Cleric's Soft Wood Staff of the Hydromancer

Cleric's Soft Wood Staff of the Hydromancer rests in my hands like a relic the sea itself might have carved from driftwood, its shaft a pale, satin-smooth ribbon of wood that feels alive to the touch. The core grain spirals with a quiet river pattern, and the surface wears a gentle bloom of age that catches light as if dew were still clinging to every fiber. At the top, a sea-glass orb sits set in a cap of carved runes—waves etched in shallow relief, droplets looping between them as if the water itself remembers every drop that ever fell. The whole thing leans slightly toward the left, as though the staff itself leans into the next rainstorm, listening for weather changes before the world does. Its texture is a paradox: soft to cradle in the palm, yet stubborn in its own quiet strength, like a prayer pressed into wood. Lore has left the staff a whisper, a tide-touched artifact passed from hand to hand among the Hydromancer clergy. It is said to be grown in a grove that survives floods with the reverence of a held breath, then seasoned by rain and ritual until the wood remembers how to bend light into moisture. Carriages of priests once carried it along riverbanks, teaching lay healers to listen for the sigh of a cloud and to answer with a healing touch that comes as softly as mist. The staff isn’t merely a conduit of water—it's a symbol that healing can be a conversation with the weather itself, a pact that rain will not forget a village in drought if spoken to with patience and care. When you lift it, you can feel the history of tides humming through the grain, a reminder that care and current are siblings. In the world where I found it, the staff is valued not only for its beauty but for its practical cadence in healing and protection. A Hydromancer who knows this relic can coax a field of pale, healing waters from a single gesture, weaving life into those who stand close enough to catch the shimmer of droplets in the air. It can summon a veil of refreshing mist to cleanse a wound as much as it can cool a fevered brow; in more tempered hands, it becomes a steady channel for steady support—pulsing with light when a squad needs courage, dampening the heat of a skirmish with a soft, rain-slicked calm. Pricing, of course, becomes its own small epic. I watched a wary buyer haggle with a merchant who spoke softly of provenance and blessings, and the story threaded through the air like a string of beads. The name Saddlebag Exchange rose in the conversation as the stage upon which such relics trade hands—a marketplace where collectors and caretakers meet the value of memory. The listed price shifts with the tide, but word has it the Soft Wood Staff of the Hydromancer clears a tidy path at a few gold pieces, depending on the seller’s mood and the season’s rain. A careful buyer might walk away with more than a purchase—perhaps a reminder that every drop saved or shared is a small vow kept. So I cradle it still, the staff resting against my hip like a patient pulse of water, a reminder that healing, like weather, is a story we tell with our hands as much as with our prayers.