Zodiac Longbow

Zodiac Longbow rests on a leather-wrapped display as if suspended between night and dawn. Its wood is a deep, bruised ebony, grain running like constellations under a thin lacquer that catches candlelight and returns a dozen tiny glints. The bow's riser is etched with celestial glyphs—tiny sigils of Aries, Cancer, and Scorpio—though scholars shrug that those marks are less astrology and more promise: a weapon that seeks the moment when luck tilts in your favor. The limbs are slender but taut, with a texture like brushed obsidian, and when you run a gloved finger along the grip, you feel a subtle pulse, a rhythm that seems to hum in time with your own breathing. The string, pale and silvery, carries a whisper of frost and has an edge of steel scent when pulled taut, as if the bow were listening for distant skies. Its lore threads through the market: craftsmen speak of a star-fallen forge that cooled the metal with meteor ash, binding it to a hunter who could read the heavens. Legends say the first archer to tame it shot an arrow that split the night into two, letting a caravan through a siege-lit plain when hope was rare. The word Zodiac, in that storytelling mouth, is less about the zodiac signs and more about alignment—between fate and aim, between the hunter and the storm-ripened distance. In practice, the longbow favors patience and precision. A shot before the moon climbs high can chain into a rapid sequence—two or three arrows skimming through cover, guided by light fade and the target’s silhouette, then a final, decisive thunderbolt as the sun kisses the horizon. Its damage is tempered by a cadence, the way a hunter breathes: half a breath for aim, a full breath for release, and a brief pause as the arrow whispers toward its mark. In group play, its true gift surfaces: an archer who can lead a line of shots that lay down a waking network, revealing enemies behind brittle walls and giving allies a beacon to breach or fallback from. The star sigils glow brighter with successful hits, a quiet constellation stitched across the battlefield. Pricing is where the road-weariness of the world meets the spark of commerce. In the dusty aisles near the Saddlebag Exchange, a price tag sits between shimmer and grit: the kind of tag that makes a collector’s eye glitter and a dealer’s pocket twitch. It is not simply gold for wood and string; it is a pledge—a belief that a weapon, once seized, will carry a story forward, turning a moment of choice into a journey. When you pocket the bow and free it into your hands, the world seems to tilt toward possibility, as if the zodiac itself has nodded and whispered, go on, aim true. Its arrows bloom with frost and light on impact, briefly revealing hidden foes and exalting critical hits. For explorers, it’s a companion in the long hunt, a storyteller's tool that turns still nights into dawns.