Carrion Steamcaller

Carrion Steamcaller rests in my palm, a compact brass lantern welded to a spine of dark bone, its surface pocked with micro-cracks and patina that glints like wet charcoal in torchlight. A tangle of copper tubing coils from its mouth to a glass canister that holds a swirling sickly green vapor, and sigils along the rim pulse with a slow, living heat. The texture is rough where the brass has worn away, slick where hands sweat, and every dent seems to hide a memory of bad weather, dingy corridors, and late-night barters in ruined markets. It wears its name on a brass tag that rattles faintly when you move it, as if the relic itself were counting time in the heartbeat between one breath and the next. Lore, in this case, travels well in whispers: forged by a revenant craftsman who bound carrion spirits to a boiler’s breath, turning death into a managed steam, a tool that could both scorch and calm a battlefield at the bend of a will. In hand, the Steamcaller feels like a pocket engine, a device that asks you to listen as much as you command. The glow from the sigils isn’t bright enough to blind a witness, but it is constant, a patient invitation to trust what you cannot see. It doesn’t announce its purpose with bombast; it invites a careful ritual of use, a rhythm learned under the shadow of a torn flag or beside a graveyard that still hums with winter. When you tilt it toward the world, the air near your feet tastes faintly of iron and rain, as if the device stirs the tones of the dead and the living in the same breath. The steam it calls up isn’t just heat; it’s memory, a veil that hides steps and reveals intentions. Its significance in the wider story isn’t in a single grand spectacle but in the way it threads through the lives of those who seek power with patience. The Steamcaller is a conduit between the living and the carrion—between a commander’s plan and the restless followers that haunt the margins of every siege and scavenging raid. Used wisely, it shields a bearer’s flank with a curling mist that drapes like a quiet fog, while the same vapor can loosen the grip of a foe, peeling back its defenses with a slow, oily burn. It also strengthens the bearer’s fungal and bone-tethered companions, those minions that filch advantage from rot and rumor, turning a small victory into a chorus of small, steady gains. Market days bring a different kind of story. I found it tucked behind a curtain of relic-sellers at Saddlebag Exchange, where the air smells of wax and damp leather, and every bargain is a confession of risk and desire. The vendor’s scales clicked softly as a price was named—for a relic that carries so much dead weight, the chatter around it felt surprisingly light, as if the Steamcaller had already bargained away some of its own future. I traded a pocketful of ledger scraps and a whispered rumor for the thing, and as I walked away, the Vapor in the canister settled a touch, as if approving the new steward of its stubborn flame.