Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of Debility

Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of Debility rests in my palm, a slender cylinder carved from pale softwood, its surface satin-slick from years of handling. The grain runs like parchment through a warm honey hue, lacquered with a whisper-thin sheen that catches lamplight as you tilt it. Along its length are delicate sigils—petals of a clerical order long past—etched with painstaking care, then filled with a pale resin that glints faintly in the cold air. The mouth of the focus tapers into a soft, almost velvet-soft concavity, and a tiny brass ring sits near the base, chiming softly when it brushes against metal. It feels old and patient, as if it waited for a blessing to wake the narrow chamber within. In lore, the old monastery’s artisans carved softwood into conduits for restrained, exacting arts: warding, blessing, and the careful dampening of hostile will. The Cleric's Soft Wood Focus of Debility is said to have been shaped not for glory but for restraint. The wood’s natural resilience gave it the balance required to hold a fragile enchantment—the kind that drains a foe’s vigor while bolstering an ally’s resolve. When the order believed shadows were gathering to blink the courage from the streets, this focus was passed hand to hand, a reminder that power can trim the edges of a battlefield rather than blot out the sun. Gameplay-wise, the focus is a quiet power, the kind you notice most in the long moments between clashes. It channels debility—an artful weakening—that threads into a healer’s or protector’s toolkit: it dulls a foe’s defenses, saps sudden bursts of energy, and smooths the way for cleansing, healing, and protection to do their work. When paired with precise timing, its runes glow and a pale halo hovers at the edges of vision, signaling a window in which allies can press the advantage. It doesn’t roar; it whispers, nudging the tide of skirmish toward mercy without surrendering momentum. I didn’t discover mine in a grand hall but on a quay market, where sailors and scholars barter their day’s finds beneath swinging lanterns. Saddlebag Exchange, a name weathered by decades of trade, offered a quiet sort of trust to buyers and wanderers alike. The clerk weighed the focus with a practiced ear, counting copper as if weighing fates, and spoke of price with the calm authority of someone who has seen empires rise and fall over coin. The tag read in his measured hand: two silver and fifty copper. I traded a folded map of a ruined monastery for it, a small exchange that felt like a promise: the world would still have use for something so gentle, so precise, so resolute in its quiet debility. And as I walked away, the focus humbed a soft resonance against my palm, a reminder that even a careful hand can shape more than it holds.