Forged by the Gods

What foolish samurai warrior wouldn't want to wield that magic sword?

"The Mace of Molag Bal! I give you its true power, mortal. When your enemies lie broken and bloody before you, know that I am watching."

— Molag Bal, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The hero has a kick-ass sword, perhaps one he inherited. It's probably unbreakable and can cut through anything. It also has a cool name which is likely meaningful. And it seems like everyone in the whole world wants to get their hands on it.

Why is there so much hubbub about that sword? The world is full of good swords — what makes this one that much better?

Simple. This one is special because it was forged by the gods.

Yes, the gods made this sword. If one of the pantheon is an Ultimate Blacksmith, it's probably his handiwork. How it came into the hands of mere mortals varies. Maybe the gods gave it to someone pure in heart to vanquish evil. Maybe an amazing thief managed to steal it from them. Or maybe the gods are sadistic bastards and just wanted to see what would happen if they put such a powerful weapon in the hands of mortals.

For whatever reason, the mortals have it and all that goes with it.

This is the weapon equivalent of Touched by Vorlons. If there are other divinely crafted weapons out there, it's probable that Like Cannot Cut Like. Sacred Flames may have been involved in the crafting process.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Neon Genesis Evangelion has the Lance of Longinus. It's over 4 billion years old, capable of shapeshifting and can One-Hit Kill Angels due to completely bypassing their AT-field. And Seele-made copies.
• In Kirby: Right Back at Ya!, Meta Knight's sword, Galaxia.
• Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: The Hestia Knife is made for main character Bell Cranel by Hephaestus herself at Hestia's request while Gobinu is implied to have had a hand in the construction of several weapons of Loki Familia in the spin off, including Aiz's Durandal. Downplayed in that in the rules that govern the setting the descended gods can't make use of their divine abilities without being banished to the heavenly realm so they are restricted to purely mortal abilities in the crafting, but the fact they possessed many lifetimes worth of practise and knowledge still puts their creations at a level few if any purely mortal smiths can achieve.

Comic Books

• De Rode Ridder ("The Red Knight"): This was the main plot in the album "Doodsbrenger" ("Deathbringer"). A villain gets his hands on Deathbringer, a sword forged by the old Norse gods. It makes him unbeatable in combat, and the Red Knight is tasked with finding a solution. The solution? Find a legendary smith, have him forge an equally awesome sword, and use this to defeat the villain. Of course that means there are now two of these swords in the world... This was solved by Heroic Sacrifice.
• The Mighty Thor: Thor's hammer Mjölnir was forged by Dwarves and enchanted by Odin.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Originally all of Diana's items were crafted by her fellow Amazons, but in the Post-Crisis and New-52 universes her lasso, and in the later case, sword were crafted by Hephaestus, and the Amazons are stuck in the Bronze Age, having achieved very few of the impressive technological feats of their original incarnation.
  • In The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016) Diana's tiara, girdle, sandals and vambraces were all created by and powered by the gods, while her lasso was created with shavings from god forged items combined with her mother's love and not even the entire pantheon—minus Hades and Ares—working together can depower it.
• Batman's Hellbat armor, which was forged by Superman in the sun, reinforced by Green Lantern next to the Central Power battery on Oa, assembled by the Flash inside the Speed Force, and further modified by, in turn, Cyborg, Aquaman, and Wonder Woman, and later upgraded by Lex Luthor, a veritable modern-day pantheon, to enable him to fight Darkseid to bring back his son.
• Superman storyline The Day the Cheering Stopped introduces the Sword of Superman, a mystical blade forged at the dawn of the universe. One of the theories regarding its origin is that it was forged by divine will.
• In Guardians of the Galaxy (2020), Star Lord's element gun turned out to contain the power and the disembodied forms of the corrupted Olympian Gods.

Fan Works

• A Burning Flame In My Soul: The legendary blade of the first Dragon Emperor, Imperiax, is a weapon from the Ancient era that was forged by the gods themselves, and is so powerful not even the Elements of Harmony could stand up to it. Tyranus seeks to possess Imperiax himself, and with it he will overthrow Ember to become the new Emperor of Dragons and then conquer the world with Dragons as the dominate species above all creatures.
• In the Pony POV Series:
  • the Rainbows of Light and Darkness were created by the gods and sent to Equus via the Tree of Harmony/Mother Deer, who released them upon growing. The Elements of Harmony are also this, as not only had they previously been the Rainbow of Light, they were forged into their current form by Celestia and Luna after Discord destroyed one piece of the original Rainbow.
  • Entropy gives the Crusaders new capes made from her essence to protect them from the Rumors and aid them while they're trying to stop it. Not only do they keep them safe from the Rumors parasites, they're also nigh indestructible.
• In the Turning Red fic Turning Red: The Panda Conspiracy, Soul Slayer is an ethereal sword crafted by demonic forces.

