Charon's Claw (sword)

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

Appearance and Magical Properties
Charon's Claw is a sword and gauntlet combination, the perfect weapon when battling a wizard.

The Sword
"The sword had a slender, razor-edged, gleaming red blade, its length inscribed with designs of cloaked figures and tall scythes, accentuated by a black blood trough running along its center. Entreri opened his hand enough for the wizard to see the skull-bobbed pommel, with a hilt that appeared like whitened vertebrae. Running from it toward the crosspiece, the hilt was carved to resemble a backbone and rib-cage, and the crosspiece itself resembled a pelvic skeleton, with legs spread out wide and bent back toward the head, so that the wielder's hand fit neatly within the 'bony' boundaries. All of the pommel, hilt and crosspiece was white, like bleached bones—perfectly white, except for the eye sockets of the skull pommel, which seemed like black pits at one moment and flared with red fires the next."

- R.A. Salvatore, Servant of the Shard

The sword is a sentient artifact, strong of will and possessed of arrogance. Anyone who touches the blade or handle of this sword unprotected must compete with it in a battle of wills. Failure means it burns away the flesh and skin of your head, leaving nothing but a corpse with a skull. This ability can be used by the bearer of the sword, but it requires prolonged contact with the enemy, several seconds. Charon's Claw can be willed by its wielder to leave trails of ash in the air, creating temporary opaque walls to give an edge in battle and also to produce a strange black glow to act as a light in the darkness which renders the wielder invisible to infravision. The sword is also enchanted so that even a small nick or cut will prove eventually fatal, as the wound will fester and eventually poison the victim. Without defeating the blade in a battle of wills, the only way for the wielder to safely use the item is to cover his or her hand with an enchanted, black, red-stitched, magical gauntlet to protect him or her from the blade's effects.

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

Background
Charon's Claw is a old Netherese artifact.

For decades the artifact was owned by the Soulez Clan at the Dallabad oasis near Calimport. An illithid, Yharaskrik studied the artifact by living in the deep tunnels below Kohrin Soulez's throne room in Dallabad Oasis. Later the assassin Artemis Entreri stole the artifact from Kohrin Soulez during an assault of the dark elves of Bregan D'aerthe. Artemis won control over the sword after a contest of will power thus enabling him to wield the sword even without wearing the gauntlet. During a fight against a lich, the gauntlet was destroyed - consumed by the life-binding forces of the lich in turn destroying the undead.

The assassin Artemis Entreri and the monk Kane are the only known people who have defeated the sword's will, and thus can wield the sword without the gauntlet and not suffer a horrible death.

Jarlaxle later asks their meanwhile employees, the dragon sisters Ilnezhara and Tazmikella, to replace the gauntlet as recompensation for the two fighters' achievements. Although they refused him at the time, Jarlaxle later presents Artemis with a completely repaired gauntlet just after they leave the Bloodstone Lands, restored by the efforts of the psionicist Kimmuriel Oblodra of Bregan D'aerthe.