Talking Weapon

It knows what it wants. No, not that.

As a weapon, Lilarcor has its uses, but many a warrior has eventually given it away. Banter such as "Ouch, that musta hurt", "Oh yeah! Got 'im good", and "Beware my bite for it might...might...might really hurt or something" is a constant barrage on a warrior's psyche.

— In-game description of Lilarcor, Baldur's Gate II

A weapon — usually a Cool Sword — that talks. Some combination of Empathic Weapon, Evil Weapon, and Exposition Fairy may apply. It could be magical (the weapon may have its own soul) or technological (substitute soul with AI and voice output).

It might get annoying, though. If the weapon won't shut up, the wielder may feel Blessed with Suck. If the weapon can do more than just talk, see Equippable Ally.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Bleach:
  • Shinigami swords (zanpakutou) are born from the shinigami's soul. It takes talent and desire for the shinigami to awaken the living spirit within the sword for it to become an Empathic Weapon and even more talent to learn its name and release its powers, at which point it crosses into a Talking Weapon. Zanpakutou tend to share the shinigami's personality, including strengths and flaws, which can make it very hard for shinigami and their zanpakutou to get along. For those that crack the skill of Jinzen (the meditative skill of communing with the zanpakutou to strengthen the bonds of trust and respect), great power can be developed and harnessed. It's not possible to reach the higher seats without this bond, and only one captain (Kenpachi Zaraki) has ever existed who had no communication with his zanpakutou. Lack of good communion with one's sword can diminish strength and make the sword itself fragile and prone to breaking. The manga mostly focuses on Ichigo's zanpakutou, Zangetsu, but has shown other zanpakutou such as Zabimaru and Ouetsu Nimaiya's room full of Honey Trap female zanpakutou spirits.
    Zangetsu: Do you hear it, Ichigo? Do you hear his blade mourning? ... He has never listened to that voice. If they do not trust each other when fighting side-by-side, they will diminish each others strength. For someone who only believes in his own strength, it is impossible to understand that. Ichigo, do you trust me?
    Ichigo: Of course. I'll give you all of my power. Use it however you like and then please lend me yours.
  • While most arrancar don't even have empathic weapons (their zanpakuto are merely their full power sealed into a sword), Coyote Starrk's power did not split into an arrancar and a sword like other Espadas, it split into two arrancar (himself and Lilynette). When they recombine to reach full strength, Lilynette becomes a pair of talking (and extremely opinionated) guns.
• In Durarara!!, the cursed blade Saika speaks only in its owner's mind, but continually. About love. Which it assimilates to slashing people. After all, it's a sword; cutting people is the only way it can express itself. Have we mentioned it's said to be cursed because it makes its owners crazy?
• Hoshin Engi: Hitou is a living sword that can shapeshift and talk, not to mention feel pain.
• In Kill la Kill, Senketsu is a talking sailor uniform. Clothes Make the Superman in this setting, and he's one of the most powerful weapons in the world. However, only Ryuko can hear him until the finale.
• Haganemaru in Kurogane is capable of speech, which is useful, as its wielder isn't.
• Yuri has a talking sword (or at least one that constantly moans) in Kyo Kara Maoh!.
• In Last Fantasy, a character wields a sword with an eye that screams for souls which appears to be a Captain Ersatz of Soul Edge... but turns out to be an overpriced novelty item he bought in the last town.
• Omega-Xis in Mega Man Starforce becomes this when he and Geo power up to become Mega Man. His head covers Geo's hand allowing him to speak, while also doubling as a blaster and becoming an energy sword.
• The various Intelligent and Armed Devices in Lyrical Nanoha not only speak, they speak in surprisingly well-pronounced English and German (due to being voiced by native speakers).
• Babbo in MÄR is a talking flail... or maybe cup-and-ball game.
• Reincarnated as a Sword is as the name implies, about a man from Earth who dies and reawakens in a fantasy world as a Cool Sword who can talk via telepathy, freely move around with levitation and a ton of other magical ablities as well. He meets a Cat Girl named Fran and they form the partnership of weapon and wielder.
• The more powerful Demon Swords from The Sacred Blacksmith are this trope taken to the eleven. Not only they speak, they have personality and ponder about the meaning of their existence and their relationship to humans. Oh, and they can take human form too.
• Soul Eater:
  • Every weapon could count as this, seeing as they are humans who have taken a weapon form. Excalibur in particular is extremely talkative (FOOL!), though more of the Cloudcuckoolandery type, and he's usually only in sword form when being used or stored in the stone.
  • When Ragnarok is in its sword form, it fits nicely into this trope. Not only can Ragnarok speak, it has a mean scream attack.
• The Swordians, in a couple episodes of Space Adventure Cobra, are a whole species of talking swords with telekinetic powers.
• 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess has Ex, the Princess's sword/sidekick. He serves as the Only Sane Man who laments that the Princess seems to easily fold to the demon's harmless "tortures".
• In UQ Holder!, Touta's "gravity sword" turns out to be capable of speech, but doesn't reveal this until Touta is speaking to it when nobody else is around. It apparently has a name, but Touta refuses to let it speak said name, insisting on calling it "Sidestick".

