Carrion Hard Wood Focus

The Carrion Hard Wood Focus rests on the scarred counter, a compact cylinder of dark timber etched with pale, bone-like inlays that catch the lamplight and throw faint, ivory reflections across the wood. The surface wears a patina of age, smooth where most touched, rough at the grain in a deliberate way that feels almost ceremonial. Along its crown a ring of carved sigils glints, not with metal but with something closer to dried resin pressed into the grain. When you cradle it, a chill travels your forearm, as if a winter forest had rolled into your sleeve. The texture alternates between slick lacquer and gritty grain, a paradox that makes the wood seem almost alive. Lore suggests it once belonged to a healer-turned-harbinger who walked the plague-roads under a pall of ash and rain. In the old stories, the focus is bound to a memory rather than a metal shard: the wood grew from a tree struck by the plague’s fever and kept standing to bear witness, its inlays carved from relics of those who paid with breath. The master who shaped it spoke softly of balance—how power must be tempered by sorrow, how every spell written in its grain carries a debt. When it meets a guardian’s hand, it seems to soften the world’s stain and grant a shield that glows with sickly green light; in a necromancer’s grip, it answers with a crowd of tethered phantoms and a whisper that drains the ground of hope. The Carrion focus thus travels between two poles: protection for the living and the call of the dead, a compact etched in wood. Its gameplay significance is less about raw numbers and more about atmosphere and timing. Wielded at the right moment, it can extend a burst of healing done through the least expected channels, while also turning lingering conditions into a weapon by cycling their duration into controlled damage. The focus’s signature touch—one ritualized gesture and a breath—unleashes a carrion aura that eats away at foes while offering a safeguard to allies. It encourages players to stage their engagements as a small drama: hold, overlap, fall back, then strike with a summoned chorus of bony silhouettes. In the market stalls of the world, the item’s rarity makes it a coveted centerpiece for storytellers and min-maxers alike, which makes the brief negotiation at Saddlebag Exchange as much a scene as a sale. The clerk’s eyes say the same thing: this piece carries history, and its value is measured not just in gold but in the tales it invites. At Saddlebag Exchange, price is as much a rumor as a number, and the final tag often changes with the crowd. The seller’s hat asks for a handful of gold, but a patient negotiator might persuade them to part with a few silver more than a story would justify. The moment you hand over coin, the focus’s sigils catch fire in the lamp, and a scent of resin and rain lingers in the air. Then you step out into the street with a small, heavy thing that seems to carry a city’s memory.