Ivory Aketon

Description

This padded jacket takes its name from its pale colour, rather than from any use of ivory in it's construction. While the outer layers are thick cotton, it is padded inside with multiple layers of delicate silk. When the wearer is seriously injured, the silk serves to staunch the flow of blood, helped preserve life - at least for a time.

In the Brass Coast this armour is more commonly called an ashwine aketon, in honour of Gilda Ashwine, an exemplar of Courage whose unyielding determination to see justice served they see reflected in the dogged refusal of the wearer to let death take them. It is worth noting, however, that an ashwine aketon is usually dyed a pale golden-yellow colour as part of the creation process, for few people wealthy enough to afford one are inclined to wear white armour.

In the League certain troupes use these aketons while performing a dangerous stunt in the most famous, or infamous, scene in "The Fallen Herald." The scene traditionally lasts for over five minutes and involves the eponymous herald lying dying in the arms of their cicisbeo for the entire scene. For this reason it both the scene and the Aketon are known as The Cicisbeo's Embrace. The most ambitious and courageous performers use live weapons to inflict real injuries. There is somewhat of a competition between different troupes over who can endure longest death scene. Of course it would be shameful to have a performer die or be permanently injured during a performance, so there is a always a Physick on hand. It is often supplemented with Tinctures of the Open Sky to make the performance last even longer.

Rules

• Form: Light Armour. Despite the name any light armour can be an ivory aketon.
• Effect: While wearing this armour you gain three additional ranks in the fortitude skill.
• Materials: Crafting an ivory aketon requires ten measures of ambergelt, seven ingots of weltsilver and five measures of beggar's lye. It takes one month to make one of these items.

Esmerelda’s memories came back in a rush. The foreigners’ captain was making a show of himself, supremely confident, bearing his chest to the Freeborn corsairs. He believed his archers would keep them suppressed. For the most part, he was right.

She waited for the third volley to strike, and leapt with feline grace into the rigging. She unstrung an arrow, nocked it, and aimed. The enemy’s captain met her eye, and his laughing grin faltered. She loosed. It was the best shot she’d ever made.

Then she was here, and it was now, and apparently she should have drowned. “What happened? What in Ashwine's name happened?”

"Careful now, those Highborn we're ferrying get very upset when they hear swearing." So much so, in fact, that the captain had forbidden the use of swear-words among his crew for the voyage - and yet somehow, the missionaries only seemed to get more annoyed when they heard the names of the Paragons taken blithely in vain.

“You fell,” the Hakima said, “After you leapt onto the rigging in defiance of volley after volley of arrow-fire. Your captain tried to stop you, but you seemed determined to make a pincushion of yourself, and so you did. We thought you’d gone overboard and were lost.”

“We’d finished the fight by the time Iago i Jameel spotted you,” the captain said, “Hanging off the side of the ship, head-down, leg broken, caught in the mainsail-rigging they cut with those blasted crescent-arrows. We were sure you must have drowned or bled out down there. It was all of ten minutes after you were shot.”

“It’s the armour,” she croaked, and the captain nodded.

“Oh yes, the armour of Ashwine. The Aketon, they called it, and here I was thinking it was a gambeson. We’re all very glad for it giving you the confidence to perform such a valiant act of heroism. The Sutannir was preparing a eulogy when we pulled you from the water, you know?" He smiled a smile of genuine relief, and squeezed Esmerelda's shoulder warmly. "Well, anyway, I'm glad you did buy it. All that silk seems to have done the trick. As soon as you’re out of here, mind, I think the Sutannir has a parable waiting for you – something about the candle that burns brightest? – and I know for a fact those Highborn missionaries we’re carrying would just love to sit you down for a long, earnest and really boring sermon about the Virtue of Wisdom...”