Carrion Steamcaller of Agony

Carrion Steamcaller of Agony sits in the palm like a relic exhaled from a tomb, its brass shell pitted and warm to the touch, a skull-shaped nozzle poised as though it might hiss your breath back at you. The leather straps are worn to a whisper, threaded with sigils that glow a faint, feverish green when you cradle it. Ribs and rivets trace a skeletal spine along the weapon’s length, and a delicate chain of bone beads clinks softly with the rhythm of your heartbeat. When it’s moved, a pale vapor threads from the nozzle, curling and vanishing like a rumor, leaving behind a coppery bite in the air. The surface bears a map of micro-scratches—stories of skirmishes and midnight trades etched into its weathered skin, as if the thing itself keeps a ledger of pain. Lore threads braid into its design as if the machine and the dead share a single notebook. Old smiths and ritualists whispered that the Carrion Steamcaller was born from a pact between a cranky engineer and a bone-carver who swore to speak with the departed without breaking the seal. They meant to bend agony, not to waste it, fusing industrial steam with necromantic instinct until the engine could sense a foe’s fear and coax it into a turbine of torment. In the dim corridors of ruined outposts, in the smoke-sickened air where tinkerers and necromancers shared a single aim, the Steamcaller earned a name: a whetted edge against the living and the dead alike, a device that could coax a hint of surrender from the bravest hearts if you listened closely to its sighs. On the field, the Steamcaller doesn’t shout so much as insinuate itself into a battle’s pulse. When it hums to life, a green-tinged mist belies its brutal function, creeping along stone and skin as if the air itself is being tuned to a sinister instrument. Its primary note is control—subduing a line of enemies with steamy, wrenching pressure that gnaws at their resolve and saps the vigor of anyone too close for comfort. Yet its strength isn’t merely in raw power; it harmonizes with the world’s smaller drums—the minions that follow a capable master, the lingering rattle of chained souls that the weapon’s aura can stir into action. In the hands of a patient tactician, the Carrion Steamcaller becomes a conductor of torment, drawing enemies into a tightening spiral while nourishing a cadre of undead or corrupted allies that cling to your every order. Prices drift through markets like rumors, and at Saddlebag Exchange, the chatter about its cost travels on the lips of traders who’ve learned to read the hush between botched bargains and sudden windfalls. The item’s value, they say, lies not only in its exotic look or the fear it can sow, but in the stories it can tell—a weapon that makes a battlefield feel like a carved corridor in a forgotten mausoleum. If you’re willing to trade for it, you’ll hear the market’s breath shift—the sound of a coin purse opening, of a clerk weighing the weight of old wars, of a barterer who believes that some relics are meant to remind the living that agony, once channeled, can become a stubborn, stubborn kind of artistry. Holding it, you feel not just the weight of metal but the echo of ritual and ruin—a reminder that in the world, power often wears a mask of soot and steam, and that some stories are best told in the language of breath and bone.