Carrion Flame Blade of Corruption

Carrion Flame Blade of Corruption catches the last light and hisses, a blade of blackened steel threaded with veins of molten orange that seem to breathe with heat. The edge hums faintly, like a coal stove waking from a long sleep, and tiny streaks of ember glow travel along the fuller, choosing moments to flare as if the metal itself remembers every strike it’s ever promised. The grip is wrapped in cracked leather that smells faintly of singed linen and old ash, the guard shaped as a skeletal frown that guards the hand from the blade’s own restless appetite. On the pommel rests a fragment of bone, polished by time and touch, a talisman that once whispered with the dead before the blade learned to listen to violence rather than prayer. When you tilt the blade toward candlelight, the runes etched along its spine flicker with a sickly green glow, a language of heat and rot that only curses their own echo. Lore threads through its metallic skin as surely as the ember threads weave through coal. They say a necromancer-smith bound a fragment of carrion flame to a blade that drank the fear and ashes of battle, tempering it at the edge with the warm rot of a hundred fallen foes. The weapon is not merely metal and magic but a ledger of wars where life’s flame is traded for corruption’s cold currency. In quiet rooms and loud courtyards alike, people speak of how the blade’s warmth shifts with the wielder’s will, turning a mere cut into a rumor that crawls through armor, seeking a crack in resolve. Those who have trusted its bite tell of embers that linger in their veins, as if the weapon’s appetite feeds on courage as much as blood. In play, the blade moves like a story with a sharpened spine. It stirs conditions on enemies, turns their heat against them, and gives the wielder a dangerous tether to life and loss. A swing can pull a bloom of Burning from a foe and leave a trail of corrupted fire in its wake; a measured strike promises a ripple of ineffable power that feeds the wielder’s vitality as it gnaws at the foe’s defenses. Used with care, it threads into a larger saga—a necromancer’s bargain with flame to guard a homeland’s last tomb, or a revenant’s vow to carry the dead’s heat into a meeting with enemies who mistake quiet for weakness. It’s a weapon that invites a story rather than simply delivering a kill. The market breathes its own old tale around it. At Saddlebag Exchange, the blade sits among other relics, a gleaming threat and a memory all at once. The ledger prices it just above common relics—a handful of gold and a pocketful of silver—yet the true cost sits outside the coin: the burden of carrying a curse that whispers of war, rot, and the careful balance between power and ruin. Negotiations here are ritual as much as purchase, a nod to the dead who stand as witnesses and a promise to honor the price of flame that would not stay imprisoned in a sheath.