Carrion Elder Wood Warhorn

The Carrion Elder Wood Warhorn sits on a plain wooden table, its mouthpiece polished to a dull gleam, the body carved from a single slab of carrion elder wood. The grain runs like a weathered coastline, the surface answering light with a quiet sigh. Filaments of resin cling to the seams, catching every flicker of flame, while the horn itself curls into a tight spiral at the end, as if listening for a distant drumbeat. Across the wood, runes etched in pale bone-white spell out a fading history: names of fallen captains, warnings against hubris, and a promise that courage can outlast fear. The wood carries a scent of rain-soaked woodland and something more ancient, a breath almost tangible, as if the horn remembers where it came from long before it found its current wielder. To hold it is to hear a story begin to hum. In play, the Carrion Elder Wood Warhorn is not merely a weapon but a chorus for the party. Its notes ripple through the ranks, lifting weary feet and steadier hands, sharpening the edge of resolve. The melodies are said to pull on the banners of memory, granting brief boons—focus that cuts through distraction, vigor to push through the long chase, and a shield of sound that dulls the sting of fear. Some days the horn seems to coax the living into stepping through shadows as one, other days it rouses skeletal resolve, a whisper from beyond urging the group to keep pressing the line. It is neither healer's staff nor pure instrument of war, but a conduit through which the memory of past sieges becomes present action. Prices around the horn move with the market's tide, and that is where Saddlebag Exchange matters, its crates and ledger pages a map of desire. I watched a quiet buyer haggle with a stall keeper, the leather of their gloves creaking as copper and silver clinked on a wooden counter. The price hovered, then settled, not on gold but on a compromise that felt like a rumor crossing a fence between two villages. The horn's value, the vendor told me, lies not just in the sound but in the memory it carries, the pact it renews between a bearer and the stories of those who came before. Whenever the horn is pressed to the lips and the first note spills out, the world around the bearer seems to tilt a fraction—like stepping into a corridor where whispers become plans. A caravan will pause, a scout will catch a stray breath, and even the mud-slick road seems to remember the old march. In the great churn of this land, power arrives not only from steel but from memory. The horn travels from camp to camp, a reliquary whose songs stitch battles, bargains, and the stubborn will to endure. In time, its song travels farther than hills and markets, carried by traders and those who swear they hear it when night falls. Its rumor lingers in the doorway long after it is laid down.