Comic Books

• 2000 AD:
  • A variant occurs in Rogue Trooper. Genetic Infantrymen have their entire experience and personalities encoded onto "biochips" that can be removed when they die and attached to equipment — biochips are fully sentient, aware and have onboard voice synths so they can talk to the equipment holders and even operate various functions of the equipment. Rogue carries three pieces of equipment with implanted biochips from three of his fallen comrades — his helmet, rifle and backpack respectively. A large part of the strip is the interplay between the four of them.
  • Judge Dredd has Blaster Buddies, talking guns programmed to love violence and keep up the morale. Whenever one shows up, it's usually in the hands of some poor citizen it suckered into picking it up and making them shoot everyone around. They can also act independently.
• Blue Beetle: The third Blue Beetle, Jaime, has a piece of alien technology called the Scarab grafted to his spine. It can turn into Adaptive Armor with a million uses, and also speak to Jaime, though no one else can hear it. Also, the audience generally just sees weird alien symbols and has to interpret its advice from Jaime's response.
• Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire has the Loquacious Lasers, Smith and Wesson, who are the minds behind the Pistol Packin' Polaris Packrat's exploits. Also, presumably Buck's Junior (but he doesn't talk to them anymore).
• During The Crucible, Lady Death acquires a new sword called Nightmare forged by Agard's blacksmith Brock. It craves blood and frequently tries to make Lady Death kill more people to satiate its hunger.
• The Helm features a slight twist on this — as you can imagine, it's the hero's helmet that talks. And only he can hear it. There's some question as to whether or not he's simply insane, but he reasons that if this were some delusional fantasy his magic-talking helmet wouldn't be so mean to him.
• A Bronze Age Legion Of Superheroes story, "The Gun That Mastered Men," has the evil Tyr bailed out of jail by his talking gun, which takes control of Superboy when he attempts to destroy it. The gun then forces Superboy to vaporize the Legionnaires and gloats over what it made happen, but luckily it was an illusion by Princess Projectra, and Chameleon Boy poses as Tyr to get the gun back.
• In The Order (2007), Athena archetype Avona's talking sword is technologically crafted and named "Bluetooth".
• Poison Elves: Lusiphur's (stolen) sword Cinlach is explicitly an intelligent, talking weapon — it just refuses to speak to Lusiphur because he's somewhere between an Anti-Hero and Villain Protagonist. It isn't until Lusiphur dedicates himself to doing some good that Cinlach does what it's supposed to do. Unfortunately, due to Died During Production, we never get to find out the exactly extent of its powers or limitations...
• Top 10: Smax has a singing sword that he usually hides under a cloth (both because it's annoying and because he doesn't like to talk about his homeland). When he goes into battle in his self-titled mini-series, the sword starts singing ABBA.
• In The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, Swerve's gun, My First Blaster, isn't sentient but is still capable of talking thanks to having been built for him by Brainstorm. When he shoots someone with it for the first time, it tells him "Hooray! You scored a direct hit!" in rainbow-colored letters. When he misses it encourages him to keep trying.

Comic Strips

• Knights of the Dinner Table: Carvin' Marvin and Tremble. Both are also Evil Weapons with Tremble having the personality of a Drill Sergeant Nasty, while Carvin' Marvin has the voice and attitude of Don Rickles with a migraine.
• Prince Valiant: The Singing Sword (sister blade of Excalibur); it sings (probably along the lines of a Cherubic Choir) whenever wielded by Only the Pure of Heart. After this, the concept was never taken seriously, ever again.

Fan Works

• In Njal Gets Burned, Gunnar's halberd sings opera whenever it's about to kill someone. This generally alerts his mom.
• Parodied in Twilight Gets A Puppy: Luna's axe, Dr Choppy, isn't seen talking, but it somehow has a legitimate doctorate. In Season 3, Queen Chrysalis claims to have read its PhD thesis.
• In one arc of Vow of Nudity, Kay'la travels back in time to search for a missing artificer, and discovers that his magic sword has spent enough time in the past to develop sentience. (It immediately allies with her since its master had gone long-deranged from loneliness.)
• In With Strings Attached, Blackfire mostly just whines like a mosquito, but when the Hunter tries to throw it over a cliff at the urging of the four, it starts to scream “STAY AWAY, HUMANSSSS!” at the four. And he finds he can't let go of it...

Films — Animation

• Sou'unga in Inuyasha the Movie: Swords of an Honorable Ruler is an evil youkai sword that talks — often in the form of Hannibal Lectures.
• Stick, from The Monkey King, talks in incomprehensible humming noises that the title character only seems to understand.

Films — Live-Action

• Rare non-fantasy example: the Lawgivers in the Judge Dredd film talk to confirm weapon choices and give their status. However, they don't have the sentience of most weapons on this page: Those are just vocal messages.
• In The Last Sentinel the main character carries a sapient talking rifle, possibly a shout-out to Rogue Trooper.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: The Acme singing sword. Eddie tries to use it to fend off Judge Doom, but it's too busy singing to actually be an effective weapon. In addition to being a caricature of Frank Sinatra, it is a Shout-Out to Bugs Bunny's singing sword in "Knighty Knight Bugs".

Gamebooks

• Excalibur Junior (a.k.a. "E.J.") from the GrailQuest Solo Fantasy books, created by Merlin. He gets more talkative as the series progresses, and in later books gains the ability to read your thoughts. He's also arachnophobic and will refuse to be used against spiders.
• Legend of Zagor has the Orc-slaying sword of Sir Bethel, a weapon you recover from a bunch of dead orcs. As you inspect it, the sword actually speaks to you, asking for you to charge it with magic so it may slay orcs for you.
  I'm an Orc-slaying sword. If you have magical strength, I can help you. I just love killing Orcs. But I need magic to help me to fight to the best of my ability!

