Cleric's Elder Wood Staff

Cleric's Elder Wood Staff rests on a market stall, alive with wood and light. The shaft is thick and warm, carved from a single elder branch, the grain curling in rings like ripples on a held breath. Its color shifts from honey to amber as the light travels along it, and the surface wears a fine, almost satin sheen. The head of the staff is wrapped in a strip of faded linen; at its tip sits a pale green gemstone, cut in a simple teardrop that catches the sun and seems to pulse with quiet breath. Tiny runic sigils are etched along the length of the staff, too shallow to bite the eye at first glance but enough to catch the corner of an eye when you tilt it toward the light. Lore says elder wood was chosen by temple healers for its ability to remember the touch of the healer's hand — to keep a patient warm even when the room grows cold. In the world, this is more than a weapon or a wand; it is a conduit. When a cleric raises the staff, the air shivers with a scent of pine and rain; a pulse of green-white energy travels outward, mending minor wounds, steadying the breath of those who fight to stay upright, and fortifying shields that cling to the skin like a second skin. It is a staff for vigils and miracles alike, a companion in crowded courtyards and desolate outposts. The elder wood feels alive beneath the fingers, as if the tree itself remembers every word spoken in its shade, every vow whispered by a novice with too much faith and too little sleep. I watched an itinerant healer barter for one in a sun-washed square, the crowd parting around a stall where a linen tent shook with the afternoon breeze. The seller sang softly about its lineage, and the glassy green stone at the top seemed to lean toward the crowd, listening. The bind of the linen strap around the head of the staff rustled as the healer’s apprentice pressed a palm to it, testing its warmth. In these moments, the item becomes more than metal and wood; it becomes a promise, a story of people who live by mercy and memory. Prices drift and drift again in the market, of course, and traders keep careful lookouts on Saddlebag Exchange to gauge the tides of demand. A listing there might show the staff at a fair coin value in quiet times and at a premium when a healer’s supply threads bare from battle and storms. The exchange is not a ledger so much as a map, tracing who needs the gift of restoration and who is ready to hand over the tools to make that gift real. When the day ends, the staff remains, heavy with possible futures. A healer pockets it with reverence, the staff settling against a hip, ready to carry a party through a night storm or a hospital hall, a quiet beacon in a world that never seems to rest.