Pitch Dye

Pitch Dye sits in the palm of a craftsman’s gloved hand, a drop of midnight bottled in brittle glass. Its surface gleams with a lacquered shine, as if it had swallowed a moonlit pool and none of its gravity escaped. When you tilt the vial, the liquid clings to the rim, slow to relinquish its hold, sliding down in a ribbon of slick tar that leaves a faint, resinous scent in the air. The color is the color of a ship’s hull at dusk, deep and absorbing, yet not quite pure black—there's a hint of graphite and oil to it, a warmth that betrays its stubborn depth. In the old ports, sailors spoke of pitch as a sealant and a signal; in the workshop, Pitch Dye is both promise and warning, a pigment tied to hands that mend, bind, and sign a bargain. To apply it is to invite a story onto the cloth. Leather and cloth drink it hungrily, metal gleams when it dries, and the effect on the guild tabards is to cloak the wearer in a shadow that feels earned rather than borrowed. You do not merely color an outfit with Pitch Dye; you mark its bearer as someone who has stood at the edge of a dark pit and come back with a plan. In gameplay terms, it is a staple dye—not flashy, but sturdy, compatible with many color palettes, and especially prized by crafters who want their armor to carry the weight of a real-world trade. When a knight’s tabard takes on Pitch, it hints at a past field operation, a night spent routing smugglers along riverbanks, a pact sealed with a sign in tar-like ink. Market drift and memory mingle in the marketplace, where dyes move as surely as stories. Traders flip jars, recount tales of shipments that sang on rough seas and arrived with a stubborn scent of pine resin. In one stall, a ledger glows with the name Saddlebag Exchange, a place where color finds currency and colorists haggle with the cadence of old friends. Pitch Dye can fetch a fair price there, a small handful of silver coins for a bottle, sometimes more when demand thickens with a new fashion or a limited run of armor sets. The trade is not unseen theater; it’s practical commerce, the kind that underwrites a courier’s scarf or a crafter’s promise to a patron who wants to look as if they carry a memory of midnight. People who collect dyes know the truth: Pitch Dye is not simply a shade; it is a decision. A guild could paint its crest as a swath of black patience, a banner that does not blink in daylight. The color suggests the wearer has stood in the night and chosen to endure, a sign that stories behind the cloth are hard-won. When a moment calls, Pitch Dye becomes a signal to act. Some nights, the tattooed moon in the square seems to agree. It lingers, a reminder of craft.