My Most Honored Colleague and Friend,
I urge you to give great consideration to the blade's nature before coining the name. A blade - especially one enchanted with runes or made for a great hero - will exist long after those whom wielded it are gone. To borrow a thought from a Cadican bard I once knew, upon forging an enchanted blade one is also forging the beginning of a legend - your tale shall be but the beginning of the blade's journey, and that journey shall likely stretch on far after you are gone. It may become a family heirloom, or it may become lost to the ages until some unknown hand centuries hence finds it and knows only its name read from the blade's inscription - all other knowledge of its deeds and forging lost.
That is why its name must speak of its character, the purpose for which it was forged, and its origins.
My blade, Ewiger Sturmzorn - The Eternal Storm's Wrath - is a good example of this. It was originally named simply Sturmzorn or Storm's Wrath when I forged it early in my adventuring career before the passage of time dulled my own ability to smith. I forged it whilst my heart was heavy with the thought of avenging the deaths of my family at the hands of the Swords of Nier, defending all people from the oppression of Tyrants, and visiting Hurrian's Wrath upon all whom commit evil. I crafted it from Ignium, a metal holy to Nier, and enchanted it with Hurrian’s temperance that it represented a union of the two brothers of battle. I inscribed upon the blade the words “Deliver me from battle, and if blood be on my hands let an innocent be saved by the spilling”
The purpose of Sturmzorn was then to help me focus my anger and Wrath in the wake of my loss. Its name would later become even more appropriate when I was affected by The Storm, the death of the Reluctance of Hurrian, and the release of Hurrian's Wrath upon Onara. Sturmzorn accompanied me on every adventure, through every battle, and into every den of villainy throughout my long career until the eve of the final battle of the Coryani Civil War. By then I had invested much of my own essence into the blade's enchantments and runes, but Master Elebac of Solanos Mor looked upon Sturmzorn and found it wanting. He said to me that an eternal protector of the people deserved a better blade to face the final battle with a mad Valinor, but that he did not wish to dishonor Sturmzorn by suggesting I replace it.
With my blessing, Elebac reforged Sturmzorn into a true masterpiece. He renamed it Ewiger Sturmzorn when he completed his labors - to honor that the only wielder it had ever known had been blessed by the Lord of Tombs in order to prosecute her duties beyond her mortal years. It was magnificent, bound to me and invested with a part of my own Intellect from which to draw its power.
I only wielded it in a single battle after its reforging... the final battle of Grand Coryan. There, Ewiger Sturmzorn drew the blood of Manetas, the Pride of Illiir, and I must credit my survival of that confrontation as much to the blade as my own faith or skill at arms. Once Manetas was bound away forever and the war had ended, I found myself without purpose for a time. I dared not draw Ewiger Sturmzorn again until I felt I was again doing the Pantheon's will rather than merely the work of man, so I entrusted the blade to those whom will keep it safely awaiting my return - I shall not write whom or where for obvious reasons.
Writing this, I begin to think perhaps I should return for it one day soon... the strands of prophecy and fate are again pulling taught across Onara as they've done once before in my existence. I think perhaps I shall have need of that masterful blade again before the coming days are through.
The point is, my dear friend, and I apologize for waxing so verbose in getting there, that I had no idea the import of the part Sturmzorn would play in events larger than myself when I first named it in 1026ic. I was a young girl, freshly released into the world from the seminary temple of Hurrian in Moratavia. I thought that I would count myself lucky if I amounted to much more than properly earning my hereditary title of Knight-Protector of Ritterfeld. I could just as easily have been flippant in naming my blade - or worse, not named it at all. How could I have possibly known then that the blade I was naming would one day draw the blood of a mad Valinor or would be all that stood between myself and ultimate failure with so many lives in the balance? Have no doubts, my gentle friend, I am certain that had it not been for Ewiger Sturmzorn I would have fallen and Manetas would have reached the women behind me to interrupt their chants of binding. Had I not named the blade to purpose, the rational mind would argue that it would have been just as worthy of the task to which it was put... but the world and the gods are not always rational. What if it had been a poorly named blade, and Master Elebac had simply replaced it - seeing no need to reforge something I had not named well... and what if that replacement had not been up to the task? Names, my friend, have a power all their own - especially when those names are forever entwined with runes and magic.
Fortunately for me - and perhaps for us all - my younger self was advised by a wise friend that names have power and that every blade must be named to purpose.
I hope that you accept the same advice. We cannot know now what you will face in the years to come. Your story may mirror mine, or it may be vastly different. However, should you find yourself facing an otherworldly power in a battle of grave consequence, I pray to the Pantheon that you shall have more than a mere tool at your side for a blade.
To that end, for your consideration I submit the following name for your blade: Invitus Lepor - The Reluctant Wit The purpose of this name is to honor that the blade was crafted for you, a scholarly warrior whose wit is perhaps his greatest weapon, and that it was forged by a smith whose people are dedicated to the Reluctant Warrior, Hurrian - Blessed Be His Name. If you accept this name, it shall represent that violence is the last resort of a man dedicated to peace, knowledge, and wit above the ways of War.
If that name is too long for you, then perhaps simply Lepor, meaning "Wit"
May Hurrian shield you and may the Pantheon offer their blessings in the days ahead, Blessed Be.
- Ever your ally, Ser Adelheidis Sigrid val'Tensen of Moratavia
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