Films — Animated

• In Moana, Maui calls this out after his magic fishhook gets damaged. When Moana suggests they fix it, he replies "It was made by the gods. You can't 'fix it'." Te Fiti gives him a new one in the end.

Films — Live-Action

• Clash of the Titans: Zeus gifts a sword, invisibility helmet and shield forged by Hephaestus to his son Perseus to have a chance of killing the gorgon Medusa. He also orders Athena to give her beloved pet owl Bubo to Perseus. She refuses to do so, and instead sends a clockwork owl (also forged by Hephaestus) to Perseus.
• Excalibur was forged by the Gods before the dawn of time in the eponymous movie.
• The Northman has the magic night-blade Draugr which can only be drawn at night or at the gates of Hell.

Gamebooks

• Lone Wolf: In Fire on the Water, Lone Wolf's iconic Sommerswerd is said to have been forged by those who men now call gods. This is de-emphasized in later books, where it turns out the gods of the Kai are both real and divine.

Literature

• The Sword of Fracture from Astral Dawn. Magali of the Aash Ra made it, though considering the Aash Ra are pretty much god-like beings, this passes the smell test for this particular trope.
• The Beginning After the End:
  • Shortly before he becomes an adventurer, Arthur picks up a mysterious teal sword called Dawn's Ballad that is able to conceal itself as a cane. During his training in Epheotus, he ends up training under the maker of said sword, Wren Kain IV. To his surprise, he learns Wren had deemed the sword a failure and cast it aside while he was in Dicathen, with Wren remarking that he can give Arthur a better weapon if given enough time. Sure enough, during the War Arc, Dawn's Ballad gets shattered twice with Arthur being forced to discard it after the second time.
  • In the aftermath of Taci's rampage in the Djinn sanctuary, Arthur gives Bairon the spear of the fallen Asura. While Bairon doesn't want it as Taci had killed Aya, their fellow Lance Mica remarks how nothing would be more respectful to their fallen comrade's sacrifice if not outright poetic justice than to kill the Asuras responsible with weapons of their own making.
  • Shortly before his Heroic Sacrifice to allow Arthur to restore Sylvie, Aldir bequeaths him his sword Silverlight as a trophy to show both Dicathen and Epheotus as proof of his demise and gain favor with both, as Aldir had become Hated by All for his past actions. However, Silverlight ends up choosing Arthur's sister Eleanor as its next wielder, even changing into a bow to match her favored weapon.
• Pretty much the whole point of Fred Saberhagen's Book of Swords series.
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Zeus's Master Lightning Bolt. Made by gods, for gods.
  • Technically forged by the cyclopses. You know, the ones even older than the gods, being siblings to the titans.
• While not technically forged by God, the swords held by the Knights of the Cross in Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series all have one of the nails used to crucify Christ in the hilt.
  • And their names are Excalibur/Amoracchius (probably a hand and a half sword, western mediaeval sword, implied to be the most powerful, having not been reforged since it was made, unlike the other two), Durendal/Esperacchius (sabre) and Kusanagi/Fidelacchius. They are terrifying in the hands of the knights.
• Zemal, the Sword of Fire, in Javier Negrete's La Espada De Fuego was forged by the book's Captain Ersatz of Vulcan/Hephaestus.
• The Great Weapons of Dragaera fit the cool powers aspect of this, although in a twist, they were created specifically to kill the gods.
• In Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker the sentient sword Nightblood was forged by people who may or may not be gods, but are worshipped as gods either way.
  • They also forged it using magic any mortal could (theoretically) learn and use— albeit very, very advanced applications of such that we have no indication they ever taught to anyone else.
• Also from Sanderson, the Honorblades carried by the Heralds in The Stormlight Archive are were made by the god Honor out of pieces of himself. The Shardblades used more widely are lesser copies of the Honorblades. And Nightblood, above, was an attempt to create a Shardblade using a different magic system after its creators visited Roshar, the world of Stormlight.
• In C.S. Goto's Dawn of War trilogy, Rhamah's Vairocanum. Made from part of a Wrecked Weapon that had been forged by a god.
• Though not technically forged by gods, Dawn's Solari Aegis in The Radiant Dawn was forged by priestesses of Apollo and contains the same magic wielded by his priestesses in battle.
• Not forged by gods, but the Sword of the Rivan King from The Belgariad was forged on the instructions of Belar and Aldur, and Aldur's Orb is on the pommel.
• In Coiling Dragon, 'divine artifacts' are stated to develop from regular items as deities actively use them and nourish them with their divine and spiritual energies. This does not necessarily explain the source of the commonly occurring interspatial rings, it does explain the unique items encountered in the story. For instance, a sword that can drive people into a killing frenzy or tear holes in space was created through its use by someone that trained in the Way of Destruction.
  • When Linley becomes a demigod and is finally able to probe his ring, he learns that it is a soul-protecting Sovereign artifact (named after the second-highest level of godhood).
• In The Balanced Sword, the weapons wielded by the Justiciars were forged by the Ultimate Blacksmith called the Spiritsmith (who is not technically a god himself but is such a great smith that no weapon forged by an actual god could be an improvement).
• Retired Witches Mysteries: Molly's amulet, inherited from her mother and said to be a gift from a lesser sea god, which enhances her magic when she begins wearing it. Book 2 reveals this to be the truth, and that the god in question was the Irish sea god Manannan MacLir, who gave the amulet to his lover originally.
• Wars of the Realm: The Warrior angels wield swords which are literally said to be forged by Elohim himself.

