Thanks, those are all the reasons I chose. I wanted to create something that managed to be wonderful, amazing, and useless at once. Also, I wanted to prevent the PCs from effectively going on a rampage with it. Planescape's Powers are very remote and terrifying.
The only reason I chose a Sword was that it was kind of a joke on Stormbringer and the idea that some people had for something more mechanical. It's also something the PCs could fit on their person and steal.
I love this idea. While I'm not too crazy about it being a sword, I love the properties of the Artifact itself. It's clearly a great accomplishment on the part of the Athar. It attacks a Power through the deprivation of worship, the dependency on which was one of the Athar’s key arguments against the divinity of the Powers.
It’s also completely useless. It’s not powerful enough to actually kill a Power, and worse, is only one shot. At the same time, it’s powerful enough to make the Powers sit up and take notice. You can see that most members of the Athar would be furious if they found out about the project, since if news ever gets out it’ll sign a death warrant for the whole faction.
No matter how you slice it, getting involved with this weapon is a nightmare scenario for any group of PCs. So of course I think we should make sure the PCs get involved.
Did we ever figure out what caused the Shattering?