Berserker's Soft Wood Warhorn of Hobbling

Berserker's Soft Wood Warhorn of Hobbling lay on the merchant's table, pale wood with a satin sheen, the grain curling like a sleeping serpent along its length. Its bore is slender and precise, the mouthpiece wrapped in cracked leather that smells faintly of resin and dust. The horn bears a narrow band of runes—zigzag lines, minute sigils, a streak of bone-white inlay—each carved by hand and warmed by years of handling. The bell flares gently, widening to a shallow trumpet that catches the lamplight and sends a soft, wind-chime note when struck or blown. The whole thing feels alive in the palm, as if the wood stored memory of storms and long marches within its pale surface. I’ve learned its lore less from textbooks than from travelers who traded stories near the harbor. They say the Soft Wood grew in a grove spared by a wilderness of years, under the blessing of a berserker’s totem who demanded both power and restraint. When the horn was first blown in battle, it didn’t roar so much as coax movement—feet faltering just enough to create hesitation, bodies jostled into awkward steps, a quiet hobble that slowed charge after charge. Some claimed the runes hold a tether to the wind itself, a whisper that clings to ankles and shins only in the heat of fight. The horn’s origin isn’t carved in stone so much as in wind and rumor, a relic that traveled from caravan to encampment and back into fortune again. On the field, the weapon becomes a storyteller. A user doesn’t merely shout; they coax the air into misdirection, turning momentum into misstep for the foe and guiding allies toward safer ground. The Hobbling enchantment makes every note land with a tremor that stumbles enemies, buying seconds for a retreat or a decisive strike. Its Berserker prefix hints at a kinship with relentless offense—pulling the charge forward, then pinning the foe in place long enough to flood lanes with opportunity. In capable hands, the horn pairs with martial cunning: a well-timed call to despair as a battalion falters, or a rally that drags a wounded comrade toward a safer flank. It invites a player to read the battle like a map and to let sound do what steel cannot. Markets remember such things, perhaps more than any battlefield. In the fading light of the harbor, a trader slides the horn across a rough counter and speaks numbers as casually as weather: the Saddlebag Exchange places its price in coins and promises, a little more if the runes glow, a little less if the wood bears a scar. A hopeful buyer can barter around the exact sum, the way a sailor disputes a barrel’s weight or the freshness of salt. I hear the price swing with reputations—stories of a siege won by a hobble, or a misstep that cost a skirmish. Saddlebag Exchange is where those stories change hands, traded up from rumor to receipt, the horn traded for a tale or two of supply and demand. To own it is to carry a history that never quite ends; the horn travels with caravans, drawn by a stride of memory and sharpened by the wearer’s will. Perhaps that is why this weapon remains coveted: not merely for the effect it hints at, but for the sense that every breath it takes binds the world a notch closer to a turning point—a moment when a single note bends a battle long enough to script a different ending.