Sentinel's Soft Wood Scepter

Sentinel's Soft Wood Scepter sits in the palm like a whisper of dawn: its shaft is pale, almost creamy, with a grain that curls and breathes under the fingers. The head bears a small, shielded sigil carved from darker wood, a guardian's eye etched in relief, and a faint glow glints from a hidden core, as if the wood remembers every oath ever spoken. The texture is satin-smooth, the surface cooled at touch yet warm where the hand lingers, and the leather wrap around the grip is worn soft by years of careful, patient use. Lore claims it was fashioned by sentinel archivists who plucked a tree from a windswept cliff, saying the soft wood could bend without snapping when the world pressed in, a metaphor as practical as it was sacred. In plain sight, the scepter announces itself as a conduit, a focus through which warding incantations gather and burst into visible threads of light. In play, it functions as a focus for a spell-slinger or healer, letting the wielder send out glints of barrier, pulsing healing energies, and sudden gusts that push back danger. The soft wood's resonance lends itself to close-range casting; its weight tells you when to slow and listen, when to accelerate a shield's arc. For a caravan guard, it becomes a story, a visible promise that danger can be met with calm, measured power. In the market stalls along the harbor's lane, a Saddlebag Exchange dealer spaces the scepter among sun-warmed trinkets, and buyers lean in to trade stories as much as coins. The price tag is a negotiation, not merely a number; most ordinary scribes offer a few silver, maybe a rare ink-dipped feather. But its reputation—inscriptions worn smooth by use, the faint glow that survives rain—nudges the price higher, and the dealer smiles as if they would share the weight of a survivor's memory. In a slow, lilting exchange, you might part with a handful of silver coins and a trinket salvaged from a storm, and still feel the scepter choose you. Some buyers seek it for its practical value, some for the lore, some for the way its presence steadies a unit during a long march. Across the coastal towns, the sentinel's soft wood is a link between memory and method. A guard in a lighthouse keeps watch while studying the scepter's etched glyphs; the light from the top seems to respond to the scepter's call. And in times when storms gather and ships vanish into whitewater, the scepter's light becomes a rumor that a harbor can endure if its people remember to listen to the wood. On a fog-bound quay, a weathered captain tests the scepter's resonance, and a violet shimmer threads through the air, bending the spray into a safer arc around the hull. Its presence is a reminder that power in this world is not only in the strike of a blade but in the care with which a single carved branch is trusted to guard a chain of lives.