Berserker's Axe

Berserker's Axe sits on the workshop bench, a broad, brutal blade catching the light with a cruel gleam. The steel wears a river-black temper and a goldish edge, honed to a whisper. A shallow fuller runs along the blade's spine, catching the light in narrow ribbons. Near the tang, runes etched in brass twist in a weathered chorus, while the grip is wrapped in spent-leather cord, scored by long journeys and the handprint of a countless wielder. The crossguard is a simple arc of iron, heavy enough to anchor the swing of a long day. When you tilt it, you can glimpse fingerprints of ash and oil, the patina of battles past that tells more than any boast. Legends say it was tempered by berserker smiths who wandered frostbitten passes, the blade born of a vow and a storm. Its lore ties it to a rite where rage is turned into focus—that moment when a fighter's heart slows to a hungry beat and every strike speaks for a village's safety. The weapon bears an emblem: two wolves crossing, guarded by a flame; a mark whispered to be the sigil of a long-disbanded order that once walked the borderlands between order and chaos. Some survivors claim the axe has tasted the blood of foes and grown wiser, its edge gaining an almost sentient hunger for the next confrontation. In those stories, the Berserker's Axe is less a tool of war and more a conduit for a shared memory—the moment when courage becomes something you can hold in your hand. In the world of skirmishes and wandering caravans, its significance is not only in the legend but in what it enables you to do. It is a weapon built for high-damage, crit-focused builds: swift, decisive swings that punish a foe's hesitation, punctuated by bursts that turn a flanking maneuver into a rout. In punctured daylight and wind-choked evenings, warriors who shoulder this axe learn to read a fight the way a hunter reads tracks—by the tempo of a swing, the rhythm of a breath, the way armor yields under a precise, well-timed cut. The blade's heft makes it ideal for close quarters or a sudden wheel during a charge, when the world tightens to a single doorway and the enemy's lines waver. Market whispers travel through the streets as merchants hawk wares and brag about their finds. At Saddlebag Exchange, a seasoned vendor wipes the blade's oil from the grip and offers a price that reflects both craft and legend—a couple of gold coins, sometimes more if a tale precedes it or if someone is willing to trade a memory along with steel. A buyer might trade coin for history, or history for coin, and the bargain feels almost like a pact: you take the blade, and the blade takes you into another chapter of the same story—one where you carry the memory of the berserkers forward into the next skirmish, the next dawn, the next road that opens into the world.