Dire Orrian Mace of Corruption

The Dire Orrian Mace of Corruption rests on a scarred oak table, its head a brutal disk of blackened iron, spiked with jagged flares and a central skull carved with careful cruelty. The metal bears a pitted texture, like a rock worn by a storm, and a greenish glow threads along the runes in the haft's trench-work, as if something living slithers beneath the surface. The shaft is of dark, lacquered wood reinforced with copper bands; grip is slick with oil and history, worn smooth by hands that have gripped it to bid for mercy and murder alike. Its engraving shows the old Orrian script, winking at those who know the empire's ruin and the whispers of the Drowned God; the mace carries the sense that it was not merely forged for war but bound to an ulterior appetite—the hunger of corruption waiting for a strike that would bend will, not just stone. Within a party’s skirmish, the mace seems to hum. A single crack of the head sends a wave of corrupted energy through armor, leaving cracks in the mundane and widening the pathways of a man’s fear. It is not simply a weapon; it is a key that opens a different kind of fight. Those who master it learn to balance raw impact with the slow, creeping toll of its aura, turning a brutal blow into a mechanism that gnaws at the enemy’s resolve. In the right hands, the mace becomes a story that writes itself on the battlefield: a frontline edger that drains the vigor of foes, drives them to misstep, and makes the very ground feel unsteady beneath their feet. It is the hinge point in a larger legend—one of ruin and recovery—where Orrian craftsmanship sought to bind a fragment of the Drowned God’s temper into metal, and the world learned to watch for the color-shift in the air after a swing. Marketdays on the outskirts of the city bring its saga into human hands. Saddlebag Exchange is where relics like this pass from collector to collector, where price tags glow faintly in lamplight and haggle is a language of its own. I watch a trader peel away the stamp of gold and the scribbles of an old map, tracing out a price that sits somewhere between a handful of silver and a favor owed. The tag, chalked on a brass slat, reads plainly enough, yet the true value shifts with stories—the weapon’s past, the bidder's courage, the rumor of a ruin where it might yet awaken. I walk away with the mace for less than the posted price, the silver coins clinking in my pouch, knowing the path ahead will demand restraint and resolve in equal measure. The Dire Orrian Mace of Corruption does not simply sit in a vault; it travels, it tests, it changes hands, stitching another thread into the world’s ongoing tale of power and consequence. And somewhere, under a rain of lantern light, another rumor begins, and the mace moves on.