ToME WikiMany of the sentient weapons should start off with access to one of the relms for thematic purposes.
The *Thanc daggers should start off with the appropriate realms. Mormegil should start off with access to the antimagic realm.
I don't know about sting, grond, and the long sword of the dawn.
Substatic - Off the top of my head, I'd say Earth for Grond (big hammer, causes earthquakes), and Fire for LSotD (bit of a reach, this one; Dawn -> Sun -> Fire)
RavenRed: Another way to handling Sentient Weapons might be to actually have set, rather than random effects.
e.g. Sting
L1-4: +1 To Hit or +1 to Damage
- L5: + 1 Attack
L6-9: +1 To Hit or +1 to Damage
- L10: Free Action
and so on. This would enable absolute (as it were) theme for weapons. Each weapon would have its own designated "Realm" for which bonuses were pre-set. Additional realms could be obtained as an optional extra as per the original idea above.
TheFalcon: I like the idea of some controls over weapon levelling, but I think you ought to keep some degree of randomness in there.
KhymChanur: At a minimum, a sentient weapon should have a list of realms to which it can gain access. For instance, if a sentient weapon is described as "firey", it doesn't really make sense for it to gain the Cold realm. A greater level of control would be to control the order in which the realms were gained, but leave when realms are gained random, as well as when/what powers are gained.
I agree that the *Thanc daggers and Mormegil should start off with appropriate realms; the other sentient weapons should probably also start with some appropriate realm.