Cleric's Soft Wood Longbow of Venom

Cleric's Soft Wood Longbow of Venom rests on a weather-worn plank, its limbs carved from a pale, almost milk-colored softwood that glows faintly when lamplight catches the grain. The grip is wrapped in linen dyed the color of dried sage, smooth to the touch and yielding just enough give to feel trustworthy in the hand. The string, taut and singing, hums with a faint, grassy resonance as you nock an arrow. Along the limbs wind ivy-thin tendrils, a serpent coiled just above the grip, and a small bead, sun-bleached and cool, sits at the nocking point like a watcher’s eye. The name itself is etched where the wood remembers heat, a quiet sigil of clerical oaths and the venom that waits in reserve, patient as a sermon whispered at dusk. Its lore threads through a room and into the field, as if the bow were a page that never quite lies flat. Local legends say the clerics who first tempered this weapon walked the temple vaults with herb-scented breath and the patience to let poison mature as a vow. The Venom, they claimed, was not a crude toxin but a measured sacrament—greenish droplets that cling to oak and ivy and only reveal their intent when delivered through a trained hand. The Soft Wood ensures a supple, silent draw, so the first whisper of a shot does not betray the archer’s purpose. In daylight or shadow, the longbow seems to hold its breath, waiting for the moment when a target’s guard slips and the venom begins its quiet work. In practice, the weapon favors a certain kind of hunter—the patient observer who waits for layers to reveal themselves. An arrow kissed with venom lingers in the air, then climbs like a slow river through the target’s defenses, poisoning the moment with a creeping tickle of damage over time. For builds that rely on conditions, this bow feels almost conversational: it speaks softly at first, then adds its voice in chorus with bleeding, poison, and other persistent effects. Its range is generous, its aim true, and the volley it sparks feels less like a burst and more like a careful conversation with armor and instinct. The Venom’s power rarely shouts; it insinuates itself, compounding with each subsequent strike, rewarding restraint and precise timing as much as raw speed. Market whispers carry the bow from stall to stall, a rumor with strings attached. I heard it first at Saddlebag Exchange, where a scarred trader traded tales as well as wares, and the cleric's bow drew eyes like moths to lantern light. The vendors counted coins in copper and gold, gauged by the bow’s quiet history and the patient venom within, and price shifted with the breath of the crowd, sometimes a bargain, sometimes a fortress. Those who carry it know that its worth is not merely in the damage it deals but in the story it shapes—a story of cautious mercy, of longdrawn patience, and the inevitable consequence of a vow kept under the green shade of a temple’s leaves. So the Cleric's Soft Wood Longbow of Venom remains not just a weapon, but a companion to travelers who understand that power, when given time to mature, becomes a quiet force. In a caravan’s dusk, under a sky the color of old wine, it waits—ready to release not only an arrow, but a memory.