Crackling Mask

The mask is cold blue steel, heavier than it looks, with a jagged scar of brighter metal running from brow to chin like frozen lightning. The hairs on your arms lift as you hold it. Your legs twitch, restless, as if the road is already calling. Then, faintly, from somewhere behind the eyeholes, a sleepy voice whispers a single word: "Sefa."

• Your Speed increases by 10 feet.

Quirk. It occasionally mutters in its sleep, always the same name.

History. The smith Orla Venn swore off weapons after her swords armed a warlord's raiders. Years later her oldest friend, the courier Bram Kettle, lay poisoned with an urgent warning undelivered, and begged her for one last blade. She broke her oath, melting his own sword down and hammering it into a mask through a thunderstorm until lightning split her anvil. Bram ran all night, reached the city steps, and died there. The warning was never read. The mask still whispers the name of the woman it was meant for.

Bringing it into your game

The undelivered warning

A sealed, bloodstained letter is found with the mask. It is addressed to Sefa, who may still be alive, and whatever danger it warned of may finally be arriving.

The smith who quit

Orla Venn, now old and refusing all commissions, recognises the mask the moment she sees it. She wants it destroyed, or she wants to know who finally carried Bram's message.

Element

Storm

Suggested value

400 gp