Myths & Religion

• Japanese Mythology :
  • The imperial sword Kusanagi ("Grass cutter") in supposedly fell from heaven and ended up embedded in the back of the 8-headed serpent Orochi.
  • Japanese Mythology tends to ascribe mystical properties to weapons of peerless craftsmanship. Swords made by Muramasa, for example, were said to be so sharp that putting them in a river would cut the water itself, and were said to drive their wielders mad with bloodlust.
• Greek Mythology: The Armor and Shield of Achilles was forged by Hephaestus to replace the set he had given to Patroclus.
• Celtic Mythology:
  • Son of Waves, the sword of legendary hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill, is said to have been forged by Len, the personal artificer of Bodb Derg, the king of the gods after The Dagda retired. Meanwhile Fionn's shield, known as the Storm Shield, was forged by sea god Manannan Mac Lir using a tree soaked in the blood of the Fomorian king Balor. His spear, while given to him by a mortal, had been made by either Fomorian or Tuatha De Danann hands depending on the version. The core group of Fionn's warriors, The Fianna, also had weapons forged by divine hands, in their case Fomorian, after Fionn overcame one and "convinced" it to make weapons for his companions.
  • The Sword Caladbolg, the weapon owned by Fergus Mac Roich that famously could unleash a ribbon of rainbow colored light that could cut a mountain in half, was said to have been made in The Otherworld.
• Judah Maccabee's sword, which in the fifteenth chapter of Second Maccabees he claims was given to him from heaven by Onias the high priest and Jeremiah the prophet to smite the forces of evil coming against the Jews.

Roleplay

• In The Gamer's Alliance, Dawn, Dusk, Dokubaraken and Morninglight are blades which have been forged by gods.

