:: Random Item—Tresses of Cerulean Splendor ::

Tresses of Cerulean Splendor

by Wm Jay Carter III, 5/11/15

Material: Hair

Hair Color: Blue-Black

Conditions: Long, Ancient

Keyword: Splendor

What you first take as a carefully coiled black rope instead turns out to be a lengthy braid of bluish-black hair. Even careful study does not reveal what manner of human or animal the hair might have been harvested from, or for what purpose. As the plaits shimmer splendidly in the light, you are only certain of one thing: these tresses have survived thousands of years.

In the ancient past a strange race of twisted folk once kept flocks of sheep whose wiry black wool shone with a bluish tinge. The Twisted Folk harvested the wool and wove it into all manner of curious crafts, the most notable being the resilient and pliable Cerulean Steel. Actually a misnomer, even a single thread of these tightly-twisted wooly fibers maintains its strength under the heaviest of loads and most intense heat.

Cerulean Steel can serve many uses. In a thick braid it serves as a near-indestructible rope. Single threads have proved useful as cutting implements, especially in cases where tools of stiff metal will not do. Though the Twisted Folk were a peaceful race, their most unique and valuable resource was used by later civilizations to create superior weapons; bows with strings that could bear inhuman strength, swords with blades composed of single threads strung on either side of a stiff frame, and terrible whips and thrashing scourges.

Not all that was made with Cerulean Steel was meant to harm, however. Legend tells of a curious harp strung with blue strings that could bind the lands of the living and the dead with its music. Yet other stories tell of magical blue carpets that could unroll indefinitely—all the while defying gravity. And distant whispers suggest that the tapestry of fate itself is woven with fibers of Cerulean Steel.