Hollows Weapons: the Knife

“The world is trying to hurt you. But you won’t let it – you won’t be taken advantage of – you’re sharp and cruel and quick and clever – and the Knife is here right alongside you, pressed into your palm, guiding you through the darkness and chaos. You’re going to show them they were stupid to underestimate you. You’re going to bleed them dry.”

The Knife is everywhere. It’s in every house in the kingdom, every pocket in the street. It’s out of the shadows and at their throats. No-one sees it coming. But no-one fears it, either. Not the way it wants to be feared. 

What is the Knife? 

The Knife is fast. It’s subtle. It’s what you use when you want to dart around the battlefield, opening veins and vanishing before the blood spray hits. When you want to leave the Entity bleeding, hamstrung, softened up for the kill. 

You can do a great many things with the Knife. Weighted for throwing, you can use it from range. You can sharpen it like a straight razor, so even the slightest nick leaves your target soaked in its own gore, or you can use a stiletto or punch dagger and strike straight for an enemy’s heart.

The Knife leaves enemies bleeding, which makes them vulnerable to an array of the Weapon’s other abilities. Depending on the choices a Hunter makes, bleeding Entities take damage at the end of their own turn, or the Knife wielder can bathe in spilled blood to restore their own Resolve. 

The Knife’s other Tier 1 abilities make the wielder slippery. They can attack or dodge using Quick (usually their highest trait) instead of whatever stat an attack usually uses, or scramble to another sector of the battlefield when they miss with an attack. 

At higher tiers, the Knife wielder is almost impossible to catch. They can move or defend after an attack, giving them more manoeuvres than other Hunters. They can fade into the shadows, disappearing from the battlefield entirely at will (at the cost of a little Resolve damage). The rivulets of blood streaming from their target inflict damage on it when it tries to act, or offer easy targets for other Hunters, adding extra damage when the Knife wielder’s allies strike. 

What is the Knife, Really?

The Knife says: the world is out to get you. The odds were stacked against you before you even drew a card. At every turn, someone’s arrived to steal what you’ve fought so hard for without giving you a second thought. You need to fight back and take what you’re owed. Your only mistake was not doing it sooner.

If you win, you’re a hero. If you lose, you were never supposed to succeed. There’s a comfort in occupying the bottom rung, especially when it opens your enemies up to retribution.

The Knife is scared of not being underestimated. Of not being hated. It doesn’t want to be accepted. It doesn’t want people to think it’s important, or welcome it as a part of something larger and more important. It can only imagine the world as a frantic battle, and for its unceasing, spiteful aggression to make any sort of sense, it must be under constant attack. If it’s not a victim, it’s nothing.

That’s the Knife’s truth: nicking and needling, and hoping to keep folk from seeing how insignificant it is.