Literature

• Beware of Chicken shows two of them.
  • Sunny, the Whirling Demon Blade, is intelligent, but traumatised by how it's been used, and mostly keeps quiet. After being turned into a plow, however, it eventually opens up and talks to the ox pulling it. Mostly they have conversations about cutting.
  • Summer's Sky is chattier, speaking directly into its wielder's mind to talk about itself and its abilities (such as absorbing electrical attacks). It's also much friendlier, and apparently quite cultured.
    Summer's Sky greets the Eighth Master. Request. After battle, tea and show images.
• The Cosmere: Several of these have popped up:
  • The Stormlight Archive: The living Shardblades, since they are actually a form that the Radiant's spren companion can assume. The dead Shards as well, though it's not so much talking as screaming in unspeakable agony.
  • Warbreaker: Nightblood is a sword that not only speaks (telepathically) nearly constantly, but is also something of a Deadpan Snarker. It also reads minds and seems to think any thought it picks up was directed at it. It has an unusual personality and something of a Blue-and-Orange Morality, because it was made to fight evil but its creator didn't consider that an inanimate object has at best a vague sense of right and wrong, and as a result is pretty constantly suggesting it's wielder to kill random people as they're probably evil. It does work somewhat, as evil people tend to kill themselves and their friends with it, while good people get sick and/or run away. It's since turned up in Roshar, the setting for Stormlight Archive, where it's wielded by one of the main characters and showing no signs of changing its distinctive personality.
• The Court of the Air, by Stephen Hunt: There is a talking sword that is actually wise and generous.
• Forgotten Realms novels:
  • In Elfsong Danilo Thann owns a singing sword. He taught it a song about a knight who wished for a more impressive lance.
  • Khazid'hea from the Drizzt novels can speak only telepathically to its current wielder, and often chooses not to do that. It desires to be wielded by the strongest warrior, and is capable of changing the shape of its pommel to make itself more appealing to a new wielder. It angsted for a while over its inability to alter the shape of its blade, since its desired wielder Drizzt fought with a scimitar instead.
  • Dzeldazzar, "Defender of the Innocent" from Only a Woman Can Take This Sort of Abuse Spin-a-Yarn story, a sword using his speech ability mostly to show its Knight Templar personality, who "rode" a paladin of Tyr for years. Until it happened to crash the Seven Sisters's party and attack one of them.
  • In Starlight and Shadows, Sharlarra steals a sword to use as part of a disguise, and discovers to her annoyance that it is an enchanted Singing Sword which insists on singing operatic odes to her glory when drawn. This is rather counterproductive to her stealth mission, though she does get some use out of it when she learns she can instruct it to imitate the voices of others.
• Need, from the Heralds of Valdemar series. But it's not so much the sword as the soul of a woman from the ancient past who encased herself in the sword.
• Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: Sumarbrandr, the Sword of Summer, which used to belong to Freyr. He'd rather you call him "Jack", and is also something of a Deadpan Snarker.
• In Mythos Academy by Jennifer Estep, Gwen has a sword named Vic. Vic talks constantly about killing Reapers. Gwen's opposite number has a similar sword. The two talking swords hate each other and will trade insults during a fight.
• It's more than just a weapon, but the black ka'kari in The Night Angel Trilogy eventually becomes fairly talkative, and at one point, it refuses a command. Given that it chooses its own master and is supposedly highly intelligent, it seems fairly likely that it's the ka'kari which humors its owner rather than the other way around.
• Captain Reilly's ancient katana (which he nicknames "Audrey") works like this in "Okuyyuki". Though only he can hear her.
• The live swords in Mordred's Heirs, they can only talk telepathically when someone's touching their hilt but the Khan at least gives the impression of being able to perceive events around it.
• In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero in Hell, the Wounding Wand. Caurus thinks he's too tired, because he hears it; Miranda warns him to not listen.
• Rogues of the Republic: There are a few ancient weapons scattered around with the souls of ancients bound within them. While the weapons retain their full intelligence and memories, they usually can't speak more than two or three phrases, and only in the ancient language.
• Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures. Rumo gets a sword that talks to him, but he is the only one who can hear it. The problem: The two-bladed "sword" (more the size of a pig-sticker) actually contains two personalities. One is a very talkative and mostly ineffective coward (who talked Rumo in taking the sword), the other one a blood-thirsty, single-minded warrior (who can sulk when denied a fight). Rumo actually threatens to abandon the sword should it not stop talking.
• The Silmarillion: Túrin Turambar has a "to be or not to be" moment where he asks his cursed sword, Gurthang, if it will take his life swiftly. The sword answers yes, and Túrin kills himself. This is overtly taken from Kullervo's death in The Kalevala (see the Myths folder below), but unlike Kullervo's sword Gurthang says it will gladly kill Túrin to wash away the blood of the innocents he's murdered. And the story never makes it quite clear if it really talked: Túrin was less than sane, the sword only spoke that once, and nobody else was around to record the event or remember it after Túrin died.
• Terry Pratchett:
  • A Blink Of The Screen contains a story about an author who kills off his barbarian character, and finds him standing on his doorstep. Complete with a talking sword which frequently says only "I want to drink your blood".
  • Discworld:
    • The Colour of Magic: Rincewind comes across Kring, a talking sword that tries to help him save Twoflower from Wyrmburg. It had very definite ideas about how its wielder should act, threatening to kill Rincewind if he didn't do the suitably heroic thing, by pointing itself at his neck. The sword disappears afterwards and its current whereabouts are unknown, although it may have been dropped overboard from the back of a dragon flying at great height above a very deep sea. Whoops.
      "What I'd really like is to be a ploughshare. I don't know what that is, but it sounds like an existence with some point to it."
    • Men at Arms: On a darker note, the Gonne seemingly has a brief conversation with its wielder about why it fired on the dwarf who'd just repaired it. It's unclear if this is a real example or just the wielder going crazy.
• Three Acts Of Penance: Racath's sword, Daragoian, is inhabited by an ancient, sentient consciousness with a glib sense of humor. It frequently falls silent for long stretches of time, but scarcely fails to mock Racath's failures (especially regarding his excuses surrounding not pursuing a relationship with Nelle) whenever the opportunity arises. The sword is well aware of its own usefulness and magical properties — indeed, it is actually capable of shaping magic on its own, enabling Racath to perform feats like "the Red Surge" — and is frequently smug or arrogant about its own importance. For Racath this makes the Blessed with Suck issue especially prominent.
• The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: It is not uncommon for swords to contain souls, either their own or someone else's that got caught inside them. These swords tend to be very old, very set in their ways, capable of telepathy, and prone to arguing at length with their wielder or offer unwanted advice at inopportune times.
• The Wanderings of Wuntvor has Cuthbert, a talking sword who's a total coward and wails pretty loudly about all this blood and ichor everyone insists on drenching him in.
• Zachary Nixon Johnson: In the later books, Zach's Gadgeteer Genius friend Dr. Randy Pool builds him a talking gun with a built-in AI named GUS.

