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Skullbound Harness

No smith claims the Skullbound Harness.

Its first master is lost to ash, its forge to legend. Some say it was hammered in the black furnaces beneath Hell, where iron is quenched in blood and every tool bears a grudge. Others swear it was wrought by mortal hands in the last siege of the demon gates, when men stood knee-deep in cinders and dared the pit-born legions to come forth.

For what purpose was its great skull set upon the breast? None can say. To honour the dead? To mock the demons? To remind all who beheld it that death grins alike upon king and beggar? The wise disagree. The mad disagree louder.

Thus did the harness pass through battlefields, throne rooms, and several taverns that no longer stand upon any sensible map. Its leather has been cut, repaired, and darkened by a hundred campaigns. Its iron plates bear the scars of sword, claw, and things with too many teeth. Yet the skull remains. It grins at kings, warlords, demons, and any fool unfortunate enough to stand directly before it.

Among its more renowned bearers was Fabio the Magnificent, who won it from a pit champion known as the Ash-Crowned Butcher after a duel so violent that three priests swooned and one was later found cowering in a wine barrel. Fabio wore the harness for precisely two days, ere casting it aside. He claimed the skull made him appear “needlessly pessimistic" , and that the leather chafed his famously well-moisturised skin.

So passed the Skullbound Harness once more into mortal hands, to wander the jeweled thrones of the earth and the red wastes beyond.
It is your turn now to wear it into forgotten ruins, beneath demon-haunted skies, or wherever a quiet entrance would be a tactical error.

Its maker may be forgotten. Its purpose may be disputed. But its message is plain:

Death is watching. And it has excellent taste in armour.