Throughout the development of warfare one thing has been determined across all cultures: the sword is king.  For whatever reason, the Japanese (katana), the Middle East (scimitar), Romans (gladius), Indians (tulwar), the Aztecs (macuahuitl), and essentially every civilization on the planet have agreed that it was the weapon of choice for melee combat.  Even far into the future, we’re still using light sabers and vibro-blades.

Basically, in the development of weapons, there were two questions.  First, how long should the cutty thing be vs. the part we have to hold?  Second, what shape should the cutty thing be?  You have a long handle to short weapon … you get a pole arm or spear.  Skinny blade – maybe a rapier, wide blade – maybe a battle axe.  What I love is that the weapon of choice is basically wood the size of a joystick, topped off with a 2 foot blade.  How simple – maximize the dangerous parts with just enough grip for your hand.

The sword has become a universal symbol across all cultures of power, fidelity, and confidence.  All knee before the phallic icon.  Here then is a listing of the top 5 swords.

Swords that earned honorable mention: the Sun Sword from Thundarr the Barbarian, Gandalf’s Glamdring from the Lord of the Rings, the Vorpal Sword from the Jabberwocky, heron-marked blades from The Wheel of Time, the dark sword of The Dark Sword Trilogy, and finally the Ebony Blade from Marvel’s Black Knight.  With such a list of swords that didn’t make it, aren’t you excited to see the final five?  Me too!

Let’s get started …

5. Frostmourne: Anyone that has played Warcraft III remembers the little girl giddiness and glee when you finally discovered Frostmourne in its icy tomb.  The hungry dead are plaguing the homeland of Prince Arthas and he gladly forsakes his own soul to free the blade.  Subsequently, the boisterous dwarven sidekick, one Muradin Bronzebeard, who loudly protested to the cursed weapon, is killed to satiate the blade’s appetite.  “Frostmourne hungers …”

Now our pal Arthas is wholly transformed into a death knight.  Yep, its just as cool as it sounds.  And he gest to ride an undead horse.  For us D&D nerds, its called a nightmare.  Unfortunately, he’s also a slave to the Lich King (but only at first).  To start off the next campaign, we’re hanging with cultists, digging up grave ghouls, and stitching together abominations to get our Arthas 2008 campaign in full swing.  Tax cuts for undead!  The first act of the aspiring Ruler of the World – come home and kill his father the king in a beautiful cinematic interstitial.  What style!  What panache!  They should have listened to the mysterious raven wizard …

Frostmourne is iconic, which means that there is a lot here that you’ll recognize from other places (see #1 below).  Even though its essentially a one-handed weapon, it clearly has the length and weight of a bastard sword or greater.  It’s magical, delivers a wholesome pack of ass kicking power.  In the Warcraft RPG, Frostmourne is a … deep breath … +5 keen unholy ghost touch bastard sword of wounding and speed with life draining and one hell of a model American.

4. Sword of Omens: Despite their relatively short run as a cartoon, the Thundercats have left an indelible impression on my generation.  And key to the protagonist’s coolness?  The Sword of Omens.  Wielded by the courageous Lion-O, the sword is nearly indestructible.  Ok, in reality, its been broken four times.  Four times?  Instead of calling it nearly indestructible, how about vaguely tough.

The sword is normally in its dagger state, you know for easy storage.  Upon the magical call, “Thundercats!  Thundercats!  Thundercats!  Ho!” it grows into a full longsword (as shown).  The creator of the Thundercats apparently went on to a very successful career as a marketing exec at Viagra.  Could this sword be any more phallic?  During his sword call, Lion-O is swinging the sword haphazardly in all directions as if to excite the steel.  Call it foreplay.  More important than the sword itself is the Eye of Thundera that is set just above the crossguard.

According to Thunderpedia (yes, this site actually exists), here is the full scope of powers: it can fire energy blasts, produce a force field, can be re-summoned to Lion-O’s hand with a short, verbal command, the Eye will growl if any of the Thundercats are in danger, and clairvoyance (remote viewing).  This one is activated by Lion-O looking through the cross guard and saying, “Sword of Omens!  Give me sight beyond sight!”  He can then see anywhere in the present time (not the past or future). Cheetara had better watch herself.

And of course, the signature power is the call of the Thundercats which projects the Thundercats symbol into the sky and summons his comrades to the aid of their leader, regardless of where they are (or doing).

3. Sword of Power: Also known as the Power Sword, this is the blade of choice for He-Man.  Forget that He-Man’s name would never work in the ambiguously gay world of today, in the 80s he was a man’s man.  Gee, that sounds bad too.  What I’m trying to say is that he used it to beat other guys in speedos, colorful accessories, and clever nicknames.  Hmm, let’s just move on.

