Champion's Bastion
Description
A warrior who can withstand mighty blows can fight for longer. A knightly bastion is often of alloyed green iron and steel, inlaid with weltsilver designs. The more active a warrior wielding this shield is on a battlefield, the more the field repays that action by granting them vigour and helping them shrug off minor wounds.
Rules
- Form: shield (Talisman). You cannot make a champion's bastion that is a buckler.
- Effect: Whenever you spend a hero points you regain one hit immediately afterward.
- Materials: Crafting a champion's bastion requires seven ingots of green iron, three ingots of tempest jade and three ingots of weltsilver. It takes one month to make one of these items.
<ic>The scop was holding court in a raucous corner of the tavern. He had an audience of drinkers all over the Empire, but his attention was on three: a Marcher, a Dawnish knight and most particularly on the hero of his Hall. She'd recently returned from Skarsind. The Imperial army had lost, and his job was to drag crumbs of glory out of defeat, to fire the citizens of Empire to the challenge of battles to come.
"Shield-guarded glory-tall, legend, tho' stature-small,
Great Kiri! Axe-maid! The best of our hall!
Two foes she faced alone, turn-swings she cut one down,
left his skull axe-cleaved, and turned to the next
Down swung his mighty axe, leaving the lime-wood cracked.
She's hurt. She rises! she back-handed hacks!"
Not bad, he thought as he smashed a tankard towards the next table to punctuate the end of the line. He raised his arm to Kiri:
"Blood-slick that deadly glade, death for orc foe-man made,
Giant she stood there, bestriding the field!".
They're laughing now. He's got them, he knows, but always leave them wanting more and that knight's Troubadour is tuning up on the next table.
He'd something in his mind about the shield that Arte had made her. "Sturdy-light lime-wood board, bastioned with tempest jade, Green-iron girded and welt-silver-wired!" or something like that. A bit literal for a tavern-song, really. Best keep it for the Hall. He can feel he'll be asked for a verse about this next time his Hall gathers to remind themselves they are all heroes, and their legends will live forever.
"Axe-ready glory-torn, Wintermark newly-born,
bonded like sword-edge, a nation for war.
Ice-crafty Suaq-scouts, Steinr-line weapons high,
storm-crows amongst us, wise Kallavesi.
First Empress came to us, Wisdom she spoke to us
Empire like thanes-hall, nine nations as one.
Soul-singing, gathered here, heroes of Kolti's hall!
These are our stories, they say who we are."