Being a German native-speaker and not overly familiar with untranslated English literature I just recently came across the "Jabberwocky" from Lewis Carrol and it answered many questions (for one "What IS the Jabberwocky?") but made me ask a few more. E.g. I discovered the "vorpal sword" which I know well from BG2 and other D&D sources among the fictious words of the poem.
So:
"When was the word vorpal first used in a fantasy* setting (book or RPG), is it taken from this poem (probably) and did it always (in Fantasy stories) describe a one-hit-kill weapon?"
Any thoughts on that?
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* of course I refer to "the arts commonly known as fantasy" (i.e. contains Elves, Dwarves and Orcs and happens in a kinda medieval setting). So the "Jabberwocky" itself (while funny) would not be a satisfying answer for me.

<font color="orange">I don't know about the origins, but the basic idea of a vorpal sword was incredible, sometimes magical, sharpness. The idea being that you could behead someone for a one-hit kill. [img]smile.gif[/img] </font>

Yet, the vorpal sword is horrible in BG2!

Nah, I wouldnt say taht the Vorpal Sword dis horrible.. It saved my ass lotsa times due to the 1 hit kill... real useful when fighting Irenicuss in hell.... his lil minions died in a few secs [img]smile.gif[/img]

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I don't get it: a normal sword can also behead a person, so why is a vorpal so much more efficient? My neck really doesn't want to come into close contact with a Katana .....
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Because the enchantment on the vorpal sword makes it seek out the opponent's neck, and if it manages to find it (i.e. the vorpal is rolled), then it hits and severs the head cleanly without any effort by the person swinging (beyond just the regular attack). They are designed to be lethal weapons, and in PnP are among the most prized swords.

Generally speaking, vorpal swords (I believe it is correctly called Vorpal Blade) are not supposed to be powerful damagewise (meaning it isn't made to inflict much damage in a successful hit). It's true beauty is it's ability to behead, so, seeing how it does not happen often in BG2, I don't think it's such a great weapon. There are many many more weapons that I'd take over the vorpal sword with out even hesitating

Try casting greater malision befor attacking with the vorpal sword in BG2. It makes a world of difference ;)

I personaly think the vorpal weapons should not allow a saving throw, but should deal much less (ie. half) as much damage as there normal counterparts. And only have vorpal hits on 10 - 20 percent of the succesful hits.

If the silver sword had vorpal hits 15 percent of the time, no save, but only dealt 1d4+1 damage on normal strikes, it would be a very formidable weapond indeed.

1D4 is the attack modifier for a dagger. I think it should be at 1d6 +1 seeing how a dagger does 1d4, and a regular two handed sword does 1d10, then 6 is a nice midpoint, unless you would chose 1d7 (which I have not seen yet in a weapon)

1d7 is kinda hard to exist... when you consider AD&D is based on a dice PnP game. ;)