Carrion Steam Brand of Agony

Carrion Steam Brand of Agony rests in the palm of a gloved hand, a small bronze brand pressed into a slice of bone-white ore, its edges threaded with ash and rivets. The surface is not smooth but studded with a lattice of runes that catch the light with a bruised green glow. A thin wisp of carrion steam escapes from a seam along its back, smelling of iron and rot, as if a bitter breath from a tomb still clings to a weapon forged in the heat of war. The texture feels cool and gritty, as if centuries of dust and ash have learned its shape; when you tilt it, the rivets bite back with a dull, satisfying click, a reminder that this is no mere trinket but a tool tempered by loss. Lore says it was cast in a furnace fed by carrion from frontlines, its maker swearing that agony should be bound to will, not drift away as ruin. In the field, the Brand of Agony does not sit inert on a belt. It hums with a quiet, insistent hunger, as if the bearer's every strike drinks from a hidden well of torment. Wielders claim that it channels the battlefield’s wounds into a visible vein of pain, weaving Agony into attacks and leaving foes to stagger under a wash of creeping hurt. The texture of the brand—it glows a pale, sickly shade when the steam breathes—serves as a signal to comrades and rivals alike: this is a talisman that multiplies pressure, not merely a symbol of prestige. For those who favor condition-based play, the brand is a trusted ally, amplifying lingering effects and turning scattered hits into a concerted pressure that spreads through a crowd like a fever. Its presence invites the party to synchronize: a necromancer’s pulses, a guardian’s pulls, a thief’s quicker strikes, all harnessing the same thread of pain the item exhales. Market stories braid into the thread of its usefulness. I watched a dusk-tinted exchange near a caravan’s edge, where a vendor claimed a night’s profit riding on the glow of such relics. The Saddlebag Exchange became a chorus of bargains, rattle and clatter as traders weighed the Brand of Agony against the tossing coins in their sacks. Prices swung with the steam’s mood—when the sigils burned brighter, a price in gold rose; when the fog calmed, the same piece dropped to a leaner sum. The stall’s keeper spoke in whispers of “right timing” and “signature glow,” promising that a well-timed trade could turn this brand into a companion that travels with the buyer, a mark of endurance in a world where every battle leaves a memory carved in ash and steam. So the Carrion Steam Brand of Agony remains, not just as a curio but as a story you wear on your sleeve—a talisman that invites you to walk the line between pain and power. It binds the living to the memory of the fallen, and every night when the steam sighs, it reminds the world that some sufferings are meant to be carried forward, and in carrying them, a larger story keeps turning.