Live-Action TV

• Teddy from Kamen Rider Den-O in his sword form. Not only does he speak, he has a very large, grinning mouth. Sort of like a Cheshire Cat if it were a sword.
  • Den-O also has the DenKamen Sword, through which the Taros can speak, and the Denebick Buster, which is Deneb turned into a energy machinegun and therefore The Gun That Speaks.
  • Later Den-O movies make this Kotaro (New Den-O)'s gimmick; rather than being possessed by the Taros, they turn into Weapons That Speak for him to wield. Episode Blue shows Urataros and Kintaros turning into a talking fishing rod and axe respectively, and Let's Go Kamen Rider adds the Momotasword to the mix.
• Madan Senki Ryukendo:
  • GekiRyuKen, who may possibly be smarter than his partner.
  • GoRyuGun and ZanRyuJin, with GoRyuGun being the Snarky Gun That Speaks, and ZanRyuJin being the Hot-Blooded Staff/Bow That Speaks.
• Tommy's sword Saba spoke in Seasons 2 and 3 of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. He gradually shut up as time passed. (In one episode, he was "sword-napped" and taken hostage by Goldar, who was smart enough to gag him.) He was British and definitely snarky, carried over from his Japanese counterpart Gosei Sentai Dairanger.
• FRAN in Stargate Atlantis is technically a Ridiculously Human Robot but crosses into this trope when McKay protests that she is the equivalent of a bullet or bomb and they shouldn't feel bad about using her as a weapon, even though she's self-aware. McKay quickly comes to regret giving her speech when she freaks even him out by being disturbingly cheerful about fulfilling her intended purpose by "dying."
• Doctor Who. The Moment in "Day of the Doctor", an ultimate Time Lord weapon that became so advanced it gained sentience, thus no-one dared use it for fear it would turn on them. When the War Doctor activates it to stop the Time War by destroying both Time Lords and Daleks, it takes the form of future companion Rose Tyler in an attempt to convince the Doctor not to activate it.
• Frank's gun in Slingers is equipped with a full AI, sufficently intelligent for her to be counted as his best friend.
• Two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager involved an Interstellar Weapon with Artificial Intelligence.
  • In "Dreadnought", B'Elanna Torres reprograms a Cardassian missile, only to have to defuse it when it heads for another target. The missile is programmed with her voice, and at one stage B'Elanna attempts a Logic Bomb by reactivating its previous Cardassian program, a male Cardassian voice which proceeds to argue with the B'Elanna voice.
  • In "Warhead" involves a missile that only communicates through beeps, until it downloads its AI-personality into the holographic Doctor whereupon it becomes a Large Ham.
• One of the weapons of Ultraman Z, in his Delta Rise form, is the Beliarok, a tonfa with a bust of Ultraman Belial's head on its tip. The head can talk and snark constantly during combat, and verbally expresses his delight when it comes to slicing and devouring monsters during battles. In fact, right before Ultraman Z takes hold of the weapon, the Beliarok flat-out asks him, "Once you take hold of me, what will you do?"

Music

• Blue Öyster Cult: Downplayed "Black Blade" (based on The Elric Saga stories by Michael Moorcock). The titular sword doesn't talk until after it turns into a demon on the last page of the last story. Its last fell words in the song, spoken at the very edge of hearing, are a dire curse on the miserable and benighted human race: you poor fucking humans!
• Clamavi de Profundis: In "The Secret of Negankerdak", the titular sword speaks into the mind of Mordaar, telling the dwarf that he is chosen to guard the weapon until its wielder is revealed.

Myths & Religion

• The sword of Kullervo from the Finnish epic The Kalevala talks. The sword is not a chatterbox though; it speaks only once and then just before Kullervo is about to kill himself with it, making its point that it enjoys drinking blood regardless of whether it's innocent or guilty. Otherwise, the sword is unremarkable and unnamed.
• In the Estonian epic Kalevipoeg the eponymous hero also has one. Turns out that it kind of hates him because he killed the son of the smith who made it. And eventually it ends up killing him, abusing his Exact Words.
• Irish Mythology:
  • The Battle of Magh Tuireadh: In the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, Ogma (one of the Túatha Dé Danann) captures Orna, the sword of a Fomorian king named Tethra. When Ogma takes it out of its sheath to clean it, the sword "told what had been done by it, because it was the habit of swords at that time to recount the deeds that had been done by them whenever they were unsheathed." The narration adds as an explanation that "demons used to speak from weapons" because weapons were objects of worship to the people of those times.
  • The sword of Conaire the Great, High King of Ireland around the time of Cu Chulainn, actually sang songs when drawn from its sheath.
• Sharur, "smasher of thousands", was the weapon and symbol of the Sumerian/Akkadian god Ninurta. It not only talks and provides a way to talk to the god Enlil, it flies and can turn into a winged lion. It also smashes stuff too.
• In Hawaiian folklore, a talking spear gives wise counsel to a Kauai tribe's chief and his son.

Podcasts

• The Adventure Zone: Amnesty has Beacon, a magic talking urumi (think a sword crossed with a whip) who’s owner finds him very annoying.

