The Dire Ceremonial Hammer of Blood rests on the table like a relic someone forgot to bury. Its head is squat and brutal, forged of iron that holds a deep, sunset sheen; along the cheeks run crimson sigils inlaid with lacquer, each line like a whisper of a ritual once performed. The haft is wrapped in worn red leather that smells of smoke and pine resin; the grip is ridged with the tell-tale grooves of countless battles, and a small bone charm dangles from the butt, scarred by chafing rope and rain. The surface bears pocks and scratches from long service in rites both bloody and ceremonial; when you lift it, the weight presses through your wrists as if the hammer remembered every blow it's ever dealt. Old guild laws say the weapon was hammered by a blood-worn smith who traded oaths for iron, forged in a temple sunk beneath crimson sands. The 'Dire' tag marks not just power but the covenant attached to it—dragging a seeker toward a brutal oath, binding life force to steel. In legends, the hammer drank the first blood of a failed siege and kept the memory of that moment in the ring around its head, pitting the metal with a pale scar that glows when a rite is ready to be spoken. To those who know the tales, it is less a weapon and more a ward, a tool to call forth sacrifices in service of a goal greater than the wielder. At the table of any caravan or campfire, people would debate the hammer's place in a party. Its swings are heavy enough to reshape the rhythm of combat, but the true art lies in its runic heartbeat: strike a foe, and the sigils flare, siphoning a portion of their vitality to fortify the bearer, a lifeblood exchange that makes it invaluable in drawn-out fights or scrying sieges. It is prized by those who dance along the line between pain and power: in rally events, it can accelerate adrenaline, in dungeons it opens a window for a healer to breathe through the storm. Masters who study its runes claim that the weapon's power scales with the wearer's own resolve; the harder the oath you keep, the louder the crimson glow becomes, as if the hammer itself is keeping score. On a certain market day, I watched a trader haggle over it near the Saddlebag Exchange, where weary mercenaries, tinkerers, and scribes bargain for scraps of luck. The price was a thinning line between gold coins and a handful of rare trinkets—the kind of lot you carry on a belt with a dozen other keepsakes. The dealer tapped the hammer's head and nodded, predicting that a buyer with the right hunger would pay the price, and perhaps more later when a raid ends and the blood-costs are tallied. The Saddlebag Exchange functioned as a crossroads: a place to weigh the hammer's future miseries and rewards, to decide who will wield it next. Ever onward.