Carrion Steam Trident

Carrion Steam Trident gleams with a patina, its three prongs arcing like a broken halo around a core of bone and brass. The shaft is wrapped in faded leather, wetted by something that smells of rust and spice, with rivets that catch the light as if eyes in a field of shadow. Steam seeps from vents along the haft, curling in pale tendrils that suggest a machine's heartbeat beneath the necromancer’s craft. The carved spokes along the guard resemble skeletal fingers, and the head bears a sigil that looks half-cracked porcelain, half-scorched bone. In dim markets the weapon glints, not purely metal but something that hums when a thief’s breath itches the air; when sunlight hits the blade, a wisp of greenish vapour escapes and disappears, as if the trident breathes alongside its bearer. Lore whispers link it to a lost enclave where carrion cults fused rot and steam, a relic built to make corpses dance in a rusted engine's rhythm. In practice, the Trident isn’t merely a showpiece. It carries a reputation for forcing enemies off-balance with its reach and unconventional geometry, a weapon that rewards timing over brute force. When wielded by a patient user, it turns skirmishes into opportunities: the central prong shoves through armor while the outer points flip a foe’s footing, creating openings for teammates. The steam vents aren’t decorative; they provide a tiny surge of propulsion, a momentary push that helps you step back from a clutch of foes or lean into a closing strike. It’s the kind of tool that makes you rethink your approach in the middle of a fight, trading raw damage for control and tempo. Beyond combat, its presence in the world feels like a thread in a larger narrative. Soldiers who encounter the Carrion Steam Trident speak of repair-wrights who still barter in the markets for parts scavenged from forgotten ships, and scholars who wonder if the brass heart at its core once powered a quarantine engine meant to preserve or rot. The weapon becomes a symbol in campfire stories about alliances formed in back alleys and river ports, where an adventurer who earned the trident’s respect can trade a tale for a rare recipe or a hard-won square of seamanship. Pricing threads into the tale as well. In the bustle of Saddlebag Exchange, the trident’s price moves with supply and rumor, sometimes fetching a high wage from traders who prize uncommon craft, sometimes dropping to a steal when a flood of similar relics rots the market’s heart. A buyer who understands the craft—its scent, its bite, its breath—knows to look for the small pits along the haft where the patina has flaked and the steam still leaks, indices of a weapon that’s lived as long as the stories around it. If you listen closely, every swing of the Carrion Steam Trident is a sentence in a larger chronicle: a weapon that binds the dead to the pulse of the living in a world where memory and industry collide, where a single blade can pivot a caravan’s fate, and where a market stall’s warmth hints at a longer, weirder road ahead, for now.