I and my group seem to recall reading a description somewhere that warden sword were made with Silver in the metal, though how much I couldn't say, so I'm going with that for my own game. It's more a matter of inheritance, and from the books it seems that the Warden's Swords were custom-made for each Warden as a badge of office and thus not many would have been handed down. The question is, how is inheritance defined? IS it law, intent or bloodline? Murphy got her earrings from a grandmother, but was she given them by the grandmother or handed them over? I don't think a simple will wwuld suffice, I think there has to be some sort of connection between the original owner and the current owner, whether it be by blood or love or whatever. But does it have to skip a generation? I.E. can a husband pass a silver object to his wife before he dies?
I think I'm getting picky on the technical definition of "Inheritance" and for the purposes of my game I'm going to define Inheritance as "Passing of an object from one person, the original owner, to another who is either of the original owners bloodline or the original owner considers to be family, i.e. inheritance by intent."
The original question that generated this thread came form my campaign and planning for an upcoming battle that involves a Denarian riding a Voudoun Priest, a Loup-Garou, a Swamp-dwelling Clan of Were-Gators (The traditional kinds of Weres) and the Cult that follows the Denarian. One of the player characters is a Warden with a Warden sword that he was given by a retiring warden, though it was not truly inherited as they were not family. Another player is Pure Mortal but but was recently adopted by a former Grey Warden who gave her his sword so that IS an inherited weapon so she could use it against a Luop-Garou just fine even if she couldn't actually use the Warden Abilities of thew sword (It's just a pointy stick).
Yes it will be an ugly battle and no they are not alone in it.