Even speaking such a name of ill omen as the Dagger of Yul K'chaum is dangerous, and the dagger is normally referred to as just “the artefact."[1a]
It appears as a large, heavy dagger made of iron with a bronze hilt. The blade of the dagger passes through the mouth of a skull, Human apart from the fact it has three eye sockets. The back of the skull was omitted, allowing the face to form a basket hilt. The blade is etched with three Chaos runes for Greater Daemon, Extra Eye, and Bloodletter of Khorne.[1a]
Nobody is willing to tell them the legends attached to this dagger. Those who know go pale at the suggestion and say that they are better off not knowing. They will say that the dagger corrupts all who wield it and drives people to wild excesses of bloodletting.[1a]
The dagger is powered by a fragment of the Daemon Xathrodox Incarnadine, and recent events in Middenheim have partially awoken it. It has started to call to the forces of Chaos to come and rescue it from its confinement.[1a]
As the adventure begins, the dagger is still only partially awake and looks mundane, if not hideously blasphemous. If used in combat, it increases weapon skill by twenty percent and deals armour-piercing damage, but also causes the wielder to go into a frenzy, unable to distinguish friend from foe. Attacking a friend in this state can lead to the wielder going somewhat insane upon realizing what has happened.[1a]
If the artefact is fully awoken, the eye sockets start to glow with a baleful red light, and the Daemon within can whisper to anyone who has touched the item. These whispers incite the wielder to attack those around him, and it continues to whisper through the night. During the day, a wielder can resist if he wishes, but resisting the voices in his dreams requires willpower. If he does not have the willpower, he gets up still more than half asleep, seizes the dagger, and flies into a frenzy. The awoken dagger grants the wielder the same traits as when not awoken, but also gives additional armour traits to the entire body on top of any armour worn. If the wielder kills anyone with the dagger, he is healed a relatively significant amount, and, if not already a servant of the Ruinous Powers, goes significantly insane as the victim’s life is sucked through the blade and into the wielder’s body.[1a]
There are two likely situations in which the dagger becomes fully awake. The first is if the raiding Beastmen manage to take it from the vault of the Light College. The second is if Wolfgang tries to perform his ritual but fails, having his essence drawn into the artefact. In the latter case, the awakened blade is even more powerful and grants its wielder an the ability to do even more in combat.[1a][1b]
The dagger is already partially awake at the beginning of the adventure, and its evil power has an influence on those around it. First, you should only use adjectives with negative associations to describe it: it isn’t well made or sharp; it is blasphemous and vicious looking. The blade might seem to be stained with blood, and people get the feeling that the eyes in the hilt are watching them.[1b]
Second, when the people see the dagger, they get the sense of an immense, brooding, dark power behind it—a power with rage boiling just beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to erupt. Everyone gets this impression, so some seeing the dagger go pale, and most take an involuntary step or two back. Once people have seen the dagger, they are constantly aware of it as long as it is in their possession, like a dark weight lurking at the back of their minds.[1b]
Finally, if people are (sensibly) trying not to use it, the dagger constantly slips out of any container and cuts the person carrying it. The cut does no real damage, but it is painful. Such occurrences don’t look like magic; if the dagger is in a box, the person might stumble, spilling the box’s contents, for example.[1b]