber

they muddy your thoughts and mire your limbs

its like swimming through green, molten honey

watch the metal mechapods flash

twist

bend

flex in 10 different places, rippling like the heat waves generated from our bodies

good meatsmiths can add up to 10 joints in a limb

then you can flex jump twist and rotate with the best of them

if you’re not careful around a meatsmith, they’ll replace as much as they want

so back off after they’ve finished a part

lest you become a roboshell that shambles or a brainless husk

if you got no brain, you got no beat

and the hypomen will pump your head full of beat

ooh, beat zombie!

dance

dance

dance

then they try to eat you

take the gore with the heat

the good with the bad

the splat with the gasp

hypomen will do that to a dancer

hypoteeth and hyponails glistening with freshly spilled beat

if they so much as see fresh meat they all converge on it and rip it to shreds pumping beat into the organic as they bite and claw

killing each other

this is a meat party

stay away from it until the PASTE comes and eats the mess

or until a crysgolem comes and backhands the offenders away

mousy faces smashed and twisted, tumbling three hundred feet through the air

skin and gibbets flying beat splashing in long lazy loops

blood spraying and marking you for the PASTE

dance away, dance away from a meat party

the PASTE or flesh-maddened hypomen will rip you apart

or you’ll get too much beat and go NOVA

going NOVA is when the beat passes your metabolic rate for the lastime

then the beat converts all your organics to heat and metallics

heat up hundreds of degrees

BOOM

SPLOOSH

and NOVA is scary because it can make other dancers go NOVA too

3400 years ago, the crysgolems and and gretchlings had to contain and fry 5000 dancers before we all went NOVA

gretchlings work the lazers and pulselights and stickylights

they conduct well

both lightshows and electricity

they have a very static shock and a nasty bite

they can fry you or sting you or pulse you if they like

they hold the gantry and the lights together and power the speakers

do not call them beatless

they will kill you at the speed of light or freeze you in a stickylight and taunt you

we call these dancers fliesinamber

they will never get out

gretchlings have long memories

crysgolems announce themselves with a stamp stamp stamp and a pound pound pound

they revolve all their joints as they move fast enough to heat air and rip skin

they flash

beat

sparkle each joint a jewel, each jewel has 100 sides, each side flashes with their bright inner light

each golem has its own spotlight trained on it

hypomen scurry

bite rip tear inject

beads of beat flying

weaselly faces flashing mute desire

they have to pump beat

they need to pump beat

they want to pump beat

gretchling pivoting riding and gliding and fixing lazers and other lights

the big neon purple crystal in the center giving off beat haze as the reverberations hit it like waves on a shore and thumping out our muzak from its million speakers

the speakerhives slowly sliming across the dancefloor trying to elude the paste

the PASTE hunting for blood and fresh meat and fallen dancers

the Beatmasters leading the dancers

the meatsmiths lurking or modifying fresh sprays of blood erupting from their rustytools

a scream as a fallen dancer is put down

a scream as a bloodspeaker is made

a scream as a dancer flips 100 feet in the air before gliding towards the center

the beat throbbing pulsing thumping pounding ecstasy as our spirits soar

glowing shining slithering writhing wet agony as our flesh rips

light flash

strobes pulse

DANCE!

shine!

twist pump turn dodge spurt

lose yourself

live forever

we’re gods on earth!

WELCOME!

TO!

The Great         Rave        of        Synthexia!

Lightning and the Thunder

The moment before their arrival lingers, heavy with a faint musk of fresh rain off concrete, that elemental smell so peculiar to the city. The ozone in this instant almost condenses on the tongue, an acrid taste, alien yet reminiscent of vomit.

I've only seen a red liminal twice during thunderstorms

And then, a Brobdingnagian boom resounds throughout your body and soul, shaking you down to the toes and up to the hair. Your eardrums have probably burst by this point, which would have happened soon anyway. The pain is sudden and dazing, another crimson pall cast over your vision in addition to the cerise light spilling over the horizon, painting everything the eerie color of almost-blood.