Bloodamber Hauberk

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Description

A mithril shirt may also be known as a mithril-coat, a glittermist shirt. Many artisans, especially those creating mithril shirts for use by senators or priests, take especial pains to ensure their work is beautiful and delicate, weaving light rings closely together to create the illusion of silvery cloth or decorating their work with translucent or pale coloured gemstones, carefully shaped pieces of ambergelt, or even small amounts of polished weltsilver-silver alloy. The artefact mithril shirt given as a gift by the Urizen magi of Sunspire to Emperor Giovanni was said to be so encrusted with diamonds and moonstones that it was said to glow when exposed to moonlight, leading to it being called the Starmoon shirt.

When made of leather or other light materials, they are usually called an ambergelt hauberk or ambergelt breastplate. Some Navarr crafters prize red or red-brown ambergelt especially for use when making a suit of this armour, and call the resulting suit a bloodamber jacket of bloodamber breastplate.

Rules

• Form: Medium Armour.
• Effect: While wearing this armour you gain an additional rank of the endurance skill.
• Materials: Crafting a mithril shirt requires seven measures of ambergelt. It takes one month to make one of these items.

The old man coughed violently, and more than a little blood came up into the delicate silk handkerchief his grand-daughter held out for him. All his Noble House had attended at his side throughout the evening, paying their respects as the cold that wouldn’t go away threatened to claim him, and now he was left with the girl. Just married, glowing with joy and swelling with new life, she made a wonderful reminder that he had another brand-new life to come in just a little while.

“Grandfather, it is a tale of your glory in battle against the foe; why are you so always hesitant to tell it?” She wanted the story of the Battle Beneath the Full Moon, as it had become known. Bohemond was so much better at telling this tale, but he had attended already, and by the custom so old its origins were forgotten, he could not attend at the bedside again this night.

“Alright, I shall tell the tale if I must, but only to you, my dearest grand-daughter, and only today, when I expect to find myself at the doors of the Labyrinth ere the morning. But I warn you now, you will think the less of me for it, and nothing will change that.”

She squeezed his hand and looked terribly earnest, “I promise you I shall not, Grandfather.”

“It was a dark and terrible night, and though we would rather have waited for day, the foe would not give us that chance. We heard that their shamans had prophesied that if they took the field beneath the light of a full moon, a shining beacon would arise to show the winner.

“They thought they could light a great bonfire, and it would stand as the moon’s beacon for them. I suppose that destiny had greater plans for the field that day, the rain had lashed down with the fury of a wrathful Changeling all day, and every stick of wood on the battlefield was soaked through. Not with Highborn pitch could they have lit that bonfire that they made that night.

“Well, Bohemond it was, clever so-and-so, that lamented we had no mithril, and I said we did, but I wore it under my harness. Well, I cast off my cloak as fast as I could, and he unbuckled my breastplate and pauldrons, and we realised what we had there. If the sky cleared and the Moon showed her face, I’d be a shining beacon to all the field. Or, as Bohemond prefers to tell it, a shining beacon to all the Empire. I suppose that’s not too much to say, really, given how well that victory’s served the House.

“Well, by nightfall, the sky still hadn’t cleared. They attacked anyway, in their hundreds. I suppose they thought they might outrun their fate. They marched on us, and we knew that it would be a hard fight, for we were all soaked, both sides, and such a battle is rarely glorious. And then she winked at us, and I lit up for just a minute. A shining beacon told them who’d win that day. A moment later, she lifted the clouds from her, and there I was, glowing so bright you could hardly look at me.

“Well, they fell on us like wolves. They were furious. We stood no chance, the Company of the Great Swan, noble and glorious though we were. Lord Tristram, he went down, and so did Lady Ygraine, and Lord Guillaume the War-Witch. Bohemond fought like a Changeling, like I’d never seen him fight before. We had the beacon, and though it was the Orcs’ prophecy, it was that beacon that bore us through it. I glowed with the light of the Moon, just like Emperor Giovanni, and I must have killed a score, and it was that armour that kept me standing, in both regards.

“Just when I thought I could take no more, I found myself alone with only Bohemond badly wounded by my side, and a circle of them around me, and this look of awe on their ugly faces. They... turned and ran, more or less.”

“... oh Grandfather, I always knew you had great Courage, and Vigilance, and such immense Pride as it makes my heart burst, but such Wisdom with it! Oh, I shall surely name my son Charles when he is born, or else Charlotte, and this story shall be the secret that a mother tells to her child to inspire them to Virtue!”

“...bloody hell. Do you mean, my girl, you’ve been going round thinking me unwise all this time?”

“Hush now, Grandfather, don’t spoil the moment.”

“With any luck, I’ll end up with you for a mother, you cheeky little filly...”