Carrion Rogue Gloves of the Lich

Carrion Rogue Gloves of the Lich cling to the wrist like a second skin of damp velvet, their leather a midnight gloss scarred with fine, river‑bed lines. On the back of each finger sits a row of pale, bone‑colored ridges that catch the light and resemble the knuckles of a skeletal hand. A cuff of iron‑dark threads spirals around the wrist, etched with sigils that glow a cold blue when shadows deepen. Inside, the lining feels almost alive—cool and slightly damp, as if the dead themselves had pressed their breath into the seams. The scent is a paradox: rain on old stone and something antiseptic, a reminder that beauty here is tied to a debt the living must pay. In the right light the runes wink, as if the glove is listening to a heartbeat you cannot hear. Lore clings to them as tightly as the stitching. They are said to have been forged where rumor and bone meet, worn by hands that learned to move unseen and to steal not just coins but memories. A lich’s long shadow touches their edges, a reminder that power here is not merely physical but necrotic—the wearer’s vitality tapped and redirected, the line between hunter and haunted blurred. Those who wear them speak of a strange rapport with the dead‑touched—an unseen audience approving or wincing at each careful strike. In tavern corners and ruined stairwells, the gloves are traded like whispered omens, a talisman for rogues who prefer elegance with their peril and a silence heavy enough to weigh down an entire escape. In gameplay, the gloves feel like part of a larger story rather than a simple stat stick. They emphasize the thief’s art of striking fast, then slipping away with something more precious than silver—life itself, siphoned to keep the wearer moving through danger. They augment the rogue’s toolkit by nudging the cadence of fights toward stealth, backstabs, and rapid lifesteal, allowing a well‑timed finisher to drag a little vitality back from the brink. Wielded with daggers or a pistol‑dagger pair, they weave a narrative of poison‑dipped precision and necrotic resilience: apply a Bleed or Poison, press the advantage with a quick vanish, and watch the glow of the sigil brighten as health patters back toward full. It’s not a brute force upgrade; it’s a moral gamble in leather and bone—a reminder that every strike leaves a trace in the world’s memory. The market side of the tale arrives through Saddlebag Exchange, a caravan market where whispers travel faster than coins. The price for a clean, undisturbed set sits at a premium—often measured in gold, with pristine pairs vanishing into the hands of veteran scouts and necromancy enthusiasts who prize them for the aura they lend to a night raid. Worn examples carry a discount, negotiable by a patient buyer who knows the right question to ask or the right story to tell. The exchange ledger records steady interest, a testament to the gloves’ stubborn appeal: a tool that makes a wearer feel both lighter on their feet and heavier with consequence. So these gloves endure, not merely as gear but as a hinge in a broader reckoning—between life and death, between stealth and revelation. They are a relic that fits a hand as neatly as a secret fits a breath, the kind of artifact that tells you a world is listening, even when you are not sure what it’s listening for.