Serpent-blood Dagger
Description: Well-made dagger with wavy 7" blade, sharpened on both edges, no cross-guard, and with a pommel that resembles a stylized snake's head. Registers clearly as an enchanted blade of some power to magical senses. More potent investigations show a complex conjuration dweomer activated by the spilling of blood and a command word - an archaic word for serpent in whatever little-known ancient language you prefer for your game.
Powers: Acts as a middling-powerful magical weapon, enhancing the speed and accuracy of its strikes. If the user cuts herself for basic dagger damage (1d4 in D&D) using the blade while speaking the command word, rather than blood a serpent spills forth from the wound, which closes afterward. The creature is 1-2' feet long, moon-white in color, and mildly venomous. The snake is empathically aware of its creator's desires and will follow mental requests to the best of its abilities, but it is a snake (albeit a magical one) and doesn't think the same way a human does so misunderstandings may occur. By closing their eyes and concentrating the user can "piggyback" on the senses of one of their serpents, whereupon they'll find the creature is quite near-sighted but excellent at detecting movement, has sharp hearing and a remarkable sense of smell/taste.
You can have any number of serpents extant at once, the main limitation being how much damage you can take. Any healing you receive (including natural healing over time) causes the snake(s) to lose the same number of hit points, evaporating into thin air when they reach zero. Always remove as many snakes as you can for the amount of healed. The serpents also vanish if you're slain.
In combat, the tiny snake acts immediately after its creator does, fighting as a normal animal of its type would but doing no actual damage beyond injecting a numbing venom of modest potency . Victims who fail to resist (in D&D, save vs. poison at a +2 bonus) will suffer a -2 to attacks and skill checks for 1d6 rounds, with the penalty stacking if you're poisoned before the first instance ends. If the penalty ever reaches -10 the victim falls into a dreamless sleep and cannot be awakened for ten minutes.
The serpents' venom loses potency almost instantly outside of a creature's bloodstream, so no milking your snake for free blade poison.
Possible Origins: Unclear, but they may have originated in a fallen serpent-worshipping civilization, or perhaps as relics of an even older prehuman empire of scaled folk. Few if any modern artificers or enchanters can reproduce the complex magics of these blades.
Complications: Aside from attracting the attention of collectors of antiquities or surviving serpent cultists, spending too much time spying through a serpent's sensorium may be bad for your mental health. If you find yourself suddenly snacking on mice and crickets and the like you may want to seek help.
There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that drawing your own life's-blood with the dagger (ie killing yourself) in a mysterious and mostly-forgotten ritual will summon an avatar of some primordial serpent god, and no cultist would consider stealing the blade from you to do just that. Unless the GM thinks it sounds like fun.
Design Commentary: Really, really handy for scouting and spying, and if you go crazy with cutting yourself you can have quite a tide of serpent pals to help out in combat. The user is likely to be spending most of their time down at least a few hit points and loses some of their pets if healed, so there's a soft limit on usage.
This is great. It's right out of the old Sinbad movies I watched as a kid. I've always liked magic that weakens or ages, or makes you more vulnerable when you use it.
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