Tabletop Games

• In the Palladium Role-Playing Game, the Vampire Intelligence, posing as a God, defeats another Intelligence that tries to muscle in on his turf and turns it into a powerful sword. He actually prefers that the weapon falls into the hands of mortals whenever possible, as the fact that such a powerful monster is now just a tool for mortals is all part of the punishment.
• The relics in Scion are not only of exemplary quality, but they're often the only means through which starting characters can channel the Boons of their divine parents.
• In Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 the Chaos Gods sometimes grant their mortal or daemonic servants powerful weapons (although usually their forging is done by daemons, not the gods themselves).
  • Vaul, the High Elves' forge god in Warhammer, forged at least one uber-sword. Vaul, the forge god of Eldar of Warhammer 40,000's Eldar forged ninety-eight more swords and a variety of other gadgets. It's not quite clear if the 40k Vaul's swords were literal swords though. The Eldar legends about the War in Heaven tend to be rather metaphorical and not directly based on the actual events (the war itself is an actual historical event though).
  • Anaris "The Sword of Dawn Light" (in 40k) was sufficiently cool that it allowed the crippled forge god Vaul to challenge the god of war Khaine (before he got the title Kaela Mensha) and provide a serious fight. Later used by a Eldar named Eldanesh (brought to him by falcon) to challenge Khaine to personal combat. A battle that the god of war barely won, and his brutal killing of Eldanesh earned him the title Kaela Mensha Khaine (Bloody Handed Khaine) and got him cursed to drip the blood of Eldanesh from his hands for all time.
  • One of the special Remnants of Glory items for Eldar commander units is a literal Shard of Anaris: Anaris was shattered when Khaine was killed by Slaanesh, and the shards ended up on the craftworlds. Even though each one is but a tiny fraction of the original sword's power, the Shard is the Eldar commander's go-to murder sword choice.
  • Gotrex's Rune Axe is strongly implied to be one that was forged by the Dwarven Ancestor Gods. It's been known to shatter the Daemon Weapons like those mentioned above.
  • In Warhammer Fantasy Battles, the lizardmen can use mayincatech lasers, forcefields and magic increasers made by the gods. This is made extra cool beacause the non-divine tech they use is at a bronze age level.
• The only things better than wonders forged by gods, are wonders forged by the Exalted. The Exalted are over-the-top ultra-powerful mythic heroes, who can quell a war with a word, cleave a mountain in two, and split souls as a martial arts attack.
  • In Exalted, you forge gods into swords! Gods can be smelted into magical material called Starmetal, which then can be used to forge a lot of things, including weapons. This is an act of extreme evil as it's essentially a divine version of And I Must Scream.
  • You can also have weapons forged by various supernatural entities such as demons (and it will be...alive, somehow) and The Fair Folk (which means that the blade is a lie).
• The Godsend in Magic: The Gathering was crafted by the Therosian forge god, Purphoros, and subsequently remade into the weapon with which Elspeth would challenge Xenagos. In-game, its god-killing power is represented by its ability to exile any creature and prevent your opponent from casting any other copies they may possess, which pleasantly enough works on mortals too.

Video Games

• One of the first weapons you can get in Jade Empire was supposedly forged by one of the gods as a present for his son. No-one is sure how it came to the hands of mortals. Naturally, there's an even better version of the weapon (style) later in the game.
• All the magical Soma in Tales of Hearts were made by a Sufficiently Advanced Alien.
• The Sword of Moonlight from King's Field was crafted by Black Dragon Guyra, it is a glowing sword which fires Sword Beam, and is carried throughout almost every single subsequent game created by FromSoftware.
• The weapon of Aeon from Castlevania: Judgment is a giant stopwatch that turns into a clocksword, where the minute hand extends out from the center into the blade. The hour hand also reaches out a bit from the opposite side, and is sharp as well. Aeon created the watch, and is the overseer of time, effectively granting him a "godlike" status. He can even stop time to effectively eviscerate his opponent.
• Patapon has a pretty interesting variation with the Divine Weapons: you are the god forging them, and you decide which one of your soldiers is worthy enough to wield them.
• The Lance and the Shield in Valkyria Chronicles are said to have been forged by the semi-mystical Valkyria. When you see what they do, it seems very probable. The bad thing is, that the Big Bad finds them first.
• Pretty much everything Eddie uses in Brütal Legend (except Clementine, which he brought with him from his time) was forged by the Gods of Metal. And he is the only one who figured out how to use these devices.
• World of Mana: Anything after Trials of Mana usually has the Mana Sword created directly by the Goddess of Mana. Prior to that, the Sword of Mana's origins are less certain, but implied to be created by the same tribe that looks after (and is) the Mana Tree.
• The Blade of Olympus in God of War II and III. It has the ability to absorb energy to make itself more powerful. Kratos has to drain his godly power into the blade, which makes him weak enough for Zeus to swoop in and kill him. Unfortunately, when the gods forged a weapon powerful enough to kill the Titans, they failed to realize they were vulnerable to it as well.
• Rise of the Kasai: Rau's tiaiha (a New Zealand weapon that combines characteristics of a spear, a club, and a sword) was given to him by the Oracle, a tree that acts as a messenger for the gods. The Oracle itself was grown from the tiaiha of one of the gods when it got stuck in the earth, and Rau's tiaiha was carved from the wood of the Oracle. Forged FROM the Gods.
• The Darkness II has a bunch of these laying around as collectibles, ranging from Af and Hemah, a pair of swords forged by God using the Angel of Death of Men and the Angel of death of beasts, to The Trinity, a blade made from the three nails put through the body of Christ during his crucifixion, to the Crescent of the Sun, a sword made from a drop of the suns fire forged by The Angelus, to the Abysal Maw, a gun carved from the gates of hell by Satan himself, to Siddarthas tears, a clay pot baked by The Darkness itself, capable of sucking out and trapping a persons soul. Unfortunately, none of them are usable.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • The Master Sword, the Blade of Evil's Bane, which was forged by the gods. It started off as the goddess Hylia's personal weapon, then was reforged into a human-sized blade known as the Goddess Sword, and was upgraded to the Master Sword over time in order to kill the demon king, in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. It did its original job, but Demon King Demise's Dying Curse means it still has unfinished business.
  • There's also the Great Fairy's Sword, so named because it's given to you by a Great Fairy.
• Len'en Project features the Tasouken and Bankyou, wielded by Adagumo no Yaorochi and Ooya Kunimitsu, respectively. These two swords were both forged by Ametsukana Yago, and are both extensively used in Yaorochi's and Kunimitsu's spellcards, and since this is a Bullet Hell shmup, well...
  • Yago themself currently uses another sword of their own making, the Sugari no Ontachi, for the same aforementioned purposes.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • The Daedric Artifacts (crossing over with Legendary Weapons for those that are weapons) are some of the most legendary artifacts on Nirn. Each is associated with a particular Daedric Prince and passes from owner to owner according to the wishes of those deities. It is implied that these artifacts were created by these deities, or are possibly even a part of the deities themselves. Famous recurring examples include the Malacath's hammer Volendrung, the dagger Mehrunes' Razor, the Mace of Molag Bal (see the page quote), Meridia's sword Dawnbreaker, and Sheogorath's staff Wabbajack. Non-weapons include Azura's Star (a reusable Grand Soul Gem), Boethiah's Ebony Mail, and the Masque of Clavicus Vile.
  • The Aedra, deities who aided in the creation of Mundus (the mortal plane) primarily worshiped in the Nine Divines religion, have provided some legendary artifacts as well. Some of the most famous are Auri-El's Bow and Shield, Auri-El being the Aldmeri eagle version of Akatosh, the draconic God of Time. (The Bow is said to be the weapon that launched Lorkhan's Heart down into the world after he was "killed" for his perceived treachery during creation.) Similarly, the Divines each contributed to the Crusader's Relics. Originally worn by Pelinal Whitestrake during the Alessian Revolt when he defeated Umaril the Unfeathered, they would have to be collected and sanctified by "Pelinal Reborn" in Oblivion's Knights of the Nine expansion.

