Berserker's Banded Gauntlets of the Lich sit heavy on the table, their bone-white plates catching candlelight and throwing blue-white glints along the edges. The texture is a paradox: cool and dry to the touch, yet somehow alive with a springy resilience in the leather beneath, as if the hands themselves could awaken the moment you flex your fingers. Iron bands circle the forearm like skeletal ribs, securing the plates with a deliberate menace, and sigils carved in dark steel wind along the knuckles, etched runes that glow a pale, hungry green when danger closes in. There’s a scent of ozone and old copper about them, a forge’s memory pressed into metal, and a whispered tale that a berserker of old wore these into a necropolis siege, surrendering a last breath to a lich in exchange for unholy speed and ruthlessness. Since that rumor took root in the markets and stairwells of fear, the gauntlets carry a chill that only the heat of battle can thaw, a reminder that power here is paid for in echoes of ice and iron. In the field they feel less like armor and more like a hinge between mortal hunger and unlife, a weight you press into the world as you step into the fray. When the fists collide, the gauntlets seem to siphon a fraction of a foe’s vitality and pour it forward in a radiant, almost brutal glow. For a berserker build they’re not shy about delivering raw potency: enhanced Power and Ferocity, a generous touch of Precision, and a hint of lifeblood synergy that makes blood-slick bursts feel earned rather than merely flashy. The lure is double-edged—the Lich’s mark invites risk as much as reward, because fury without restraint can burn the user as surely as the target. It’s a delicate balance: the gauntlets crave chaos, but the bearer learns to channel that chaos into measured, devastating rounds of blows that fracture armor and morale alike. In raids and roaming skirmishes, their presence becomes a story unto itself—a relic that prompts questions about the boundary between living force and remnant power. Some whisper that the gauntlets aren’t just forged tools but keys to a larger myth, a chain that binds the living to the dead and makes a battlefield into a stage where history replays with every clash. Others use them as a symbol in their own circles—a reminder that even when the world is perilous, a single artifact can define a hero’s arc, shaping choices and triumphs in equal measure. The world outside these halls murmurs with their legend, a narrative thread that ties necromancers’ schematics to frontline courage, and traders’ whispers to the steady pulse of a city market. I eyed them again at Saddlebag Exchange, where traders pile relics beneath tarps and lanterns swing with every breeze. The price tag read in careful script, a few gold coins that would turn a wandering tale into a tangible relic for a discerning buyer. The stall’s owner told me the gauntlets move briskly there, traded between those who seek to tip the scales of a battle but keep their own nerves intact, and those who want to carry a chill of the Lich’s pact into the next encounter. Walking away, the gauntlets still hummed with memory—their history braided into the lives of those who choose power, and the world that keeps turning because someone, somewhere, dares to wear the storm on their wrists.