Torn Garment

Torn Garment is a rag of faded indigo wool, its weave coarse and stubborn against the fingers, the color dulled to the gray of weathered slate where rain and sun have fought. Frayed edges curl like dried leaves, and the hem carries a rough sting of ash from a dozen campfires. A single patch of uneven stitching holds a tear along the sleeve, as if someone tried to braid the fabric back into itself after a long, hurried ride. The fabric still bears a faint, stubborn scent—smoke, pine resin, and the breath of open road—soaked into the threads as if the cloth were listening to every footstep that passed it by. In the heart, a half-obliterated emblem hints at a guild crest, the ink blurred by weather and time, leaving only a memory of loyalty stitched into the weave. That emblem is more than ink and thread; it is a map, a rumor, a breadcrumb for anyone who still believes routes have stories. You can almost hear the clink of wagon wheels and the rider’s boot against a wooden saddle when you cradle Torn Garment in your palm. Some tell of a courier who wore this exact piece on a perilous crossing of the inland spine, riding through sudden squalls and shadowed passes, keeping faith with a line of messages that kept a city’s doors from closing too soon. Others swear the cloth witnessed a raid, and a guard cut it free from a tumble of leather and rain, not to forget its name but to remember the person who wore it. The lore is slippery, but its power is not: it invites questions, and with every question the cloth breathes a little more of the road back into the present. In the world’s workings, Torn Garment has a purpose beyond hangar-room lore. Players can salvage it for cloth scraps, an everyday material that tangles with tailors and crafters who love stories as much as stitchwork. The cloth is also a catalyst for small quests and personal keepsakes: a shared symbol between trader and traveler, a token that can become a tiny banner for a camp or a reminder of a journey endured. Its rarity makes it a conversation piece in workshops and markets, a tangible fragment of road and risk that can be woven into new items of clothing or reimagined as part of a storyteller’s relic. The market side of the story unfolds at Saddlebag Exchange, where caravans pull up beneath pennons and traders haggle with wind-worn hands. There, Torn Garment finds its price in the language of rumor as much as currency: a few copper on a quiet dawn, a silver coin or two when there’s chatter about a new cache of relics along the coast. Prices swing with weather, with the ebb and flow of travelers, and with the quiet certainty that some cloth, once torn from a rider’s sleeve, never truly leaves the road behind. As I turn the garment over in my hands, I’m reminded that cloth is never merely fabric; it is a record of crossings, of hours spent in rain and memory. Torn Garment isn’t just an item to collect or sell. It is a thread in the larger tapestry of the road, a reminder that every journey leaves behind something willing to be found again by the next wanderer who asks, and the next who answers.