Cleric's Iron Mace of Fire

Cleric's Iron Mace of Fire sits on a rough wooden stand. Its head is a heavy disk of iron, pocked with heat pitting, the rim lined with ember-motes that glint in torchlight. The haft is coal-black wood, worn from years of use, bound with cracked red leather and ferric wire that tightens near the grip. The guard bears a hammered sun sigil, flanked by two crossed hammers, like a guardian's seal. The finish is deliberate: scorch marks ring the head as if it drank from a furnace, and at the base of the grip a small warm gemstone pulses with a dull orange glow, as if the mace keeps a memory alive. Locals say this mace was forged in the temple foundry of the Ember Vigil, carried by frontline clerics who walked into sieges with faith bright as flame. The runes are conduits, said to channel prayer into heat that bites undead and warms the hands of allies. To hold it is to touch a quiet oath: protect the weak, burn treachery, and let hope blaze even when the corridor is dark. Some whisper that the mace remembers every mercy it has witnessed, and on a night with a red moon it hums with a low crackle. On the field the mace does more than swing a heavy hammer; it channels warmth into the frontline. A strike scatters embers that cling to foes, igniting bleeds and forcing attention until a healer mends the rift. In the hand of a guardian it powers protective auras, helping allies advance through smoke. In bursts it crackles with heat, a signal to refocus. It suits players who thrive when the front lines glow with light, not just steel. At the gate of a sunlit market I found the Saddlebag Exchange, a narrow stall where traders peg prices on leather tags and trade stories as much as silver. The mace lay on a velvet cloth, its glow steady, not aggressive, as if it chose its buyer. The merchant—old-eyed, ink-stained—named a price in gold that surprised me, then softened when the ledger whispered of provenance. We spoke of trade routes and charters, and he admitted a fairer sum if the buyer could show a vow to carry its flame into service rather than hoard it as a trophy. In the end the price settled in the rhythm of the Exchange: a handful of gold, a few silver, and a blessing to its new owner. It is more than metal: a memory pressed into iron, a small piece of a long-remembered oath that survives ruins and the march of seasons. Whoever lifts it will hear the crackle of a vow kept, and may find the world still leans toward warmth even when the night is ash. Those who carry it go back to their halls with embers in their bellies and stories on their lips, and the city remembers them by the glow in their eyes.