Tabletop Games

• 1001 Science Fiction Weapons for D20 has a couple, including a WMD which will destroy the galaxy if its mind wanders, and must be held in conversation until the deactivation words can be spoken along with a visualisation of the concept; and a landmine that looks like an egg which is adaptable enough to choose to deal any mix of damage types, damage things in different planes of existence, shape its blast to leave objects untouched, and is capable of understanding orders like "do not detonate until you can see the negotiations have failed". Also writes poetry in many languages and will ask politely not to be detonated, but will do its job if it must.
• Dungeons & Dragons has rules for intelligent weapons, including how well they can communicate (e.g. starting with simple "empathy" and going all the way to full-blown telepathic powers)... as well as rules for conflicts of wills between weapon and wielder. The stock intelligent weapons described in the manual range all over the power and alignment spectrums... including one sword that is recommended for a deaf swordsman.
  • Intelligent weapons in other media based on D&D (R. A. Salvatore's Forgotten Realms novels, Baldur's Gate) tend to break some of these rules because, quite sensibly, they're more concerned with finding a wielder who'll suit their purposes than one who has the same alignment as the rules demand. Thus, Khazid'hea, though apparently evil and certainly not good, wants to be wielded by the greatest warrior, i.e. Drizzt Do'Urden (at first), who's Chaotic Good. Lilarcor, on the other hand, who seems to be Chaotic Neutral, doesn't refuse to be wielded by anyone because it just wants to kill things.
  • The rules in 3rd Edition noted that it isn't alignment per se that trigger conflicts of will between the weapon and the wielder, but rather the purpose of the weapon and the intentions of the wielder coming into conflict. Alignment just tends to be a fair guide to just how much risk there is for those two to diverge (and then they go on to contradict it by having an automatic negative level rule for wrong alignments...).
  • One book features an intelligent weapon with an unusual twist — it has two personalities, each with one head of the double axe and with different alignments (one Lawful Evil, the other Chaotic Evil). This means that it's easier to get into an ego conflict with the axe (since the personalities, while sharing basic purpose, had different priorities and perspectives) but also that unless you manage to tick off both personalities the full ego power of the weapon can't be brought against you.
  • La Notte Eterna, a 3rd party setting for D&D 5e: Among the things that players can find in fallen meteors are Yolandi the Sickle and Nindja the Sword, a pair of demon siblings who were bound into the forms of weapons long ago. Both retain the power of speech and their ancient lust for evil, and seek to manipulate their wielders into freeing and reuniting them.
• GUN&SLINGER by Nevyn Holmes, is designed for a GM and two players. One player is The Slinger, a mysterious wanderer on a quest, while the other one is The Gun, a sentient magical gun who works in tandem with the Slinger.
• GURPS: Thaumatology has rules for how intelligent weapons communicate, ranging from simple emotional impressions to mind control.
• The Singing and Dancing Sword from Munchkin. Useful since you don't need any hands to wield it so you can add it even if you're carrying other items.
• Pathfinder: All artifact weapons are Empathic Weapons to some degree, but several go further into being full-on talking weapons.
  • The Jade Regent adventure path features Suishen, the ancestral katana of the Amatatsu dynasty, which is rumored to be inhabited by the spirit of the first Amatatsu scion and can speak both normally and through telepathy and is fiercely loyal to its royal line. By the time the PCs get to it, it's kept silent for fifty years after being sold for emergency funds during the Amatatsu's exile from Minkai (Suishen's own idea, incidentally), and has consequently developed a rather gruff and undiplomatic manner due to its self-imposed isolation.
  • The dragontooth spear of the Runelords of Sloth is intelligent and capable of speech, endlessly haranguing overly active wielders by critiquing their actions as impulsive and knee-jerk and suggesting that any given problem at hand would be best tackled through meticulous planning, preferably from a well-appointed and relaxing study.
  • Briar is a talking, telepathic bastard sword formed from a nymph queen's ability to love. It still resents the fey lords that did this, and consequently seeks to bring ruin to the creatures of the First World.
• Rifts: Rune weapons of the highest levels can communicate with their wielders.
• Warhammer 40,000: Some Daemon weapons fit this trope. You do not want to listen to them. Unless you're evil, in which case listen away — many are full of sound advice. Some particularly powerful Daemon Weapons can exert limited Telekinesis. Abbadon's sword, for instance, once got him wounded by pulling him towards Eldrad — while he was impaled on Eldrad's force weapon.
• Wraith: The Oblivion has the very disturbing soulforged weapons. Most ghosts believe the process of beating a soul into an inanimate object on an anvil destroys the victim's consciousness, but that's small comfort when that fancy new battle-axe starts weeping. Exalted uses the soulforging concept from Wraith, but dispenses with the comforting belief that the victims aren't still aware and screaming in agony forever.

