Malign Steam Hammer gleams with a coal-black head and brass ribs, its surface pitted from years of hot breath and stray sparks. Steam frets from vented seams along its haft, sending a sighing haze that smells faintly of copper and old factories. Runic filigree snakes across the head, not delicate scrollwork but weathered circuitry, as if a smith had fused iron and invention until the metal learned to speak in hiss and hammer-blow. The grip is wrapped in cracked leather, weighted so that every swing sends a tremor through the arm and up the spine. Locals swear the hammer was forged in the shadow of a collapsing foundry, cursed with the malice of machines left to learn on their own, a relic of engineers who trusted steam more than sleep. In combat, the Malign Steam Hammer feels like walking into a storm. Its blows crack like thunder, sweeping in wide, brutal arcs that bend shields and rattle breastplates. When the vents spit, a spatter of hot vapor erupts, staggering nearby foes and singeing their armor with a pale, blue-green glow. The weapon is less about precision and more about persistence: a patient dancer who wears down lines of defense, then delivers a hammer-blow that rattles the courtyard with a resonance that lingers in bone. Players who chase it—engineers, warriors, or guardians—learn to pace their tempo, timing the steam bursts to interrupt spell-casters and to maximize the stagger when the battlefield tightens around them. It is a weapon that makes a story feel heavier, as if every swing weighs down a chapter and pushes the ending toward a brighter, brighter dawn. On the world’s edge, the hammer binds lore to livelihood. A tale whispers that the Malign Steam Hammer was conceived in a rivalry between two mechanist houses, one bent on taming storms, the other on bending men to their will. Those who bear it carry a reminder that invention can elevate a people or darken a street. It finds its way into markets, as much a symbol as a tool, traded for coin and memory. The price, of course, is never fixed for long: a brisk customer may stroll away with a bargain, a patient buyer may watch the tag drift upward like steam curling from a vent. At Saddlebag Exchange, a wiry clerk weighs the coin with a wary smile, noting a rarity that could stir interest among collectors and guilds alike. If you hold the Malign Steam Hammer, you hold a doorway to both past and road ahead—an artifact that can shape a battle, a rumor, or a ledger. And depending on which side you walk, it sings or snarls, a constant reminder that power, even in metal, is never merely yours to claim. Sometimes, after a siege, someone will carry it to an old harbor and listen to the steam hiss as if the hammer itself were telling a story the world can hear. In that listening, the Malign Steam Hammer becomes more than iron—it becomes memory.