Cleric's Bronze Mace of Smoldering

The Cleric's Bronze Mace of Smoldering gleams with a dull, coppery patina, its head a compact disk of hammered bronze ringed by six slender flanges that catch the light like sparks in a hearth. Inside the blade-like boss lies an ember core, a heartbeat of warmth that glows through the metal with a patient orange glow. The surface bears a network of engraved sigils—fire and mercy entwined in delicate scrollwork—that shift faintly when a flame breathes nearby, as if the mace itself remembers the old rites. The grip is wrapped in worn leather, blackened by smoke, with a slight give under the fingers and a rhythm that matches the wearer’s pulse. When you lift it, the weight—never too heavy, never too light—settles in your stance, a balance of discipline and compassion. It feels almost ceremonial, yet oddly practical, as if the weapon is whispering a promise to the wearer: keep the light steady, tend the wounded, strike only to seal the breath of life. In the lore, the mace is said to have been forged in the fires beneath an ancient cloister of clerics who tended the first dawn of spring. It binds the world’s warmth to the bearer’s will, a conduit for healing energy that can be released in measured bursts or kept as a steady, protective glow. Veteran field medics speak of nights when the ember-core glowed so bright it banished the chill from a camp and steadied a skittish squad just as a frost of fear settled on their minds. Some stories claim a phoenix’s ash once fed the olivine furnace that tempered the bronze, giving the mace a faint, breathlike heat that you can feel when you lay your palm along the shaft. In gameplay, that warmth becomes more than ornament. The Smoldering Mace works as a frontline beacon for a support—or even a hybrid lifebinder—where every strike has the potential to ignite a pulse of restorative energy. On-hit effects weave a small healing tick into nearby allies and a temporary shield for the toughest moments, while the ember core’s aura lingers after you disengage, granting allies a modicum of fire-resistance and a morale boost when they most need it. It isn’t flashy, but in the long corridor of battle, that constant glow can turn a losing skirmish into a breath-saving pause. Market talk arrives with the clank of carts and the scent of leather and campfire. At Saddlebag Exchange, a sun-warmed stallline, the cleric’s bronze persuasion is weighed against stories and receipts from caravans. A hunter trades a stack of cured pelts and a handful of gold for the chance to own the mace as a symbol of steadfast mercy, while a veteran trader explains the going rate—roughly mid-silver-to-gold depending on enchantments, patina, and who’s eager to part with it. The exchange is not just commerce, but a ledger of trust: a weapon that carries not only a burnished edge but also a pledge to guard and to heal, even as it whispers of old fires and the quiet courage to keep them alive. On quiet mornings, you can see the mace resting in its owner’s hands, catching the sun and turning it into a pale flame—proof that stories, like metals, grow stronger when they are hammered again and again. And in the end, the mace travels on, from one keeper to the next, a warm reminder that mercy can still burn bright in the embers of war.