Video Games

• Yoriko's staff, Mike in Arcana Heart, who is a very arrogant Demon King that got trapped in this form.
• Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny: The Azure and Crimson Azoths both speak.
• Baldur's Gate II: The sword Lilarcor is intelligent enough to have an Ax-Crazy personality. Many players find it to be a most suiting weapon for the mentally less-than-stable Ranger Minsc. So much in fact that a fan-made Game Mod adds extra banter if Minsc is wielding the sword.
  Minsc: I have asked Larry many times why he is my sword. I say, "Larry, why are you Minsc's sword?" and he says—
  Lilarcor: Because you got the grip and I've got the rip! Yeeaaaaaaahhhh!
  • The popularity of the weapon also resulted in it being added to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind via mods.
• The Bard's Tale: The Ego Sword not only talks but can also sing. This can be handy in a pinch, as the eponymous Bard doesn't need to switch to an instrument to call a new summon with the Ego Sword equipped. The sword and bard openly hate each other.
• The Borderlands series:
  • Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!: The Boganella, which talks like a stereotypical Bogan (the Australian equivalent of a redneck or chav). The Claptastic Voyage DLC introduces a gun that's constantly shrieking "KILL" as you fire it, a laser that has Pickle's voice, and a shield that talks like Robin Williams.
  F**k you in the c**t and the *** and the f**kin's s**m p***e!
  • Borderlands 2: There are a few of these:
    • If you take Loader #1340's AI core from "Out of Body Experience" to Marcus at the end of the quest, he'll install it in a shotgun that will provide commentary like "Nice one, boss!" when you kill an enemy, or "Why'd we stop shooting?" when you reload or if you aim down the sights ("Let's take a closer look."). Take it to Zed and he'll install it in an Absorb shield that warns you when he's fully charged ("Come at me.") or depleted ("Sorry boss! I'm gone!"), as well as trash talk any elemental Damage Over Time that isn't Shock, the main weakness of all shields).
    • The Morningstar sniper rifle, given to you by Hyperion (the MegaCorp owned by the Big Bad), constantly tries to guilt-trip you for killing people with it, a.k.a it has the "FPS Mod", which was made by project Ex-Kay Seedy.
    • The Bane is a gun that has annoying shrieks replacing the usual shooting sound effects.^note  Also worth noting that you cannot silence it. Ever. Turning the game's sound effects and music down to zero will not quiet those LOUD NOISES.
    • The Commander Lilith DLC adds the Overcompensator from Tales from the Borderlands, only this time it now talks like a Surfer Dude. Another is the Hot Mama, a sniper rifle that speaks entirely in Double Entendres and moans when you score a Critical Hit.
  • Borderlands 3 introduces the Handsome Jackhammer and the Sellout:
    • The Handsome Jackhammer is a Hyperion-made SMG that, when reloaded, is thrown much like a Tediore weapon. It seems Rhys may have had a hand in its creation, as the weapon seems to have Jack's AI embedded in it.
    • The Sellout is a Maliwan pistol that is gained in a quest much like the "Kill Yourself" quest from Borderlands 2. When equipped, Tyreen Calypso will constantly make fun of the fact that you literally became a Sell-Out by killing yourself for a fancy gun.
• Lumina, the Sword of Luminescence from Brave Fencer Musashi.
  Musashi: What the...! Th... the sword! Lumina talks?
  Lumina: I... AM... NOT... TALKING... TELEPATHIC... COMMUNICATION.
• Castlevania: Symphony of the Night has an odd example in the Sword Familiar. Once it reaches a certain level, it can be equipped as a normal sword and stays quiet. Its more common form, though, is a floating sword that fights alongside Alucard, and in that form it shouts victoriously and taunts the enemies (and Alucard himself, at lower levels).
• COGEN: Sword of Rewind: ExeBreaker, the titular sword, can talk, and often chats with Kohaku, for example, explaining how to avoid certain attacks.
• Cthulhu Saves the World: Sharpe is a sentient sword that can talk, move on its own and attack unwielded. He joins Cthulhu's party after he defeats him.
• Cyberpunk 2077 has Skippy, an AI-infused smart pistol with a cartoon bullet avatar that talks sarcastically to its wielder in cold, robotic language.
• Dark Cloud:
  • Xiao's slingshot Steve provides an Enemy Scan and most of the game's humor.
  • Steve the Ridepod from Dark Cloud 2 can get a speech upgrade, but it just uses it to yell PIECE OF CAKE! over and over.
• Dead Cells has the Serenade power. When used, it summons a flying sword that's very talkative...and easily bored. If the player doesn't attack the targets it marks, it counts down a 30 second timer, at which point it vanished. The player can also call it hand and use it as a melee weapon, during which it also quite talkative.
• In Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, Dante gets a pair of talking swords that he soon tells to shut up. Notable in that most of his weapons were former demons, but aren't too talkative; Agni and Rudra, however, started as swords. They remain silent because Dante told them to keep quiet, but their voices can be heard when using one of their more powerful combos, calling out "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust".
• In Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten, all of the magichange swords (And every other magichange weapon) are capable of speech, being sentient monsters shapeshifted into the form of a weapon. They're usually the ones doing the talking instead of the wielder during attacks.
• Duel Savior Destiny: Aether Relics are apparently intelligent and willingly respond to the call of those who wish to wield them, but Taiga notes that his own sword, Traitor, is rather quiet. We don't even get to see that much. Turns out they've been forbidden from speaking by God and the moment God's eye falls off of Traitor, he immediately becomes Mr. Exposition, at which point it turns out that they haven't been allowed to speak because they'd tell everyone that God intends to destroy all of existence. It's happened before.
• Dungeon Crawl :
  • There's a weapon attribute aptly described as "It makes noises.", which may be applied to any random artifact weapon, meaning you might find talking specimens of pretty much any kind of weapon present in the game. Any such weapon will cause noises at irregular intervals while wielded; most of these noises are recognizable speech. Far from being a harmless annoyance for the player, the noise also tends to alert nearby hostiles to the wielder's presence.
  • Crawl also has an artifact weapon called the Singing Sword. Unlike other noisy weapons, The Singing Sword is an Empathic Weapon with a personality. It regards itself as the true hero with you as its vessel, and the things it says depend upon the danger level of the current situation. When things are looking dire, the Sword starts screaming in bloody rage, dealing sonic damage to everything in sight.
• Dust: An Elysian Tail: The blade of Ahrah doubles as the wise mentor.
• Fantasy Life has Durandal, the sword that's waiting in a deep cave for a hero worthy of being its wielder to come. It's technically part of the Blacksmith Cast Herd and will teach a player that becomes a good enough Blacksmith the recipe for the best sword in the vanilla game.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy XI: All the Relic Weapons speak at least once, although Guttler talks regularly when in the hands of its previous owner... its hobbies include blood, cutting, and dissection. Its prior owner even tells it to shut up on occasion, then turns to you and nervously pretends she didn't say anything.
  • The climax of the Dark Knight chapter in Final Fantasy Dimensions reveals that Graham, the Guest-Star Party Member, is actually an empty suit of armor that is being controlled by a sword inhabited by Graham's soul. The boss battle breaks the enchantment that allows him to manipulate the armor, but he's still in the sword and remains as a kind of Spirit Advisor who continues to offer advice and commentary. (He also becomes an equippable weapon after this.)
• Icewind Dale has a broad sword with the trapped spirit of a pessimist master thief, appropriately called Cynicism. Besides providing the wielder with thieving abilities, it randomly insults the wielder, which is why the weapon passed through so many owners. Sadly unlike its counsin Lilarcor, Cynicism is not voiced.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, the Master Sword is shown to be inhabited by a spirit named Fi which manifests itself in the form of a young girl. She frequently gives Link advice on how to proceed, and basically serves as his Exposition Fairy. Ghirahim is later revealed to be Demise's own talking weapon as well. Fi doesn't appear in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but Zelda mentions being able to hear her from within the sword giving her advice on how to proceed.
• Mabinogi's spirit weapons only speak when spoken to.
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance makes this Solid Snake's apparent final fate, as a talking kendo stick joke DLC item.
• NieR has Grimoire Weiss, a talking book that not only serves as Nier's sidekick but is also the one casting his spells.
• Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark has Enserric the Longsword, who has an insult prepared for almost any type of enemy you encounter. He is also somewhat of a Deadly Upgrade, at least when he insists on rearranging your stats. Its intelligence is implied to come from a soul that was trapped within it.
  • In Kingmaker, the main character's weapon; you get to choose what it is, but it rather snarks at you if you choose something exotic. It turns out to actually be the protagonist's grandfather.
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has Finnean, a Pathfinder who was magically transformed into a weapon. He doesn't quite understand that though (or doesn't want to understand) and talks as if he's still a person.
• Rise And Shine has the legendary weapon Shine, a talking gun that gives advice (and smartass commentary) to his new wielder Rise as they try to save Gamearth from the invading Space Grunts.
• In RuneScape the "Talking" Invention perk makes any augmentable equipment this.
• Shadows of the Damned has Johnson, a talking skull/torch that serves as both Garcia's Snarky Non-Human Sidekick and a Swiss-Army Weapon, transforming into different guns and also serving as a melee weapon in his default form.
• Sonic and the Black Knight: Caliburn, who also serves as a snarky Exposition Fairy for Sonic.
• The Onyx Blade in Soul Nomad & the World Eaters talks during the opening sequence due to the Sealed Evil in a Can trapped inside it. Said evil quickly leaps to the main character in an attempt at Demonic Possession, leaving the weapon silent again.
• Suikoden: The Star Dragon Sword. It tries to come off as ancient and all-knowing, but since the only person who can wield it is the resident Boisterous Bruiser, they both end up snarking to each other constantly.
• Super Mario RPG: Exor. This giant living weapon is a major member of Smithy's gang, crashing into Bowser's Keep, shattering the Star Road in the process (causing the Seven Stars to fly off throughout the world), and claiming Bowser's Keep as his gang's. It also turns out he’s also a portal to the home world of the gang.
• Tales of Destiny: The swordians, who are revealed to have once been people from the past. Or rather, their memories and personality imprinted onto the swords. Also, they can only be heard by the person who wields them.
• Team Fortress 2: The Demoman's haunted sword Eyelander will occasionally whisper "Heads..." to the wielder. Fittingly enough, when the Demoman decapitates people with it, he gains a status buff. It gets a lot more eloquent in the Ring of Fired comic, or at least enough to insult the hell out of a TV show.
• Torchlight contains the Sword of Adam as a rare unique drop and a Lethal Joke Weapon. Its stats are a mixture of useful and nonsensical. When swung the sword says random non-sequitors such as "Wizard!" and "Ssssoooo 3-D!" and "Hnnnarrnng!" Most probably an in-joke referring to one of the developers.
• In Transistor, the heroine Red's sword contains the soul of a friend of Red who had been killed with it, and his voice speaks to her through the sword throughout her adventure.
• Tsukihime: The Seventh Scripture carries the spirit of a half-unicorn, half-teenaged girl inside it. So it's capable of talking to those who either get their blood stained on it or have potent magical potential. Or Shiki/Arihiko's sister. Er. Anyway, mostly what she does is complain about Ciel's treatment of her. And no, it's not exactly a sword, but it is an annoying weapon that talks too much. She also loves carrots.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Corrupted Ashbringer whispers to you when you're close enough to Darion while he's carrying it. It's quite unnerving at times if you don't see it coming. Corrupted Ashbringer once was a useable item, and the ghost of Mograine would whisper to the wielder through it.
  • Frostmourne relays the voice of the Lich King to the wielder's head. Now that the wielder IS the Lich King, it probably does not whisper to him anymore, though. Turns out that the souls of everyone it kills are trapped inside, and can show up to harangue Arthas. This may be one of the reasons he was storing it in an empty room instead of carrying it with him the whole time.
  • Garrosh Hellscream's weapon, Xal'atoh, Desecrated Image of Gorehowl, is a twisted copy his father's axe, Gorehowl. Created by the power of the Old God Y'shaarj, it whispers into the mind of any player that wields it. Naturally, said whispers are rather unsetteling.
  Xal'atoh whispers: Carve more slowly so that I may feed.
  Xal'atoh whispers: Eyes are the window to the soul. Shatter them forever.
  • Some artifacts also get in on this. The shadow priest one, Xal'atath, is another Old God relic, and constantly whispers requests to give in to him, or prove unworthy so he can eat your soul and move on to the next wielder, occasionally peppered in with cryptic hints about the nature of Warcraft's Greater-Scope Villain. Meanwhile Demonology warlocks get Thal'kiel, a former demon lord who was reduced to a skull after his pupil backstabbed him, he's a much chattier Deadpan Snarker who tends to give out amusing commentary in a sarcastic dry wit, while occasionally sharing useful information about Legion generals.

