Gravedigger's Vest

Description

A leather boss, usually hung on the chest, often forms the centre-piece for this suit of mage armour; matching vambraces and belt usually complete the set. When the armour is made of metal, it is most often of green iron alloyed with silver and set with pale-coloured crystals. Not many magicians are able to unlock the power of the gravedigger's vest, but those who can are able to draw on fading spiritual energies to revitalise themselves when they are at death's door. In parts of Highguard it is sometimes called a gatekeeper's vest or more rarely a hesitant threshold, both referencing the idea of death as a door through which the spirit passes to enter the labyrinth,

Orc warcasters are among those who make the most use of the gravedigger's vest, and those who do so have reported many times that the voices of their ancestors especially clearly.

Wearers often speak of a sensation of being watched in the hours after they use the power of the gravedigger's vest, especially after dark and most especially when they are in places associated with death such as mausoleums, graveyards, cemeteries and (of course) the Highborn Necropolis. They rarely report any feelings of threat or danger, only the feeling of something or someone paying attention to them. Quite a few of those who talk about these feelings actually find the experience reassuring, and have a number of theories about what it is that watches and what it may imply about death; they usually keep these theories to themselves.

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: While wearing this armour, when you use the unstoppable skill you are restored to 3 hits.
• Materials: Crafting a gravedigger's vest requires five measures of iridescent gloaming, eleven measures of ambergelt, nine ingots of green iron, nine ingots of weltsilver, and seven measures of beggar's lye. It takes one month to make one of these items.