Unidentified Dye

Unidentified Dye rests in the palm of your gloved hand, a small glass vial catching light and splitting it into a dozen faint colors that jitter and settle like a mood you can almost hear. The liquid inside shimmers with a patient, prismatic heartbeat, as if a hidden hue keeps fluttering just beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to show itself. The stopper is plain wood, worn smooth by hands that have wrung out fear and joy in equal measure, and the label is a clean, blank slate—the kind of thing that promises a story but withholds the ending. When you tilt it, the colors ripple as if a narrow sea were pressed into a jewel, velvet reds bleeding into sea-green teals, then snapping back with a sudden, shy spark of gold. It feels ancient and intimate at once, as if it remembers the fashions of a dozen forgotten seasons and has chosen you to witness the moment the color finally chooses a name. Lore whispers that these dyes are born from moments when artisans listened too closely to the world’s hidden colors—colours that chose to exist only in a moment’s chance, bottled before they could drift away. Some say they were pressed from the wings of night-blooming flowers under a moon that refused to set, others insist they are the memory of landscapes long traveled by dreamers who never quite woke. Whatever the truth, the dye carries a thin thread of fate: it is a promise that a room, a cloak, or a helm might become a new memory in a single brushstroke. In the hands of a careful crafter, it is less a pigment and more a hinge—opening doors to moods and allegiances that gear and banner can only hint at. Its place in the world is less about utility and more about voice. You can apply an unidentified dye to armor, weapons, or accessories, but until it’s identified, the color remains a whispered secret, a souvenir without a name. Once identified—by a skilled vendor or craftsman who can translate its quivering spectrum into a usable hue—it becomes a dye like any other, a new color a player can defend, mismatch, or celebrate. The act of unveiling ties the dye to a moment in a player's journey: the moment you decide which shade of courage or mischief your hero wears on their chest and shoulders. Market chatter makes the dye feel a part of a wider living economy, a thread that runs through the marketplaces and caravans. In the backrooms of Saddlebag Exchange, where merchants lay out fabrics and pigments on sun-washed boards, the unidentified dye shifts hands with a quiet drama. A conversation might begin with a question about shade permanence and end with a trade that feels like a small pact. Some days the price is modest, others surprisingly steep, depending on demand, rumor, and the appetite of color-hungry collectors who want a hue that speaks to a memory only they can name. If you carry it, the Unidentified Dye becomes a companion of choices—an invitation to rewrite what your gear says about you, one night and one color at a time. And as you move through crowded cities or quiet fields, you sense that the dye isn’t merely changing a garment; it’s allowing a story to wear a different face, to walk a mile in someone else’s inventive shade.