A runic branding iron

Searing Touch

Tags: magical

Found in the workshop of some Forge Lord, still held in a vice-clamp. The head is a runic shape, 6 by 6 inches, with smaller runes etched into its surface. Or at least, most of its surface. A few inches are blank, the work clearly unfinished.

To unlock it and claim its power as your own, you must:

• decipher the meaning of the runes, and identify the missing ones;
• finish the etchings, risking an error that will make the next step fail;
• heat the iron red-hot and let yourself be branded (lose 3d6 HP), the runes fading from the iron and searing themselves upon your soul;
• allow the wound to heal and scar, without the aid of any magic.

Searing Touch

When you call up the fire from your soul and pour it into your hands, roll.

• On a success with a 6, your hands blaze like white-hot iron — first pick 1.
• On a success with no six, your hands blaze like white-hot iron — first pick 2.
  • It takes minutes of intense focus
  • It burns your life force; lose 2d4 HP
  • The pain is terrible; mark a debility
• On a bust, whatever else the GM says, you cannot do this again until you Convalesce.

While your hands are ablaze, your touch deals 1d10 damage (hand, messy, dangerous, 1 piercing), sets fire to wood, boils water, heats metal. Your hands are unharmed by the heat, but your gear and the rest of your body has no such protection. Be careful.

Your hands blaze as long as you maintain your focus, up to a minute or maybe two.