Vorpal Blade

Vorpal is a word coined by Lewis Carroll for the poem "Jabberwocky," used first in the line "He took his vorpal sword in hand" and "One, two! One, two! And through and through / The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! / He left it dead, and with its head / He went galumphing back." It is commonly assumed to mean "deadly" or "extremely sharp" (or "capable of beheading," since the hero brings the dead Jabberwock's head home in triumph), and has been used this way in a number of role-playing games and similar work.

Appearances in popular culture
In Dungeons & Dragons, a vorpal weapon is one which will behead foes on a critical hit. In the game's reference manual Deities and Demigods, King Arthur's sword Excalibur is described as being a "vorpal weapon." Many MUDs (multi-user dungeons) also incorporate this adjective into some of their weapon descriptions.

The vorpal weapon's ability to do massive damage caused the Rabbit of Caerbannog (that appeared in the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail), to be referred to as a "vorpal rabbit" or "vorpal bunny" by fans of the film; the name does not appear in the film itself. The vorpal bunny appears in the games Quest for Glory IV, Shadow Warrior, Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Final Fantasy XI, Dark-Legacy, Adventure Quest and Magna Carta in which it shares at least some of the abilities of the Monty Python killer rabbit. The vorpal bunny's first appearance in a computer game is perhaps in the 1980s computer RPG Wizardry.

The "vorpal bunny" is also featured in the GrailQuest series of interactive fiction books, notably in book 6 (Realm Of Chaos). A successful strike against the player character by the vorpal bunny in combat immediately severs the character's head and ends the story.

The word has also spawned a parody character called Vorpal king, and a parody of an alien race (Vorpals) which landed on Planet Earth with an asteroid.

There is a murder mystery novel by Colin Forbes titled The Vorpal Blade.

It is also referenced in Graham Masterton's novel Mirror as an acronym for Victory Over Ruin Pestilence And Lust.

In the comic series Fables, the Fabletown community owns the Vorpal Blade, which they brought with them from the Homelands. When Boy Blue launched his assassination campaign against the Adversary, he used the Vorpal Sword. It is the only weapon that has ever survived contact with the shield of protective spells covering the Adversary. The blade makes the sound "snicker-snack!" when used, and is so sharp that it cleaves in twain anything it touchs.

In Roger Zelazny's book Sign of Chaos the protagonist, Merlin, uses the Vorpal blade (or at least a weapon identical to it) found in a shadow. It is there described as looking "as if it were made of moth wings and folded moonlight". The blade is apparently made of very thin material, as in its stored form it is the size of a deck of cards and "unfolds" into a full-length sword, which Merlin is able to use to effortlessly slice a fire demon into pieces.

An extinct bird species from the Hawaiian Islands, the Giant 'Amakihi, was described as Hemignathus vorpalis (literally "Vorpal 'Amakihi") because it was conspicuously larger than all its congeners.

In the Steve Jackson Games's Munchkin, there is a card named "Vorpal Blade". According to the text in the card it gives a +3 bonus to the user and "an extra +10 against anything that starts with the letter J. Don't ask why. Don't ask what Vorpal means, either."

In Neal Asher's 2005 novel Cowl, "vorpal" energy is used to enable time travel along different world lines. A character refers that the name was derived from a forgotten poem and was a type of joke.

In the manga Shaman King the characters Tao Ren and Bason have an attack called the "Vorpal Dance", an attack with a very sharp blade, capable of splitting a car in two.

Adiamante, the science fiction novel by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., discusses, inter alia, a future earth after an environmental Armageddon has induced wide-spread mutations in the disrupted ecology. In that future earth, the new and virulent creatures that have evolved are dangerous to all but protected humans or unprotected humans with powerful cognitive abilities. L.E. Modesitt’s vorpals live in the desert wastelands, instinctively hating and hunting humans.

A sword identified as a Vorpal Blade, able to cut space-time, is featured in Charles Stross' forthcoming Glasshouse.

'Vorpal Blade' is the name of an upcoming book by the Military Sci-Fi author John Ringo. In the story, 'Vorpal Blade' is the name of a new, highly advanced, US Submarine.