The Broken Sword, also called The Sword of Baphomet, is the titular goal in the Broken Sword series of adventure games by Revolution Software.

[Disambiguity: The Broken Sword is a novel of heroic fantasy, considered a classic of the genre, written by Poul Anderson' and first published in 1954.]

Ironically, though the series is named after it, the actual sword only appears once in the entire series.

The Broken Sword is a concentration of geomantic energy fields (which travel across ley lines) located underneath the medieval church at St. Ninians, Scotland, near the location of the historical battle of Bannockburn. Throughout the first game the evil secret society the Neo-Templars attempt to find out the location of the sword. At the time the research on the sword's location was being headed by Professor Bruno Ostvalt. George Stobbart, the protagonist of the games, along with the help of Nicole Collard and André Lobineu discovers the location by searching for hidden clues left by the Templars in Ireland, Paris, Spain and Syria.

The sword is destroyed by Nico who throws C4 onto a burning pile of gunpowder, 'causing the church to collapse and destroy the sword.

Description

The sword is located in a large underground cavern, a secret meeting place for the Neo-Templars. The sword itself is a pair of stone-pillard with bright-blue lines of geomantic energy (dragon energy) running over them. The pillars stand before a large Baphomet idol, the three bearded faces. When activated the energy surges and manifests as blue lightning which charges anyone standing between the pillars with the sword's power.

Mechanics and Significance

People endowed with the dragon power become extremely influential and eventually may gain other remarkable abilities. Senor Susarro fed off the Dragon Power and it initially made him strong, but as he spent longer periods of time out of the influence of the dragon energy his health began to deteriorate. The Grandmaster of the Neo-Templars was endowed with the swords power but did not began to manifest its powers immediately, though he appeared to gain increased powers of persuasion. He was almost successful in turning George to their cause, but George's will power allowed him to see the Templars for what they really were.

Though the heads of the Templar order as well as the Grandmaster were believed to have been killed when St. Ninians was blown up by Nico, the Grandmaster survived and was nursed back to health by the assassin called Petra. He later vowed vengeance against George and Nico, as well as Susarro who took control of the Neo-Templar organisation. By the time of Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon the Grandmaster had began to suffer from transformation effects of the dragon energy, disfiguring the left-side of his face, but was also endowed with the ability fire lighting from his hands.

When he got a second, larger dose of the energy at the Glastonbury Tor he was transformed into an actual dragon and later slain by George, using the mythical sword Excalibur.

Similar concentrations of Geomantic Energy are found throughout the world. The significance of the Ninians concentration may had come from the fact that it was powerful enough to be used several times, where as lesser sites such as the one in the Congo that was tapped by Professor Dudley Cholmondeley would depower completely after use. However, compared to the site of the Glastonbury Tor, that was powered with the use of a device called the Armillery (located in Egypt) the Sword appeared relatively weak.