Knightly Redoubt
Description
Crafted of orichalcum-steel with weltsilver fastenings and decoration, and treated with ambergelt, this armour offers powerful protection on the battlefield. It is variously known as Burnished Steel or Orichalcum Harness, and is worn by serious warriors throughout the Empire.
Rules
- Form: Heavy Armour.
- Effect: While wearing this armour, you gain two additional ranks of the endurance skill.
- Materials: Crafting a suit of knightly redoubt requires ten ingots of orichalcum, seven ingots of weltsilver and five measures of ambergelt . It takes one month to make one of these items.
<ic>The two earls nodded, agreement reached. One a warrior, her nose crooked from an old break, one robed and wearing the circlet of his house, an enchanter.
"Come in, please"
A young man entered the tent. His demenour was stern, the face of one who had been tested in battle many times, despite his short years. His gambeson was stained with sweat, blood and the circular marks of mail links.
"All discoloured from your hauberk, I see. You are born to glory, Sir Alsalom. Your Test was harder than perhaps it might have been for one born to higher status, but we are clear, all of us, that this is an Empire of merit, and we two certain that your qualities are teh very best. Sir Remy died during the night. Magical means, we are sure. We need him on the field tomorrow, and we have chosen you from amongst our Houses to be him."
"Two reasons. First, we doubt not your virture. Your Courage will be tested as never before, but your Loyalty and Pride will see you through, of that we have no doubt. Secondly, you'll fit his harness, and we need the orcs to see him. They will fear you as they feared him, and you will be twice the man you are with your own armour.
I will arm you myself. Take that off please."
The young knight shrugged off the thick padding that would have sat under his mail, and the battered warrior nodded.
"This may not be a ritual, not as the war-witches would know it, but it has power nonetheless. You have the heads of two noble Houses of Dawn helping you gird yourself for war, Sir. "
The dead man's armour was laid out in the pavillion, a masterwork even if the materials that made it had not been magical in nature. Burnished and bright it lay, its qualities clear to those who knew their craft.
"Arming doublet first. Good. Belt. Cuisses and greaves hang off the belt. Buckle them up tight. Check you can move? Good. Now the standard. Tight round your neck, please. Now arms. Knotted off those points. Rerebraces, vambraces. Back and breast, faulds and tassets next. Now the pauldrons for your shoulders. Last: gauntlets, bascinet, sword."
The enchanter stepped forward.
"Heart and soul, and song and honour. Blood and pride, and mind and thought."
His wand moved in complex dance, that perhaps only another mage would have recognised as Tykonus, the Rune of Victory; and Verys, the Rune of Might, traced in the air.
"That armour is yours now, as much as your own skin. Now; to war."