Daemon Weapon

Daemon Weapons are a kind of enchanted weapon present in both Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, and Warhammer 40,000. As their name suggests, they are weapons that have been granted magical powers by the process of sealing up a daemon inside of them. Obviously, the daemon tends to be rather pissed off about this, which means these weapons are usually as much of a danger to their wielder as they re to their wielder's enemies.

Since they were introduced in the Realms of Darkness duology, sourcebooks for 40k, Warhammer Fantasy and the first edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Daemon Weapons have had different powers in different editions and sourcebooks.

The very first draft of Daemon Weapons portrayed them as soul-sucking blades. They could instantly kill anything they wounded and "ate" the Strength of the casualty model; 1/3rd of this went to weapon's inhabitant daemon, 1/3rd to the bearer, and the last third was lost. This was important to track for several reasons: firstly, your Chaos Champion would essentially faint if their Strength was raised to thrice its initial value, and secondly, the Daemon Weapon could only hold 5D10 points of stolen Strength in total (generated when the blade was found). At half this total, the blade could send its bearer into an indiscriminate killing frenzy. When this total was reached, the daemon was glutted and so the weapon lost all of its powers for the rest of the battle. Aside from this trait, they granted a bonus to the bearer's to hit rolls, were a magical weapon, dispelled auras, and could pass on some of the traits of the daemon bound within. For example, if the daemon itself could fly and regenerate, so could the chaos champion bearing it.

Later editions for Daemon Weapons would simplify these rules, at least for WHFB - in the Hordes of Chaos rulebook, for example, the Daemon Weapon was a 100 point magical weapon that granted its bearer the Weapon Skill, Initiative and Attacks of one of the four Greater Daemons.

In WH40K, Daemon Weapons evolved to fill the niche of the lost Chaos Blades - the generic magical weapons of Chaos Champions from Realms of Darkness. Daemon Weapons now came in various different forms and names, each of which had their own unique special powers and attacks. 40K roleplaying games such as Black Crusade particularly exemplify this evolution.

Notable Daemon Weapons

The Black Blade - A huge Daemon sword wielded by Angron during the first war for Armageddon. It was made by the Dark mechanicum and it was capable of cutting 5 Grey knight terminators in a single swing. Was broken and shattered by a Grey knight called Hyperion during the First war.

Drach'nyen - Failbaddons weapon of choice. It was created out of a Daemon who's sole purpose was to kill the Emperor. It was taken into the webway by a Custodian to keep it away from the Emperor and anyone who meant him harm. Considering Abaddon now has it we can pretty confidently say he failed.

Forgebreaker - A giant Thunderhammer used by was forged by Fulgrim and given to Ferrus Manus, when Fulgrim turned traitor he took back the Hammer and after killing Ferrus gave it to Perturabo. It was later returned to the Iron Hands (this Hammer get around a fair bit).

Silver Blade of the Laer - A sword infused with a daemon of slaanesh, used by Fulgrim during the Great crusade and Horus Heresy and which corrupted and possesed him into Killing Ferrus.

Axe Morkai - A Khorne weapon used by Great wolf Logan Grimnar and which may or may not be slowly corrupting him. It was taken from a champion of Khorne and Reforged into it's current incarnation.