Visual Novels

• The Sword in Aoi Shiro, which is a property of the gods. Subverted, it's "merely" made from primordial chaos from the age of the gods. It's also the Ame-no-Murakumo.
• Fate/stay night:
  • Gilgamesh possesses Ea, the Sword of Rupture. It was crafted by an unknown god during the primordial age of the world and was used to split the heavens from the earth. The blade itself doesn't look like a sword as it was created before the concept of such a weapon existed. Ea is Gilgamesh's strongest weapon and he uses it only sparingly against those he deems worthy. Due to its unearthly origins, simply looking at it is enough to cause Shirou to lose the ability to think.
  • Various other weapons are a step down, being crafted by the faeries instead. The most notable example is the paired Excalibur and Avalon, the first of which Shirou can comprehend but not reproduce while the second he can only reproduce when he possesses it inside his body.

Web Animation

• Harry Partridge declared Skyrim to be this in his celebratory animation.

Web Comics

• In Aurora (2019), the smith god Tahraim creates magical weapons on commission, mostly for other gods. The most prominent example of his work in the comic is a starmetal sword he made for the city god Vash.
• In Erfworld, the Arkentools were created by the Titans of Ark. They seem not to be originally designed as weapons, but at least two (the Arkenhammer and Arkenpliers) are very powerful in combat.
• In 8-Bit Theater, the Light Warriors manage to obtain some god-forged weapons, which burn their hands. Except for Fighter.

Web Original

• In the Whateley Universe, Destiny's Wave, a jian forged by some of the Eight Immortals of the Tao and imbued with the soul of a great sage: the weapon that the Handmaid of the Tao always bears.

Western Animation

• Jack's sword in Samurai Jack was forged by the gods using the pure spirit of his father, so that his father could vanquish Aku. Due to its purity, it can be wielded by anyone, but cannot harm those of noble spirit. Robots, however...
• Transformers
  • There's Vector Prime's sword Rhisling, Prima's Star Saber, (no, not that Star Saber, or that one either), and any of the other weapons of the Thirteen Original Transformers. The god in question would be Primus.
  • Anything made with the Forge of Solus Prime probably counts as this trope, even if Solus Prime isn't around to swing it any more. Megatron takes it a step further by using the Forge to fashion the blood of Unicron into a sword, the Dark Star Saber.

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