Berserker's Privateer Coat of the Afflicted

Berserker's Privateer Coat of the Afflicted unfurls like a midnight banner, a heavy cloak of oil-dark leather stitched with stubborn, red-veined thread. The leather bears the salt and burn of long voyages, its grain coarse enough to bite at the fingers, yet supple enough to swing with the certainty of a blade. Brass clasps glint along the front, dulled by wind and grit, while a high collar holds its own against the sea spray, frayed at the edges where years have shaved away at its pride. The interior lining is a lacquered satin, faintly iridescent, the kind that remembers cannon smoke and privateer decks, and it pockets a whisper of linen scent from a thousand merchant ships. On the back, a sigil—an anchor crossed with a blade—is stitched in a thread the color of dried blood, a mural of loyalty carved into the fabric rather than on any wood or stone. It is easier to decipher this coat’s tale when you lift it from its hook and let the weight settle in your scapulae, as if the garment itself were insisting that you understand how far a man can roam and what he must trade to keep going. I learned the lore of the Afflicted from the old mariner who sold me the coat, voices hushed as he described cargoes that never made it to shore: crates that carried a sickness as much as it did a payload, crews who pressed on regardless of the world’s warnings, and the privateers who ferried away fortune and rot with equal gusto. The coat remembers those voyages, he said, the places where fear wore a smile and the crew’s laughter tasted of copper. It’s said the fabric drank in not just the salt but the sorrow, stitching the wearers together with a kinship forged in hardship and the hunger for a profit that blinds one to peril. In play, its lure is practical as much as poetic. The Berserker’s Privateer Coat of the Afflicted is built for those who chase the edge—offense first, because the world in front of you is a storm that respects no mercy. Wearers find in it a disposition toward ferocity, a presence that makes enemies hesitate a breath longer and allies glance with renewed resolve. The coat favors aggressive builds—crits, bold openings, and a relentless pace that eats at retreat. It’s not merely armor; it’s a statement that a privateer’s oath to live by courage is still worth wagering on, even when the world is fraying at the seams. Market stories braid into its myth as surely as the threads into its lining. I watched the coat pass hands in the glow of lamplight, traded and bartered not with hot metal but with old sailors’ glances and a ledger that smelled of seawater and ink. Saddlebag Exchange, they told me, is where such relics find new decks to sail—where the asking price can drift with the tide. A fair whisper of gold will fetch a fairer fate here, often hovering in the range of a few gold pieces, sometimes more depending on condition, provenance, and the telltale gleam in a buyer’s eye. It’s a market where memory has value, and the coat’s worn leather becomes currency not just of coin but of courage renewed. So the Berserker’s Privateer Coat of the Afflicted continues its quiet voyage, perched between the ship’s timbers and the harbor’s cold wind. It doesn’t merely clothe a body; it clothes a history, stitching the wearer into a longer, rougher tale—one of risk, resilience, and the strange glory found in choosing the most perilous path and walking it with a blade in hand and a vow in heart.