Bloodfeather Harness

A Bloodfeather Harness is a popular item with some who fight in the front rank.

Description

The Bloodfeather Harness is popular with those Kallavesa mystics who integrate a bird-mask into the armour along with feathered vambraces and greaves. Some Marcher artisans hunt mandowla, making leather from their ursine hide and working their feathers into the decoration of the mage armour.

When the wearer of the harness is critically wounded, its magic slows their heartbeat and grants them precious minutes before they are finally claimed by death. Time itself seems to slow down from the point of view of the wearer, and many of those who have been saved by the magic of this mage armour have described experiences in which they could not help but dwell on the significant events of their entire life, and the consequences of their deaths - some returned to their comrades profoundly changed. In some parts of Brass Coast it is called a nervous guest or occasionally the more waggish lurker on the threshold to laughingly poke fun at a reluctance to step through the door of death and enter the labyrinth.

Rules

• Form: Armour. Takes the form of a suit of mage armour. You must be wearing this armour to use its magical properties.
• Requirement: You must have both the magician and battle mage skills to bond to this item.
• Effect: You gain three additional ranks of fortitude.
• Materials: Crafting a bloodfeather harness requires three measures of beggar's lye, five measures of ambergelt, and ten ingots of weltsilver. It takes one month to make one of these items.

I woke screaming by a warm hearth, yet not as warm nor as welcoming as the heart-warmed hearth which for nine months had been my home.

I grew stronger, grew taller, learned to speak, learned to walk, learned to read.

I grew stronger, grew taller, learned to fight, learned to live.

I grew stronger, grew taller, learned wisdom and courage, pride and vigilance.

I grew into a man, and lived as a man. I took a wife – or she took me, I was never sure.

I fought with my people in the skin of a bear. I took its ferocity into my heart, and the scop gave me its name. I carried the banner, and stood by my Thane’s side.

With my rod and my axe I fought for my people. Through boredom and battle, through days both harsh and joyous, I stood for the strength and character that make our people great.

And now I lie dying, an arrow in my heart. Only my harness keeps me from the Labyrinth’s gate. I am certain that my body is being moved. If the Grimnir can save me, then their skill will be the mark of their own greatness.

Perhaps I dream in convalescence. Perhaps I am already saved. Or perhaps it is too late, and I go now to a new life, to write a new tale.

Whatever my fate, I am content with it. Whether it comes today or tomorrow, I am content with it.

A hero’s story ends in death.