Cleric's Soft Wood Short Bow of Hobbling

Cleric's Soft Wood Short Bow of Hobbling rests on a peg, its limbs pale as a dawn-sung reed and carved from a soft, almost sighing wood that cushions the touch like a whispered secret. The grip is wrapped in weathered leather, stained a dusky coffee color, with tiny grooves worn into the texture from years of steady hands. The bow’s profile is compact—short enough to maneuver in a crowded courtyard or a shadowed alley—yet it carries an unexpected weight in its heft, as if the wood itself remembers its first patient and the long minutes of careful aim that followed. A pale glaze coats the surface, catching the light in a way that makes the grain look like water lent form, while faint, ceremonial runes trace the inner curve of the limbs and glow a soft, forgiving blue when the weapon is drawn. The string is a quiet, stubborn fiber, taut and true, with nicks along its edge where practice and patience have worn away at yesterday’s mistakes. It feels alive in the hand, a calm instrument designed to listen before it speaks. Lore whispers that this bow was born in a chapel’s shadow, where clerics tended bruised bodies as carefully as they tended vows. The “soft wood” designation isn’t merely poetic; the timber’s pliancy was chosen so that each shot could be delivered with a measured mercy, a way to restrain without breaking. Hobbling, in the language of the order, isn’t about cruelty but a deliberate slowing—an invitation to an opponent to reconsider, to yield, or to be guided back toward the path of healing. The bow’s enchantment lingers on the air like a scent of linseed oil and old parchment, a delicate tether that saps a foe’s swiftness while leaving limbs intact for later aid. When a shaft passes its mark, you can feel the world’s tempo shift—not toward a brutal finish, but toward an opening, a moment when restraint proves mightier than judgment. In the field, the Cleric’s Soft Wood Short Bow of Hobbling becomes part of a larger story about how battles are waged and won. Players point it at a skirmish line, and the arrows do not scream with fire or explode in a blaze of glory; they slow, freeze, and sting with a patient restraint. The weapon’s true value lies in its choreography: set up a trap of progressions where allies push forward, while the hobble slows the enemy enough to buy time, to regroup, to pray for mercy, or to accept a different fate—one that keeps a life intact for restoration rather than ruin. It is a tool that suits healers and front-line tacticians alike, a reminder that restraint can be as decisive as force. Market life breathes into the bow as well. In the bustling stalls of the Saddlebag Exchange, traders speak in hushed tones about its price, weighing the wood’s warmth against the rune’s quiet power. A fair offer might hover in the vicinity of several silver, depending on condition and provenance, the vendor noting that scarcity adds as much to value as craftsmanship. Caravans pause to study the bow’s lines, and merchants speak of it as a piece that travels well—compact, reliable, and stubbornly gentle. It isn’t merely an instrument of combat; it’s a story carried in wood and string, a reminder that mercy can be weaponized with discipline and care.