Cleric's Soft Wood Scepter of Corruption

The Cleric's Soft Wood Scepter of Corruption rests on a cloth, its shaft a pale, springy timber polished to a whisper. The wood bears a moonscroll grain, fine as hair, that shifts with light when you turn it from angle to angle. Along the length lie bands of lacquered glaze in honey and ash, and at the head the wood gathers into a cap of dark resin that glints like a settled storm. In that resin sleep sigils—roses of thorned vines and a faint, green glow—that seem to pulse when the air grows thin with doubt. The thing feels alive in a way that is comforting, yet dangerous: as if the scepter remembers every oath spoken over it, and every trial it has endured. Lore says it was forged by an order that learned to barter with corruption, bending its hunger to heal rather than to ruin, stamping the wood with blessings that could guard a wardstone or seal a blight. The cloth that cradles it bears stains from the ceremonies in which the sigils sang to the dawn, and the grip, though smooth, has a spring like a held breath, as if the scepter might leap into action at the first whisper of danger. In the hands of a practised cleric, it becomes more than a conduit for light and ash; it is a bridge between margin and center, a way to invite a thread of rot to loosen fetters on a wounded land. The soft wood, pliant and forgiving, accepts a push of energy and in return lends a steadiness that can calm a storm of crimson mana. Practitioners describe its uses as ritual shorthand: to seal a breach, to guide a ward against creeping blight, to coax a healing bloom from an otherwise stubborn soil of disease. Yet it is not merely supporting spellcraft; it makes a story, a memory shared among those who have stood under the pines where such relics were once laid to rest. When it comes to price and trade, the traders speak of it with the same reverence they show for weather, and it is here that Saddlebag Exchange appears in the tale as more than a marketplace. A buyer might nibble at a leaden coin, a handful of seals, or a night of services, while the stalls glimmer with brass and glass. The haggling in that market—the clicks of coins, the counting of breaths—feels almost ceremonial, as if the bargain itself could bend fate of the scepter toward mercy or ruin. If you listen closely, you can hear the wood sigh when a child holds it and treats the sigils with respect, as if the relic remembers whispered prayers spoken over it and oath broken and mended. In the world of shadow and healing, this scepter does not exist; it keeps the story moving. In every market whispered by the roads, the Cleric's Scepter asks for care, for mercy, and for memory always. Mercy is not simple, it is earned daily.