Cleric's Ogre Hornbow

Cleric's Ogre Hornbow rests on a sun-warmed market stall, its limbs carved from dark ash and bound with sinew that speaks softly when the air is quiet. The central rib is crowned with ogre horn, polished until it gleams like bone ivory, a crescent that catches the noon light and hums faintly when the bow is drawn. Runes are inlaid along the belly in brass threads, lines that glow a pale gold when a blessing travels along the string. The grip is wrapped in weathered leather, scarred by years of rain and travel, and the draw weight feels old as stories, heavy with memory even before an arrow is set to flight. A tiny reliquary charm dangles from the notch, a token of a cleric who once prayed for a village’s safety, and the whole thing carries a quiet authority—as if it remembers the faces of the folk it saved long before a hunter’s feet learned the same paths. On the road that morning, I learned how it moves through a larger tale. When its arrowheads leave the string, they seem to gather a veil of light, not flashy, but steady—as if blessing wings for those under its care. It isn’t simply a weapon, but a ritual instrument, a means to steady a party’s breath before a charge, to poke a hole in the fog of fear. Those who study its lore say the horn was pressed to a cleric’s heart during a vow, drawn against corruption, and the bow learned that vow, turning it into precision rather than fury. In the kind of skirmishes where healers must stand at the edge, the hornbow’s shots carry not just impact but a hint of sanctuary—arrows that heal a torn line, or warding sigils that buy a moment for a fallen ally to rise again. It’s the sort of item that invites stories, not just stats, and that turns a battlefield into a page in a longer diary. Market days in the village square are where such memories trade hands, and today I watch a trader named Mira as she sets a price on the cleric’s instrument. The tag reads in neat script, and beside it sits a small ledger chalked with names, the sort of thing Saddlebag Exchange keeps for travelers who barter by lantern light. The price is fair, they tell me—worthy of a blessing and a half-dozen hard-won journeys—and I hear the soft rumors of coins clinking while nearby children chase a stray dog and a dogged vendor trades gossip for hope. The hornbow finds its owner not just by value but by the story shared over paces and pints, by the way a buyer looks into that etched horn and sees the road it asks them to walk. When I walk away, the bow’s weight sits in memory as much as in hand, a reminder that some weapons are carved to protect as much as to strike. Its future owner will learn to read the runes anew, to walk the road with careful breath and a bow that listens.