Popular Culture
A 1984 episode of the British TV series Tales Of The Unexpected featuring a poisoned sword in a duel was called The Vorpal Blade and starred Peter Cushing
In the 1987 seminal RPG, Dungeon Master, the Vorpal Sword was a black-bladed, kris-like weapon.
In the novel Mirror, Graham Masterton explains that "vorpal" means "Victory Over Ruin, Pestilence And Lust".
The Vorpal blade is the primary weapon in American Mcgee's Alice and Alice Madness Returns.
The Vorpal Sword is one of the many weapons found in the first Final Fantasy video game, released for the NES console in 1987.
In the computer game League of Legends, Vorpal Blade is an ability of the champion Shen, and Vorpal Spikes is an ability of the champion Cho'Gath.
The Vorpal Sword appears in the graphic novel series Fables in which the sword has the mythical property of cutting through any known object
In Baldur's Gate 2 computer game, the Vorpal Sword is composed of the shaft and blade taken from Githianki, grants a good chance to kill an enemy with one hit (called Vorpal hit).
In Heroes of Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East, the Pit Lord's ability Vorpal Sword means at least one creature of the opposing stack must die during an attack.
In the original PlayStation game Castlevania Symphony of the Night, the Vorpal Blade is a single handed sword dropped by the Archer that "Slices cleanly through enemies". Its appearance mimics the "dicing" ability of the much more powerful Crissaegrim sword.
In the Game Boy Advance RPG game Golden Sun, a sword called Elven Rapier can be found inside Bilibin Cave. The unleash effect of this weapon is called Vorpal Slash, dealing more damage than the normal attack.
In the game Munchkin (card game) (expansion 3 "Clerical Erors") the Vorpal Blade is a treasure card. This 1-handed weapon gives +3 and an extra +10 against anything that starts with the letter "J" ("don't ask what vorpal means either")
In the roguelike Nethack, the Vorpal Blade is an artifact weapon that can be found by the player, giving the wielder a 5% chance of beheading any monster with a head. The chance increases to 100% against Jabberwocks, as per the original poem.
Vorpal Dagger is a weapon in World of Warcraft.
In the video game Pikmin 2, one of the treasure the player can collect is the Vorpal Platter which is just a can lid.
In the Super Famicom game Tales of Phantasia, the Vorpal is a Blade used to forge the sacred Eternal Sword. Also, in this game it has ice properties.
In the 1988 David Zindell science fiction novel, Neverness, the name of the Lord Master's lightship is Vorpal Blade. The name is revealed in the 24th chapter of the book.
Vorpal swords appear as weapons in Glasshouse, a 2006 science fiction novel.
In the Young Adult novel, Epic, by Conor Kostick, vorpal is used to describe the sword Acutus, a "blade that randomly, at a rate of about one in twenty blows, cut through any substance."
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