Full Item Description
The Soilturner of the Spring is a typical seeming plowshare, meant to be pulled through the dirt by a pair of oxen. Though it appears a bit more battered than most, it is still solid and ready to be used.
History
As he turned the soil of his properties one long spring day, a old, weary farmer heard a powerful cracking sound, as his plow struck something beneath the earth. Halting his oxen, he took up his shovel, and was most disturbed to see that his plow had cracked upon a shard of the strangest metal he’d ever seen, buried beneath the earth. Cursing and swearing, he dug the long sliver up from beneath the rocks that trapped it, along with the remnants of his plow, and put his oxen away for the night.
The next day, he dragged the whole mess to the smith, to have it repaired, forgetting the shard that he’d thrown in the pile. And, in the end, it was all forged into a single item, the farmer gaining a Shard of Storm as the leading edge of his plow. He took it home, and was pleased with its effecacy, for now, it clove even the greatest of rocks in its path, and he was even more surprised when the gentlest of rains fell the next morn, just enough to dampen the soil. And again the next, and the next, and the next…
Magic/Cursed Properties
The powers of the Soilturner are really quite a simple set: First, no obstacle beneath the ground can stop or damage the plow. It will simply slash its way through them, the edges of the cut object left worn and sandblasted in its appearance. Second, from spring till summer, the fields tilled by the Soilturner always recieve just precisely the right amount of precipitation. The Soilturner does not regulate temperature in any way - The yields of the fields of the Soilturner, however, are typically many times magnified from a naturally tilled field.
And as two are the powers of this accidental artifact, twofold are its curses. First, the Soilturner’s fields must be carefully rotated. It is extremely easy, over the course of a few years, to totally deplete the soil of its ability to bear life. These fields become bogpits in spring, and crumble away to dust in the summer, carrying the life-blood of the farm away upon the wind… Second, recieving, as he does, the yield of the field, the farmer who uses the plow is invariably filled with the oe’rweening pride and even hubris of the Goddess and her foe…
New Submissions
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2005-12-06 04:59 PM
Link: [1955#9226|text]
I love these sort of items.
2006-02-28 09:46 PM
Link: [1955#12846|text]
2006-04-29 08:11 PM
Link: [1955#14939|text]