Charon's Claw (sword)

Charon's claw is a magical weapon designed to battle wizards.

Appearance
Charon's Claw is a sword and gauntlet combination.

The Gauntlet
The black, red-laced gauntlet is worn on the right hand. The red stitching runs through the gauntlet like veins of blood.

The gauntlet's magical abilities:
 * It's laces pulse warning the wearer of magical scrying . The wearer can even detect, whether the scrying is of magical, priestly or psionic nature . *By wearing the gauntlet, the owner can catch magic directed at him within the magical netting of the gauntlet, can even capture the magical energies and turn them back against the initiator or just dispell such magic.
 * Like many magical swords, Charon's Claw can produce a magical light. It's is a glow of blackish hue, though. Standing in complete darkness, the wielder can see his surroundings with the help of the sowrd's light as if standing in a dimly lit room. It seems to block infravision completely, rendering the wielder completely invisible to eyes using infravision though having a strange illumination effect clearly visible in the normal light spectrum.

The Sword
The sword sports a slender, razor-edged gleaming red blade. It's length inscribed with designs of cloaked figures and tall scythes accentuated by a black blood through running along it's center. It has a scull bobbed pommel with a hilt that appeares like whitened vertebrae resembling a backbone with rib-cage. The crosspiece resembles a pelvic sceleton with legs spread out wide and bent back toward the head, so that the wielder's hand fits neatly within the "bony" boundaries. All of the pommel, hilt and crosspiece is white, like bleached bones, perfectly white except for the eyesockets of the scull pommel which seem like black pits at one moment and flare with red fires the next. The sword is a sentient artifact, strong of will and possessed of arrogance.

The sword's magical abilities:
 * When weaving the black-red blade it leaves streaks of ashy blackness in the air . That blackness can be eminated by will of the blade's wielder.
 * The sword has the ability to voraciously absorb life essence from both the target and the wielder - the slightest nick of the sword will fester and grow and eventually kill the person on the receiving end, even killing it's wielder unless he wears the gauntlet at the hand holding the sword.

The two items make a potent combination, allowing the wielder to avoid the domineering ego of the sword. It is the perfect weapon when battling a wizard.

Background
Charon's Claw is an old Netherese artifact.

For decades the artifact was owned by the Soulez Clan at the Dallabad oasis near Calimport until the assassin Artemis Entreri stole the artifact from Kohrin Soulez during an assault of the dark elves of Bregan D'aerthe.