Webcomics

• The Adventures of Wiglaf and Mordred: Camlann, once ranting for over 1000 words after being let out of a sheath where he hadn't been able to talk
• Darken has Komiyan find the talking Morph Weapon Blackshard. He generally sticks to harmless chatter, but does offer Weapon Wields You as a service and eventually takes full possession of a hapless minor villain so he has a body to use. Ultimately revealed that it's a Subverted Trope and "Blackshard" is actually a Body Surfing spirit that had been trapped in a gem in the pommel.
• Darths & Droids: Discussed in The Rant of this strip.
  Basically, the more powerful a sword is and the more useful it would be for a PC to be in control of all of the fantastic abilities it can grant, the more Ego the sword has, the less likely it is to acquiesce to demands to use those abilities, and the more likely it is to talk back and be generally annoying at the worst possible moment!
  Is that the perfect game mechanic or what? Gary, we are humbled by your boundless game mastering genius.
• Debugging Destiny has Tamwen, a sword-shaped spirit of earth and fire. Crosses with Empathic Weapon since the only person to hear her talk so far is Elizabeth.
• Dumnestor's Heroes has a stuck-up teenage emo sword.
• Fiyora Nya: Oruuka, due to pretty much being a Soul Jar.
• Guilded Age: "I swear, not even my own sword appreciates me."
• Keychain of Creation: Soulsteal swords are supposedly made of the forsaken souls of ghosts writhing in constant pain (see Exalted in the Tabletop Games folder), but somehow Secret's shapeshifting Cluivnarihe is instead a wise-cracking Jerkass who mocks Secret when nobody else is around to hear its (her?) disparaging comments. The one time Secret is attacked while alone and really needs her weapon, she realizes she left it in the cart to get away from the noise. Oops.
• Mixed Myth: The heroine obtains a sword that has the voice and personality of dog.
• Nodwick
  • In one strip Yeagar is duelling some other adventurer, while both are armed with talking swords. Their weapons make small talk throughout the fight, completely ignoring what their wielders are doing with them...
  • In another story the group is plundering several intelligent weapons with personal agendas (a hammer that hates giantkind, a trident gunning for enemies of the sea, and a black sword that just likes to kill things) and, as usual, make Nodwick carry everything. When the party encounters enemies that fall into all three categories (giant-kin aligned with fire, specifically) the weapons push Nodwick into a raging frenzy and he goes to town on them.
• The Order of the Stick: In one of the bonus comics in Blood Runs in the Family, it's revealed that Tarquin's rune-covered axe is actually an intelligent weapon named Soul-Muncher that briefly takes over Belkar's mind...before Roy snatches it away and throws it in a pit.
• Sluggy Freelance: Torg's magic sword, Chazz, activated in the arc That Which Redeems and used frequently thereafter. Notable in that it must drink the blood of the innocent to speak.
  "Good morning, Master. Who shall we kill today?"
• Swords and Sausages has Tor and Silver visit a crater where dozens of swords stand embedded in stones, almost like a theme park. Silver succeeds in pulling one that defied Tor and insulted him, but decides to stick it back in the stone.
• Tales of the Questor: A variation: before it was named Wildcard, Quentynn's sword kept saying an advertising pitch for the merchant he got it from. At the most inappropriate times.
• Waterworks: The axe, solely for the sake of humor. Despite its ominous red glow, it just wants to cut down trees.

