The original 2nd Edition entry from the Forge.

Write up by Paul DeLuca. Contest Design Winner February 4, 2000.
XP value: 900   GP value: 5,000
Of those who seek adventure on the seas, Mossenach may not have been the wisest or strongest, but he was definitely the most determined. He had fought countless pirates and sahaugin, slain sea serpents by the score, and recovered mind-boggling treasures from ships consigned by others to the eternal depths, and was famed far and wide. He was the protector of all who traveled on the ocean, and the scourge of those who dared wrong either sailors or landsfolk who put themselves under his domain.

In time, though, he heard of a danger that could not be cowed by a brave fighter, nor driven off as a normal watery beast. Far out in the rolling waves, at the very edges of the sealanes he claimed as a protectorate, a morkoth was alleged to establish a lair, and as ships began to put in with a reduced crew, fear cold in their eyes, Mossenach knew it to be true. He called on a wizard he knew, who agreed to cast spells over a special sword to ensure that as long as he held it, Mossenach could breathe and fight as though he were on land, and would not be beguiled by the hypnotic tunnels of the sea-wraith's den.

Mossenach then paid a call to an old comrade in arms, a dwarf who had retired from campaigning and taken up business as a smith. The dwarf refused to forge the weapon his friend required, for he had always been wary of the sea, and did not wish to support those who meddled in affairs below its waters, for they did ever come to grief. With heavy heart Mossenach walked away.

Eventually, he found a gnomish smith willing to collaborate with the wizard, and many long hours the both of them slaved over the weapon. The grip was wrapped in the hard-won hide of an aboleth, the ends of the guard capped with teeth from a minotaur, and spells guaranteeing free action, survival underwater, and protection from hypnosis were cast into the blade. Mossenach received his weapon at the end of the forging, and was well pleased. He set sail for the morkoth's lair the very next day.

The old dwarf was wise; Mossenach never did return from that voyage. Some say the morkoth proved stronger, that the guardian of the seas was overmatched. Others believe that the gnomish smith's craft was imperfect, that the blade did not hold the enchantment and sent a good man unjustly to his doom. Regardless, Mossenach's blade awaits a new wielder, in the cold halls of the morkoth.

Statistics: Enchantments: +1/+3 vs. water-dwelling creatures; free action, water breathing; protection from mind-affecting spells and effects. The spell-like powers are continuous on the wielder as long as the sword is carried or held. The mental protection allows a special saving throw of 8 on all mind-affecting spells and effects, such as a vampire's charm or a morkoth's tunnels.