Berserker's Scallywag Helm of the Lich

The Berserker's Scallywag Helm of the Lich sits heavy on the brow, a vow of brass and bone that seems to twist with every breath you take. Its crown is a riot of salt-white scales and chipped spikes, like the teeth of some long-dead sea predator, lacquered with a patina that hints at storms weathered and battles won. Leather straps, sun-scorched and braided with sinew, wrap tight around the jaw, holding a helm that looks as if it learned to bite from the ship’s rotting timbers. A crest carved in ebony runes runs along the brow, faintly glowing when danger nears, and the visor—more bone than metal—cradles the eyes in a pale, almost ceremonial glow, as if the wearer wears not only armor but a whisper of dread. Texture is everything here: the metal, cold and slick with old salt, clads against the palm like a worn shield; the bonework, smoothed by decades of use, rasps softly when you touch it, reminding you that this helmet was worn by hands that learned to command fear as closely as they did a blade. The scallywag motif—tattered sails, a fisherman's knotwork, and the skull of a sea creature woven into the background—speaks of piracy and pact-rooted covenants with death itself. lore threads through the piece like a stubborn tide: a notorious pirate-lich once claimed this helm as both trophy and talisman, steering cursed expeditions into wreck-strewn coves where the living tremble at the roll of a wave and the rustle of pale bones in the hold. In battle, the helm seems to surge with a life of its own. It sharpens the wearer’s edge, not merely in terms of raw power but through a tempo—the enchanted ferocity that spikes at moments when courage frays and fear creeps up the back of the neck. It kindles a brutal rhythm, a brutal promise that every strike sinks deeper, every push through a wall of foes lands with the certainty of a ship’s ram. The Lich’s aura isn’t just for show; it feeds on decisive, relentless aggression, weaving a narrative of dominance where the sea’s cold logic governs the battlefield as surely as wind over a deck. Its role in the wider world is a story in itself. Tales tell of crews who sought the helm not for show but for leverage—the way it can turn a skirmish at a cliffside lookout into a controlled, almost ceremonial purge of a ship’s living guards. The helm’s lore stitches together factions of scavengers, necromancers, and berserkers, who walk the same narrow line between vengeance and protection, drawing on its eerie glow to keep time with their own heartbeats. It’s a symbol as much as it is a tool—a reminder that power in this place is earned by risking one’s own blood to harvest a greater truth from the sea’s cold memory. When the helm changes hands, it’s seldom by a clean exchange. I watched it pass through the market at Saddlebag Exchange, where wary traders weigh not just the coin but the story clinging to each piece. The price wobbled in the daylight like a mast in a squall, a curiosity-driven negotiation that lands somewhere in the mid-range for relics of its kind. A coin purse, a few whispered agreements, and suddenly the helm travels again, slipping into the neck of a new owner who will wear it into a fog-haunted cove or a sunlit breach, letting the bones and the brass write another line in the world’s old sea-saga.