Shaman's Norn Torch of Corruption

Shaman's Norn Torch of Corruption rests in my hand: a torch carved from weathered ashwood, the grain running like a map of frost-bitten rivers. Its head is a brazed iron cage, housing a living emerald ember that curls and breathes. The glow shifts between a sickly green and a deeper, shadowed hue, as if the flame were listening for a story rather than burning. The texture is rough and intimate: knotty wood, flaked metal, and every touch leaves a cold kiss along the skin. Norn runes are etched along the shaft in a spiraling script that makes the fingers ache with memory. When the torch is pressed to the air, it exudes a whisper of wind and a faint sting of mist, and the sigils it releases seem to rise and drift like ghost moths. It feels ancient and alive, as if the lamp itself is listening for a fate to illuminate. In the old tales, shamans who walk the pine-shadowed trails learn to talk with corruption—the fog that clings to Kralkatorrik’s memory, the lingering stench of old battles. The Shaman's Norn Torch of Corruption is said to be forged for those bargains, a tool to see what the land hides and to bind a fragment of corruption to a ward. It is a relic of a people who respected power enough to ride it, not drown in it: a beacon to guide hunters through blizzards and a tether to keep reckless spirits from turning friends into statues of ice. In gameplay terms, the torch is more than a light: a field companion. When sparked, it channels corruption into a controlled pulse that strains foes' defenses and clears the path for your party. It can light dark caverns, reveal sigils pressed into ruined walls, and unleash a surge that drains life and returns vigor to you and your allies. The longer you hold the glow, the louder the murmurs become, and you learn to read the land’s fear in its green glow. On the road to Hoelbrak, I paused at a camp market where the Saddlebag Exchange thrived. There, the torch changed hands for a price in gold—nine gold coins when the buyer understood its mood—and a few relic motes tucked in a threadbare pouch. The haggling is part ceremony, part memory, for that price is not just wealth but a treaty with the land: a promise that you’ll wield the corruption with restraint, that you’ll guard the living with your flame rather than feed the dead with it. Carrying it, you become a storyteller of cold iron and green flame, a thread in the larger tapestry of the world’s odd bargains. Some nights the flame grows thick with whispers from the old shamans, a chorus that tempers caution with courage. In marches I keep it close, letting the emerald breath sketch the paths maps forget. A torch, after all, asks who will bear the light—and what they will burn away. The road remains long, but the glow endures.