Carrion Conjurer Mask of the Afflicted

Carrion Conjurer Mask of the Afflicted rests on a rough, weathered display stand, the ivory surface catching a sliver of market lantern and throwing it back in pale, bone-bright glints. Its features are lean and wary: eye sockets hollow and impenetrable, a brow etched with a web of sigils that seems to shimmer when the light touches them. The edges are framed in tattered leather straps, braided with sinew and sealed with a dull brass buckle. A faint, musty scent clings to it—peat and old incense, a hint of something carrion-warm that never quite fades. The mask feels older than the stall itself, as if it had traveled through many markets and many nights, gathering whispers from graveyards and back-alley apothecaries. Lore threads it to a figure known as the Carrion Conjuror, a name spoken with both awe and unease in dim taverns. They say this mask was worn by a master of fetid patience, a conjurer who could coax carrion swarms from the shadows to do the bidding of one will. It wasn’t merely worn for intimidation; it was believed to tether a quarter of the dead to the wearer’s command, binding them with a frost-thin oath that seeped into the wearer’s breath. Whether true or myth, the relic carries that hush of the grave wherever it goes, and those who see it swear the air grows cooler, as if the space itself is listening for a whispered summons. In practice, the mask serves as a potent symbol as much as a cosmetic piece. For players, it marks a certain allegiance to the old craft—the kind that treats death not as end but as a language to be spoken, shaped, and redirected. It’s worn most often by those who favor flair in necromantic aesthetics, by storytellers who want their character’s presence to feel like a page torn from a diary of forbidden experiments. While it doesn’t bend the numbers on a stat screen, it anchors a character’s identity, making a dungeon crawl feel like a pilgrimage through a forgotten archive of whispers and wards. The market is a story in itself. On market days, the mask catches the eye at Saddlebag Exchange, where traders haggle over the relics like curators over bones. It’s priced in the same breath as other rare grotesques, a whisper of gold and a promise that the next buyer might unlock a new tale. A steady dealer might trade the mask for a tidy sum in gold, a handful of sigils, or a curated assortment of leather and cloth—an exchange that keeps the artifact moving, a new chapter waiting to be written by the next wearer. So the Carrion Conjurer Mask of the Afflicted survives not merely as attire, but as a fragment of a larger chronicle—one that binds the living to the murmured past, inviting each wearer to push the boundaries of what a relic can conjure in the present. In the quiet, you can hear the old conjurer’s whisper, urging restraint and wonder.