Goblin bone weapons

One facet of Goblins' ancestor worship is that there is a tradition of carrying one's ancestor's bones around like a charm. In the kingdom of Five Bells , this sometimes goes further, into the creation of weapons made out of the bones of ancestors. These weapons act their normal steel counterparts, but they negate any opponent's damage resistance or immunity to slashing/piercing/bludgeoning. They are thus most often used by goblin clerics or druids.

The bone is pulverised and magically formed into a hard steel-like substance; they look a bit like ceramics. Since goblin bones are not large, the most common form of bone weapon is one in which the bone part is relatively small, like the head of a spear. Usually only one bone is used; it would be extremely off-putting to goblins, and possibly blasphemous, to use the entire skeleton of ancestor for a weapon. It would be like imprisoning the ancestor in a single form. This is how generational curses happen.

Making a bone weapons is difficult and time-consuming even for magic-users with the necessary skills; they are very rare, and hardly ever seen outside the family of the bone donor. In fact, it's generally believed by goblins that these weapons only work when used by a direct descendant. Whether this is really true is difficult to say, since being used outside of the family is also extremely disrespectful to both the family and the ancestor.

Folk stories in Five Bells are full of specific, famous bone weapons, such as:

• a weapon made from the bone of a specific folk hero
• a greatsword (great for goblins) made from the bones of several heroes from a single family (if this was ever technically possible, the method for mixing bones that way is lost)
• bone weapons that work for everyone (at least, all goblins), but only against the ghosts of a specific family