Fortunate Mace

Fortunate Mace rests on a velvet-lined display, its head a squat oval of tempered steel, dark as a moonless night, with a gleam of brass along a lip. The texture is cool and slightly grainy, like the surface of a well-worn shield. Running circles of tiny hammer marks give the head a tactile rhythm, as if a craftsman stroked it into existence with patient, stubborn care. The haft is a stout shaft of dark wood, polished to a gloss, wrapped in brass filigree that catches the light. A small emerald inset sits in the pommel, catching lamplight and turning it into a quiet toast to luck. There's more than metal here, though; the Fortunate Mace carries a whisper of lore. Mounted on the grip is a row of runes, and along the throat a token in the shape of a clover: merchants swore it was carved by a smith who listened to travelers' fortunes. The name 'Fortunate' wasn't earned by omens alone; it was traded through a caravan that survived a rockslide and a night of raiders because someone decided to use the mace as a shield for a child rather than favoring a weapon's edge. Since then, locals say the mace draws luck toward those who wield it with mercy, bending a close call away from harm, nudging the battle to tilt toward the side that never gives up. Beneath its myth, the mace remains a practical tool in a world of raids and markets. Its weight sits in the palm as if the forge itself remembered the hand that laid into it; in a skirmish its blunt head shatters shields and punches through armor, while the carved dragon on the haft references ancient oaths of protection. Players who adopt it find that, in the right moment, a misstep from an opponent opens like a door that fortune herself might push ajar: a parry becomes a stumble; a miss becomes a lucky follow-up. When a trader crosses the caravan yard at Saddlebag Exchange, the Fortunate Mace is always a story. A keeper slides a price tag into view, and the ink reads a tangible sum—2 gold and 17 silver—before the haggling begins. The Exchange is a rhythm of bargaining, coins clicking like bells, and the mace tends to travel with a tale attached: a fragment of a map stashed in the grip, a promise that luck will find the buyer if they walk the road with restraint and a sense of purpose. And so it passes from hand to hand, a rumor in the market's dusty air: a weapon that never quite forgets the road it traveled. A young scavenger buys it to guard a caravan route through rain and ruin; an old guard seeks it to remind himself that even in defeat there can be a kinder turn of fate. The Fortunate Mace is more than steel; it is a conduit between risk and resolve, a piece of a larger story where luck, loyalty, and the road itself are in constant negotiation. Its legend travels with every trade wind.