Thresher's Cudgel

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Description

A Thresher's Cudgel is most commonly a stout knobkerry or shillelagh bound with iron and inlaid with tempest jade. These weapons are often carried by Threshers in the Marches, but they are known throughout the Empire. Some Unconquered warriors among the Highguard call them Shamansbane weapons, and the nickname is often used by any skirmisher or scout who regularly finds themselves fighting an enemy magician.

Battlefield opportunists find them particularly useful against enemy magicians who use the Paralysis spell, using the brief period while the mage is frozen with their implement extended to deliver the destructive blow. The most successful Orcish thief-takers acquire these weapons as a tool against well-equipped thieves who employ magical implements such as Yeoman’s Bounty or Maggot’s Talon. Some call it “Mountebank’s Goodbye” after numerous run-ins between thief-takers and the League’s most dastardly criminal magicians.

Orc-made versions tend to use Jotra, the rune of battle, to fight the opponent’s magic, while Highborn artisans, favouring the power of the Winter realmm prefer to use the Yoorn, the rune of severance, to cut away the enemy’s power. While perfectly capable of wielding them, some magicians are reluctant to bond to a Thresher’s Cudgel, claiming a sense of resentment radiating from the weapon. Some Oathwrights explain that as it is the weapon’s nature to destroy mage implements, most examples have an intrinsic dislike of magicians. Most other commentators believe such magicians are simply imagining the effect.

Rules

• Form: One-handed weapon. Despite the name any one-handed weapon can be a thresher's cudgel.
• Effect: Once per day you may call SHATTER against a mage implement.
• Materials: Crafting a thresher's cudgel requires six ingots of tempest jade. It takes one month to make one of these items.

The volodny thrust with his staff towards the three sisters, keeping them at bay as around them the tormented spirits of the damned villagers shrieked and wailed.

"I will freeze your blood!" cried the volodny, his eyes flashing with silver. He thrust towards the youngest sister, Zelda Ignazy, but she swung her axe with all her might and struck the staff in the middle, shattering it to splinters. As the volodny reeled back, the spirits of the damned villagers swarmed upon Zelda and whispered to her of her lost love, buried these long six months beneath the frozen earth, and she wept and fell to her knees.

"I will drive you from my presence!" cried the volodny, drawing a rod of twisted pine marked with runes of despair and fear. He swung towards the middle sister, Magda Ignazy, but she swayed aside as a tree sways in a storm, and struck the rod with her sword, shattering it to splinters, As the volodny staggered away, the spirits of the damned villagers surged forward again, and whispered to Magda of her dead daughter, buried these long six years beneath the frozen earth, and she wept and fell to her knees.

"I will bring the shadow of death onto you all!" cried the volodny, and drew from the hidden place beneath his crimson robe a wand carved from the bone of a child and inlaid with the black stone that was his heart, the wand that looked like a wizened finger wearing an iron ring, as heavy as the full moon.

This was what the eldest sister, Rhina Ignazy, had been waiting for. She had held back while her sisters fought, remembering what the goose had told her and her sisters, remembering the advice their grandfather had given them before they set out.

As the volodny darted forward, his sleeves flapping like the wings of a great bloody bat, she struck with her wooden club, and broke the wand into flinders of bone and shattered crystal.

The volodny gave a single terrible cry, and then cracks ran across his skin, as he broke apart like an old clay bowl struck with a hammer, leaving nothing but dust and tattered robes.