Forged Beast-Plate of the Cavalier glints under the shop lamp, a single breastplate that looks as if a horned beast itself pressed its hide against cold steel and won. The surface bears a mosaic of hammered lines, like sinews pulled tight across a muscular chest, and a crest—an abstract silhouette of a charging creature—rises from the center, etched in darker bronze that warps with the light. The edges catch a faint orange glow from the flame, and the plate wears a patina earned from many campaigns: tiny nicks along the rim where spear tips met with stubborn resolve, and a line of leather straps threaded with copper rivets that whisper when you run your fingers along them. It feels heavy with history, yet the weight settles with a familiar, almost companionable comfort on the torso and the shoulder, as if the armor itself remembers every rider who wore it. The texture reads like a map of battles survived. The beast motif curves across the chest, every contour suggesting the way a rider would lean into a turn or surge forward through a line of shield-wall. The beast-plate was forged for those who move in the cradle of iron and wind—the Cavalier order, whose riders learned to synchronize breath, spur, and heartbeat until they became a single, relentless rhythm. Lore says the plate was tempered in a forge heated by a sleeping dragon’s breath, then cooled in a pool of moonlit water, granting resilience that could shrug off blades aimed at the heart and keep a rider aloft when the world itself seemed to tilt. Whether that tale is truth or myth, the plate’s presence on a shoulder sends a signal: here stands a rider who has earned a seat in the caravan’s rumor mill, a person whose charge is as much about the beast they ride as the steel they wear. In the heat of battle, the Beast-Plate seems to do more than protect; it breathes into the rider a shared momentum. Mounted, the chest piece settles with a steadiness that makes transitions—into a full gallop, into a sudden swerve—feel almost choreographed. It catches the eye of skirmishers who recognize the Cavalier symbol and know they’re facing armor that thrives where dust swirls and hooves drum a rhythm into the ground. It’s said to sharpen a hunter’s balance, to steady a charge, and to lend a certain swagger to a rider who trusts in the plate’s weight as one trusts a steady wind at the cliff’s edge. On a recent morning, a traveler paused at the bustling stall of Saddlebag Exchange to weigh a different kind of value against it. The dealer laid the plate out on velvet, the bronze catching the sun-warmed cobbles outside, and spoke in hushed tones about its price, the sort that turns a decision into a matter of trust. The tag bore a price that could be counted in gold coins, a sum that felt large until the seller reminded the buyer that what they held was not merely protection, but a shared history—a partner for journeys that would outlive a single lifetime. The bargain was spoken softly, coins exchanged in a moment that felt more like a handshake between two riders than a market transaction, and as the plate found its new owner, the room seemed to inhale with the memory of the beast that inspired it. Thus the Forged Beast-Plate of the Cavalier continues its life: not as a mere piece of armor, but as a character in a larger story, a hinge point where lineage, courage, and market whispers converge in the dusty, sunlit paths of a world where every ride writes the history of the next.