Grognard's Challenge #5: The Adze of Wepwawet

Thanks to everyone who sent in their entries for the final of the five Grognard's Challenges. As always, I received a number of excellent submissions, many of which could easily have been the winner. This time, though, I selected an entry by Aaron Somerville, because it nicely combined a mythological feel with an old school mechanical sensibility. It's Egyptian in origin too, which never hurts in winning me over.

This antique instrument appears as a smooth copper adze affixed to a bone haft (learned inspection reveals this to be the foreleg of a bovine). Despite its brittle appearance, this implement cannot be broken. It is too light, however, to make an effective weapon. If this instrument is used to pry open the lips of a reasonably intact, undecayed corpse (works on the freshly dead and the mummified; others at Referee's discretion) then the corpse will visibly breathe and be able to speak. The corpse will possess this power until the next sunset unless destroyed. The dead person will be friendly to the user of the Adze unless mistreated and will answer questions to the best of its ability, though it has no knowledge of mortal affairs after its death unless the Referee decides otherwise. Again at the Referee's discretion, beings destined for particularly transcendent or mysterious afterlives may not be affected by this item. The Adze may be used but once per day, recharging at sunset.

Congratulations to Aaron and to the winners of the other contests. If Aaron could send me his mailing address, I'll get his copy of Gods, Demigods & Heroes sent off to him this weekend, along with the other prizes that I've neglected to send as well. My apologies to everyone who's been so patient with my laxity in schlepping these books to the post office.

There may be other contests in the future, once I have some interesting prizes to offer, but, for the moment, this is the end of the Grognard's Challenges. I hope everyone enjoyed participating as much as I enjoyed reading the entries.