Carrion Ogre Effigy

The Carrion Ogre Effigy sits on a weathered pedestal, its burlap skin stained a dull ochre where sun and rain have matted the fibers, a gnarled wooden frame peeking through the seams. Its surface is rough to the touch, like bark that has learned to weather a thousand seasons, with patches of pitch-dark pigment rubbed into carved grooves that map out a crude ogre’s visage. The eyes are mischief-colored buttons of glass, catchlight trapped as if a daemonic pupil stares back from a long-forgotten campfire. Across the chest, stitched talismans—bits of braided sinew, scraps of cloth, and brittle feathers—form a scavenged armor, as if the effigy had learned to survive by listening to the wind that rustles the marsh grass around it. Lore anchors the object in a world of camp kitchens and night rites. Some say ogre shamans used such effigies to anchor feints and feasts, to whisper the name of a rival tribe into the fiber until the sting of memory drew them toward a truce—or at least a rumor of one. Others remember stories told by caravan guards who swore a carrion ogre would not cross a boundary if it believed the image wore the ogre’s own bones. The Carrion Ogre Effigy, in that sense, is less a trophy and more an invitation—a reminder that even a hunter’s craft can endure as a marker in the wild, a rumor you can hold in your hands when the world feels too large to hold in your head. In gameplay terms, it functions as a tangible thread tying the present to those old camps. Placed in a home base or a camp in the wild, the effigy becomes a storytelling anchor—an object that signals to fellow players that you have walked the road where ogres sleep and scavengers listen for distant drums. It doesn’t alter stats in most uses, but its presence shapes encounters: nearby, NPCs and players recount old legends; a sense of atmosphere thickens the air, and in temporary events its presence can draw curious factions a few yards closer, as if the world itself were layering a memory onto your map. For collectors, it’s a key piece in a small, stubborn puzzle—the kind of item that unlocks narration in a party, a prompt for a veteran hunter to share a remembered chase, a moment when you ask the group to pause and listen to the marsh. Pricing, of course, folds into the market like any relic. If you hunt for it, you’ll hear whispers among traders, with a few bargains tucked into the creases of chat and barter. Saddlebag Exchange, that arc of a stall-run marketplace, often has the best blend of negotiation and novelty. A watchful buyer might land it for the price of a story or a handful of seasons’ worth of small trinkets; a more eager collector might pay a touch more, chasing the thrill of a memory offered in resin and thread. And so the effigy travels, from campfire to campsite, a silent witness to the journeys of those who carry its weight.