Carrion Cabalist Shoulders of the Dolyak

Carrion Cabalist Shoulders of the Dolyak sit heavy on the counter, a pair of shoulders carved from weathered hide and bone that seems to hum with a memory of caravans and coughs of wind. The leather is rough as old drumskin, cracked in places where sun has baked the transport routes raw, and stitched with sinewy thread that looks alive in the glow of lamps. Metal bosses jut like fallen moons, catching flickers of light and throwing them back in sharp, merciless glints. A fringe of rotted fur drapes along the top edge, brushing the collarbone with a whisper of things long past, while sigils wind along the plates—protective runes tangled with hunger, the sort of wards cabalists once etched in bone and wax. In the center, a small skull sits at the buckle, hollow-eyed and peculiar, rattling softly with each step you take as if counting the rhythm of your own breath. This is a relic that has traveled with dust and dusters of rain, a tangible fragment of a world where rites and thresholds ride side by side. The Dolyak, those great pack beasts of the southern routes, are more than beasts here; they’re a memory people carry with them, a totem of endurance. The cabalists who once walked the margins of those stooped warrens treated the Dolyak hide like a canvas and a shield at once, stitching into it a faith as stubborn as the land itself. These shoulders, then, are not merely armor but a hinge—where the living and the dead seem to nod to one another when you move. They carry the scent of long nights spent around ember pots, of whispered bargains sealed with a bone pin and a oath spoken to the hollow of a skull. Some say the garment remembers the weight of a necromancer’s hand, the way a whispered syllable can bend the air, turning fear into resolve for whoever wears them. In the world of sun-scorched trade and shadowed markets, this piece finds a purpose beyond its look. It lends a commanding silhouette to a necromancer or a storyteller-warrior who prizes presence as much as power. Wearers note how the shoulders shift the mood of a room—how the carved guardians seem to lean closer when a rival speaks, how the rotted fur ruffles like a sleeping creature waking to attention. They are not simply defense; they are a performance, a reminder that every spell cast, every whispered command to a thrall, carries the weight of a caravan’s slow, relentless march. Organically, these shoulders drift through the market’s conversations and memories, passing from one hand to another as traders trade tales as much as coin. At Saddlebag Exchange, a stall tucked between crates and sun-warmed leather, a tag dangles from a leather thong, and the price drifts with the day’s weather and the stories attached to it. Haggling here feels like bartering with a traveler who knows the road by heart: a little give-and-take, a nod at shared risk, and a final exchange that leaves both parties aware they’ve just added a new line to a larger, wandering chronicle. So the Carrion Cabalist Shoulders of the Dolyak endure—not merely as gear but as a living thread in the fabric of a world always moving, always trading, always listening for the next whispered bargain under the open sky.