RPG Blog Carnival: Weapons of Legend: Ahab’s Crosshairs

Hi! I’m Canageek’s girlfriend DialMforMara. I write for the I Like Homestuck Project on Tumblr; this entry in the RPG Blog Carnival is an adaptation of a post that will appear there next Saturday, on the theme of Legendary Weapons. Come check us out if you’re interested in Homestuck, or just want to find out what all the fuss is about. Warning: spoilers abound.

Ahab’s Crosshairs is a powerful laser rifle from the webcomic Homestuck. It was created by the trolls of Alternia and used by the Orphaner Dualscar, a notorious highblood (noble) pirate. Centuries after the Orphaner’s death, it was found in the wreckage of his ship by his aristocratic descendant Eridan Ampora, who used it to murder countless lowbloods (commoners) and their animal guardians, as was his birthright. When Eridan left Alternia to play the universe-building game SGRUB, he took Ahab’s Crosshairs with him and used it on anything that stood in his way, up to and including the angels that inhabited his base planet, which took at least a minute of sustained fire to kill (possibly because he wasn’t supposed to kill them, as other players point out. [Canageek’s note: Sounds like a player character me me])

The strength of Ahab’s Crosshairs may vary with its wielder’s belief that it works. The structure of SGRUB (and the human version, SBURB) gives each player powers based on the role the game has assigned them. Eridan is a Prince of Hope, which to make a long story short means that he uses belief in destructive ways–like, maybe, to power his weapons. Other Homestuck characters don’t think Ahab’s Crosshairs is nearly so powerful: SBURB player Jade Harley, who has extensive experience with rifles, takes one look at the gun and calls it a “legendary piece of shit.” She can’t believe it’s as powerful as Eridan claims it is. And maybe, for her, it isn’t.

Adding belief-based weaponry like the Crosshairs to a campaign opens up a couple of interesting mechanics. A DM can track which player characters believe the legends about a weapon, and then make the weapon more powerful for them–or less powerful for those who don’t believe. Dividing up loot becomes much easier if half your players believe some of it is worthless. They open up new narrative possibilities as well: a quest-giving NPC can hype up a belief-based weapon to make it stronger and worth more, or downplay its importance to trick the players into handing it over, or even claim they have a defense against it, to make the players think it won’t work on them. Belief-based legendary weapons give their players exciting new ways to mess with their players.