Originally, the sword was a matched set – one to He-Man and the other to Skeletor.  The backs of the toy swords were fitting so that they could be combined into a single blade, and thusly realize the full power of the sword.  This idea was scrapped and Skeletor became little more than a wise-cracking, lovable loser with his band of ineffectual idiots.  He-man got the only Power Sword and Skeletor got a goat-headed staff that could do party tricks.

Here’s were the Power Sword gets cool.  The wielder, one Prince Adam, could invoke the ancient powers of Eternia, “By the power of Castle Greyskull!  I have the power!” and become a slathering, super-powered muscleman.  Super strength, impervious to physical damage, and a perfect 70s bob haircut.  Don’t think that the Power Sword doesn’t think about pets, too.  Your large, cowardly green house cat is transformed into an armored, ferocious tiger with a chest cough.  And of course, it can deflect laser beams and profanity with ease.  Even cooler, the sword served as a back-stage pass to the eternal party that is Castle Greyskull and its host, the smoking hot Sorceress.  Don’t you think she’s bird-like?  I mean she just looks birdy to me.

2. Excalibur: This blade is mythic and several similar blades are included with this selection, including Narsil/Anduril, Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, and others.  He who wields the blade shall be KING! It represents the intangibles of a great leader, that through his strength and savvy he can bring the land under one banner and thereby peace from feuding nobles and warlords.

There isn’t a list of consistent powers that is associated with the blade, but I’ll look to the 1981 film Excalibur for the full list of abilities.  Like the Sword of Omens, it is nearly indestructible.  King Arthur apparently tried to kill Lancelot with it and it broke, seeing that it wouldn’t kill a virtuous man.  As Merlin said to a dejected fighter and his broken magical toy, “You have broken what could not be broken.  Hope is broken.”  He threw it back into the nearby pond and started the trend of industrial polluting and dumping.  Fortunately, the Lady of the Lake was there, fixed it, and gave it back.  So one the indestructibility scale, we’ll call it an 8.5.

In addition, it’s wicked sharp and there are scenes of it slicing and dicing full plate armor as easily as it could cut a tomato.  Of course, this is in the early scenes with Uther Pendragon.  We can also assume that it gives some type of leadership bonus or military command advantage to its wielder, since its allowed them to conquer England twice.  “The land from here to the sea shall be yours, if you enforce the King’s will!”

You might be saying to yourself, how does the sword of kings only register at #2?  Well, that’s because #1 is …

1. Stormbringer: The sword of swords.  The Black Sword.  It’s a six foot long ebon sword, carved with heavy, red runes.  It is forged from pure chaos.  Contained within the blade is a powerful demon.  It is wielded by the doomed sorcerer king and albino, Elric of Melnibone.  Like most swords on this list, it has a sister blade – Mournblade, wielded by Elric’s cousin, Yyrkoon.  Don’t expect to see him anytime soon, Elric killed him with Stormbringer.

The sword can cut through anything that is not protected by powerful magic.  Stormbringer will immediately kill any normal being struck with the sword, sucking the life force from their bodies like a vampire and then giving it to the wielder for greater strength and stamina.  An added bonus!  It allowed a frail weakling like Elric to become very powerful throughout the course of combat by eating the souls of its victims.

With all this power, you’re probably wandering, “what’s the catch?”  Well, there is one and its a big one.  I already mentioned that Stormbringer is actually a demon.  It can talk, think, and at times control its wielder.  In one unfortunate scene, Elric was getting drama from his boo and Stormbringer decided it was blood lust time and forced our albino king to kill her.  This is a recurring theme in Elric’s life.  It’s one of the reasons he’s known as the Kinslayer.  Hell of a nice guy, though.

Despite this major drawback, role players have been lining up for decades at the chance of wielding it regardless of what friends and family pets get caught in the frey.  Myself included.  Now if you ever encounter a player using the name Stormbringer, you know they are a plagiarizing bastard (like Dave did with my unknowing sister).

Did I mention that its strong enough to take on the Dukes of Hell themselves and win?

This sword is so popular that Deep Purple named their 1974 album after it.  There is a band out of Florida that has the name.  Blue Oyster Cult, Magnum, Blind Guardian, Domine, Apollo Ra, and a ton of other bands have either written odes to the blade or referenced them in their music.  It is the inspiration for Frostmourne above, showing that its one of the most copied weapons in video games.

And that is my top 5 swords to smite mine enemies.  Now if I could only figure out a way to get Stormbringer into Mario Cart …