Web Original

• Desolate Era: Talking weapons and treasures abound. Upon reaching a certain level of power, all treasures will generate a talking spirit. These spirits can even eventually cultivate on their own and leave the weapon they once inhabited, becoming truly independent.
• The Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters, being a Take That! at 1st Edition AD&D, includes several weapons built using the "intelligent weapons" rules. Included are Prometheus, a paladin's Holy Sword that gets off on killing things; and the Sick Sword, which is so powerful it only speaks in ALL CAPS.
• JourneyQuest's Sword of Fighting speaks. Generally in a fashion insulting to its wielder. The weapon itself may be Ax-Crazy, which seems odd for a sword. It's also a Clingy MacGuffin for extra fun.
• Bartow Laughingbones and his "Pretty Betty". Invoked in that a wizard hoped it will discourage the guy. But the talking axe not only enjoys "her" work, but turns out to be good company (at least for lonely mountain bandit), so this plan backfired.
• In Noob, this turns out to be the case of Sourcelame, the sword that Arthéon and Kary were looking for during most of Season 4 from the webeseries and the skip between novels 3 and 4. And it has a mission for the player that ends up as it permanent possessor.
• In Red vs. Blue, Freckles becomes this after being destroyed in the Season 11 Finale in Season 13 when Dr. Grey its AI chip integrated with Caboose's Assault Rifle. Because of Caboose's history with teamkilling, when Caboose tries to fire the weapon, it "shoots confetti and makes party noises".
• The RPG Fanatic features a talking sword who frequently harasses the game reviewer.
• The axe from Unforgotten Realms speaks in a French accent, apparently. It turns out he was originally a lumberjack/wizard who was transmogrified into an axe, then brainwashed so he thought that he'd been an axe all along.
• Valiant Comics RPG Vanquished: Professor Dandan, a talking gun from the future whose job it is to safeguard the psychological health of its users by getting them over their silly hangups against killing.
• Destiny's Wave, from the Whateley Universe. It is the magical weapon of Bladedancer, the Handmaid of the Tao, and is a jade jian that can cut through pretty much anything. It has the soul of a great woman warrior sealed inside it, and seems perfectly willing to talk to Bladedancer's friends too.

Western Animation

• In Adventure Time, Finn's fifth sword, the Finn Sword, is made from the essence of an alternate version of him. Despite this, the alternate Finn is still aware and can talk.
• The Adventures of Puss in Boots features the heroic Goodsword and the sinister Scimitar. While the Goodsword can give advice and encourage its wielder, the Scimitar compels its owner to kill and feed it blood.
• Bounty Hamster. In "Save the Whale", Cassie and Marion attempt to disarm a bomb attached to a Space Whale. They have trouble locating the Incredibly Obvious Bomb in the large cargo bay until it's polite enough to introduce itself.
  Cassie: You can talk!
  Bomb: Certainly, I am a smart bomb.
  Cassie: Then prove it. Don't explode!
  Bomb: Nice try, Einstein, but you'll have to do better than that!
• Dave the Barbarian: Lula the sword. Talking weapons show up often in this show. Owning one is treated as akin to dating or marriage — so Lula is understandably upset when one of her old owners turns up (after having carelessly abandoned her years ago), begs her to come back, then gets bored with her and runs off with another sword.
• Earthworm Jim did a parody episode about this. Jim gets a talking sword in a sandwich that claims to have been owned by all the great heroes. Eventually, it's revealed that it's never actually done anything significant.
• Fantaghirò: In “Weapons Of Peace”, Darken’s spell on Daniel Hammer also causes a few of the weapons he’s made to come to life- specifically, there's a sword and shield, two daggers, a pair of bolas, and a crossbow and arrow.
• In an episode of Hercules: The Animated Series Hephaestus forges a talking Energy Bow for Ares, but she talks incessantly and actually hates war, causing wrinkles in Ares' plan to attack Athens and defeat his sister Athena. And poor Herc is caught in the middle.
  Ares: (Upon learning his Armagedon Bow is a girl) HEPHAESTUS!
  (His voice echoes to the clouds where Hephaestus hears it)
  Hephaestus: (Chuckling) "Girl bow". Oh, I kill myself!
• Looney Tunes: In "Knighty Knight Bugs", Bugs is tasked to retrieve a singing sword.
• In one episode of Mad Jack the Pirate Mad Jack and his crew, which consists entirely of an anthropomorphic rat that is several times more competent than his captain, are tasked with retrieving the Singeing sword in order to slay a monster so they can get something epically ridiculous, only after they retrieve it do they discover it is not a blazing sword, as was advertised on the wall of the temple from which they got the quest, but a singing sword, that is prone to talking as a Deadpan Snarker, but mostly singing. This results in hilarity for the viewers and annoyance for the characters.
• The Muppet Babies acted out a fantasy Rags to Riches story where Piggy had to go on a quest to find a "Singing Sword", which never shut up until she shoved a sock in its mouth... and then wouldn't sing until she told it what song to sing.
  Piggy: Can you believe this?
• In the Rick and Morty episode "The ABCs of Beth", one of the items that Rick invented for Beth in her youth was a pink, sentient, homicidal switchblade.
• The Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Slaver Weapon" has some rogue K'zinti capture the Federation away team, and seize their stasis box. Inside is a weapon that evidently belonged to an ancient Slaver. One setting lets the weapon converse with its handler. The K'zinti ask the weapon which is its most powerful setting, which the weapon answers, though this proves to be a Batman Gambit.
• Tigtone: The Bardsword is a sword that can speak and sing. He really wants be used to cut down people. Later, Tigtone turns himself into one with a potion.
• In Wakfu, Rubilax is a powerful elemental demon (called a "Shushu") trapped inside a sword. He's very much of a Jerkass Deadpan Snarker, regularly belittling his guardian, Sadlygrove, and even sometimes trying to possess him. But this is still a hundred times better than letting the demon out of his prison.
• Young Justice (2010) has Blue Beetle and the Scarab (see under Comic Books), but here the audience can actually hear what it says. (It's usually some variant of "use the plasma cannon.")

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