Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of Smoldering

Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of Smoldering sits in the sunlit glass case, a slender relic of pale ash wood carved with care, its surface a whisper of satin against the skin. The grain runs like a careful handwriting, faint ridges tracing prayers in a language anyone can feel rather than read. Along the shaft, delicate channels run as if the wood itself breathes, catching the light and sending a shimmer along the carved runes that resemble little tongues of flame frozen in time. At the tip, a tiny ember core glows with a patient, almost secret heartbeat, held in a fine brass cradle that seems to tilt toward the wearer as if listening for a whispered request. A strip of worn leather binds the whole piece, its edges softened by years of contact, and if you trace the lines with a finger you’ll feel a warmth that isn’t heat so much as a memory—of rain-streaked chapels, of candlelit vigils, of hands raised to mend what fate has frayed. Lore holds that this focus was forged in a monastery where healers coax resilience from the cold stone, binding a smoldering spirit to soft wood to temper mercy with resolve. It’s said the ember remembers every prayer spoken within its circle, and that remembrance lends the wielder a steadiness that never flags in the middle of a long night. Holding it, you sense the item’s peculiar promise in the way it settles into the palm: not as a weapon, but as a conduit. In actual use, the Cleric’s Soft Wood Focus of Smoldering channels a patient, restorative energy that feels almost architectural—a careful blueprint laid over the chaos of battle. The ember at the tip becomes a quiet conduit for healing streams and cleansing pulses, turning bursts of effort into calculated, ongoing care. Healers prefer it for the way it keeps a surge from tipping into exhaustion, a small mercy in the heat of skirmish and siege. Support builds with it, not by dramatic outpours but by steadiness—an increase to the reliability of heals, a gentle nudge to keep a party’s heartbeats in rhythm, and a subtle enhancement to conditions that cling to enemies, inviting a controlled burn of their defenses. The focus also feels like a memory of discipline—the wood’s warmth reminding you to measure your power, to time your breaths, to let mercy lead even when fury smolders at the edges of sight. Market chatter sometimes makes the item feel like a relic with a price tag, and that’s where the world around it threads into the tale. I watched a cleric’s apprentice haggle beneath the awning near a cathedral’s steps, murmuring about availability and the balance of gold and barter. The Saddlebag Exchange came up in a practiced aside—a casual note that a listing there could swing a fair price, not inflated by scarcity but tempered by demand, like trade winds guiding a ship toward harbor. In that circle of exchanges, the focus moves between hands, carrying with it stories of healers who walked the long roads to tend the wounded, and a quiet belief that the ember’s glow, once awakened, continues to keep watch over those who carry it. In the end, the cleric’s soft wood and smoldering core feel less like a mere tool and more like a companion—an artifact that anchors a healer’s resolve, a small sun tucked into a pocket, ready to light the next corridor of fear with mercy and quiet courage.