Rampager's Soft Wood Warhorn of Corruption

Rampager's Soft Wood Warhorn of Corruption rests on the sun-warmed surface of a workshop bench, its shape a telling contradiction of gentleness and menace. The body is carved from a pale, soft wood that feels almost buoyant to the touch, the grain curling like smoke along its length. It’s lacquered to a satin sheen, so smooth that a finger glides over it without snagging. The horn itself coils at the end, a crescent of amber-tinished wood that catches the light and halos it with a faint, unsettling green glow when the room grows dim. Runes etched along the shaft flare faintly, not with heat but a cold, patient light, as if the wood remembers every vow spoken over it. At the base, a band of bone-white tracing winds around like a living vein, and a strip of cracked, aged hide serves as a grip that fits snugly into a palm that knows wear and weather. It is a work of craft that could have slept in a ruined grove for centuries, then awakened with a purpose again—the sort of artifact that seems to carry a heartbeat of its own. Lore has a way of clinging to such objects, and this warhorn carries a tale that travels with the wind. Carved by a guild of scavengers-turned-keepers known as the Rampagers, the instrument is said to be born of a bond between wood and shadow, a relic forged during a time when corruption seeped from the ground like rain. Some whisper that the wood came from a grove that refused to die, stubborn saplings twisting toward light even as dark forces pressed in. The name “of Corruption” isn’t a proud badge but a warning: the horn amplifies what lies in the hearts of those who lift it, does not discriminate between courage and cruelty, and remembers every voice that called it into the world. The sounds it produces are not merely notes; they are signatures—brooding, persuasive, a chorus that can rally allies and unsettles foes with equal ease. In the field, the warhorn becomes part of a larger story, a percussion-driven thread that can turn the tide of a skirmish or a cautious negotiation into something more fluid—an impromptu beacon, a signal flare, a lure. Its resonance is said to sharpen quick decisions, heighten a sense of timing, and bind a duo of combatants into a single, shared rhythm. For a group pressed by a creeping threat, the Rampager’s instrument is a reminder that sound is not only a weapon but a map—directions that lead to safety, or to danger, depending on who holds the horn and what they choose to unleash. Even markets outside the immediate frontier rustle with interest in such relics. In Saddlebag Exchange, a marketplace where traders barter memories as much as metal, the horn draws a certain hush. A pristine specimen can command a tidy purse, but this particular piece—its lacquer scuffed by a long life of use and a subtle crack near the base—has its price tempered by caution. Buyers and sellers exchange nods and estimates, acknowledging both the beauty of its craft and the heavy promise it carries. The horn sits in the middle of the conversation, a relic that invites a story as much as a sale, and the world keeps turning with its soft, eerie, ever-present song.