Hollows Weapons: the Spear

“There is a line between us and them. Across that line is the Spear, keeping them away from us. Protecting the sacred from the profane. Defending right and killing wrong. The world is trying to swallow you and those you care about, but it’ll have to get through you first.”

The Spear is, in all likelihood, the oldest human-made weapon in existence. It’s archaic and unfashionable, but it doesn’t mind. The Spear predates machines, structures, clothing, the written word, language, and numeracy. It will be here long after the cities have crumbled to dust and the last bullet has been fired.

What is the Spear?

The Spear’s a tool of control, and its uses in a Hunt reflect that. The Spear’s core ability is keeping an Entity at bay: at the cost of some of the wielder’s own Resolve, they can reduce the amount of Threat on the combat grid. That denies an Entity crucial Interrupt actions and prevents it adding extra damage to its attacks.

The Spear can be Light (making you faster), Long (better at keeping Entities at arm’s length, distracting, and harrying them), or Heavy (dealing more damage). Whatever form it takes, a lot of the Spear’s early abilities are Threat control: move Threat from one area, remove it entirely, or attack with Advantage when you’re the centre of the Entity’s attention. 

At Tier 2, you can throw yourself in front of allies to protect them or dig in alongside them and grant Terrain tags. Your control of the battlefield increases: reposition your allies or drive the Entity off and prevent them making Interrupt or Reposition actions. By the time you reach Tier 3, the battlefield is your home and the Entity’s an outsider. Prevent it from spending Threat to hurt you, or force it to counterattack you – which only makes you stronger. 

What is the Spear Really?

The Spear knows that the home – the hearth, the space you claim as your own – is sacred, and it wants to help you keep it sacred by ensuring the profane (which is to say, anything you don’t like,) is excluded by force. To breach the sacred is unthinkable, and anyone who would consider it must be destroyed.

“Home” is a malleable concept. It can mean one’s house, church, town, or kingdom – or an entire plane of reality besieged by parasite godlings. It always means that anything the Spear does is defence, no matter how pre-emptive it might seem or if it has to be carried over borders and jammed in some poor bastard’s guts to do it.

The Spear is a simple Weapon, and its lies are different to the ones the other Weapons tell. It tells you it can protect you and those you value. That it can help you control them. (They owe you their lives, after all.) It brags of sole mastery over its domain – of permissions granted and contracts bestowed, of sworn oaths and kind allowances – but dreads the day that its power is found wanting and those under its protection are killed, or worse, decide to leave before it is ready to let them go.

That’s the truth of the Spear: it keeps enemies out. It can’t keep allies in.