Excalibur
Excalibur is the sword which Lara Croft acquires in Tomb Raider Legend, which belonged to the semi-mythical King Arthur. It is the strongest weapon in the game, killing enemies with one hit. The sword also has unlimited range.
Legend(s)
There are primarily two legends when it comes to the origins of the sword. The first is that Arthur pulled the sword Excalibur from a stone, an act which prophecy stated could only be performed by the rightful king of England. The other, and the one presumed right at the beginning of Tomb Raider Legend, is, that the Lady of the Lake handed Arthur the sword, after he pulled another Sword from a stone. As he lay dying, King Arthur requested that one of his trusted knights, Sir Bedivere, throw the sword into the lake. After some initial hesitation, he did so, and the lake re-claimed the sword.
Tomb Raider Legend
In Tomb Raider: Legend, when Lara switches on the power to the King Arthur Museum in Cornwall, Zip tells Lara to go pull the museum's model version of Excalibur out of the stone, prompting Alister to explain, in a strained voice, that the sword in the stone and Excalibur are two different swords. However towards the end of Legend, Lara places into a stone dais, hinting that maybe Excalibur has after all been the sword in the stone, or that there at least is a connection between the two.
In the game, the sword has been split into five pieces which were scattered across the world:
- In the level Bolivia - Tiwanaku Lara sees James Rutland escaping with one piece of the mythical sword. She later follows him to Amahlin, Ghana, where the Ghalali Key was supposed to be, and takes it from him.
- 2nd Piece - Tokyo, Japan (in the possession of Takamoto)
- The second piece has previously been on display in the Waseda University, a private university in Tokyo, Japan but was stolen by the Yakuza Shogo Takamoto.
- 3rd Piece - Kazakhstan
- The third piece is found in a secret laboratory in Kazakhstan.
- 4th Piece - Cornwall, England
- The fourth piece lies with King Arthur in his tomb in Cornwall.
- Ghalali Key - Nepal (brought there by her mother, originally located in Ghana)
- The Ghalali Key was originally hidden in Ghana, but Lara's father found it there and gave it to her mother as a present. Amelia Croft wore it the day the plane crashed in the Himalayas in Nepal and lost it inside the plane from where Lara has to retrieve it.
The Ghalali Key is needed to piece together the sword that appears in Tomb Raider Legend. The sword is a key to opening two portals, located at Nepal and Tiwanaku, which lead to a mysterious foreign dimension called Avalon. If the sword is pulled out while connected to the portal, the portal will explode, as Lara discovered in Nepal. Each individual piece (except the Ghalali Key) can give the bearer the powers of levitation as well as the ability to produce concentrations of energy, which can be focused and used as a weapon. The pieces can also give the powers of regeneration, thus replenishing the bearer's health. When the sword is pieced together, it can produce balls of energy from its tip, when it is swung. These balls of energy fly with high velocity and are very dangerous. When an enemy is struck by the sword or the balls of energy, they are immediately killed.
Tomb Raider Underworld
In the ending of Tomb Raider Underworld, Lara finds the mythical Sword her mother disappeared with in Nepal. She - along with Amanda Evert - uses it with the Stone Daises to return to the same site in Nepal where Lara's mother accidentally entered Helheim.
Tomb Raider Comics
In the Tomb Raider Comics an organization called the Midnight Squire claims to be in possession of King Arthur's sword. This of course contradicts the storyline from the Tomb Raider Games.
See Also
- Thor's Hammer, an artefact of similar powers
