Sentinel's Elder Wood Longbow

Sentinel's Elder Wood Longbow rests in a display case, its limbs carved from pale elder wood that carries the grain like weathered maps. The bow's shape is slender and graceful, curving with a patient arc that promises a long, steady draw. The surface is matte, almost velvet to the touch, with subtle ridges where saplines swelled during the tree's youth. Along the grip runes are etched in a silvered thread, and the string—catgut taut with quiet readiness—cradles the bow like a whisper begging for aim. When you tilt it into the light you see a faint pulse of color, a memory of a watchful order and the vigilance that first christened it with oath and wind. The sentinel sigil is pressed into the leather wraps at the grip, a small emblem that glows faintly at dawn and dusk. This is no mere decorative relic; it is a tool bred for the long shot and the patient hunt. The elder wood lends resilience that makes the bow forgiving of rough handling and errant arrows, a quality that matters in treetop ambushes and canyon skirmishes alike. In the hands of a practiced archer it feels almost fused to the body, the breath syncing with the string as if the two had learned each other in silence. The lore says the bow was carved by smiths who walked in the shadow of the Sentinels—keepers of the eastern passes—using wood gathered from a venerable elder tree that had stood since their order first learned to listen for danger. Any archer who knows that history will tell you the bow carries more than momentum; it carries a pact. In the field it shines in the way it rewards restraint. A well-timed aim yields a measured, clean delivery—range, not recklessness. It supports a build that favors precision and cunning over brute force, letting you pin a mark at the edge of a ridge while enemies spill into your cover. For a hunter, for a guardian who stands at the breach and rains quiet arrows into advancing lines, this longbow becomes a partner. Its usage threads into the wider tapestry of the world's conflict—the way distant sentries on patrols pass the same stories to new recruits, the way a single hunter's shot can alter a chase. Pricing slips into Saddlebag Exchange conversations, where rumor mills churn with coin purses. There the elder wood longbow sits among other relics, its price rising and falling with the season of hunts, the demand of travelers who barter for gear that carries a name as storied as the legends it’s tied to. Chatter says scarcity sharpen the mark, and buyers learn to read the room as the wind. I left with a small note tucked in my sleeve—an acknowledgment that some things awakened by vigil and wind never fully sleep. And when it finds its target there is a quiet whisper, as if the wind itself approved. The bow remains, leaning in its case like a quiet witness—ready to draw, carry the next guardian into dawn.