Wands

A handheld magical implement hewn from trees at the heart of the Lombraides. Wands occupy a position of immense power (alongside closely-related staves) in the public consciousness. This gives them an important, if not ubiquitous mention in the broader material culture of Bastollo.

Wands and staves essentially serve to magnify the expression of the holder's will upon the world, whether that expression is made verbally, gesturally, or via the written word. A wand is a particularly savvy investment, being an incredibly beneficial tool that is both light and durable with proper maintenance. But a question reveals itself - does a wand serve to enhance one's natural persuasiveness and rhetoric, or is it merely a crutch propping up a weak vocabulary?

Mechanics & Inner Workings

Wands act as an streamlined channel for magic, similar to how a musical instrument can channel the magic of a bard. In both cases, the presence of a tool isn't required for the magic to take shape. In fact, such wandless magics can be practiced with relative ease in the dreaming hours by even the most novice of Omb practitioners.
However, it becomes much harder to cast in this way during the waking hours, because the dream-logic of Omb becomes much harder to justify to the world around you. Only those with incredible rhetorical and persuasive strength can weave magic during this time, and even then they must experience a significant mental strain to do so. This quality of the larger dream is what makes daytime casting with a wand or other magical implement so much easier, because the potent symbolic power associated with such an item essentially justifies how the caster's will can express itself in the waking world.
The individual piece of magic channeled by a wand at any given time is called 'spell', so named because of the word's connotation with the notions of speaking, meaning, and preaching, which is how common will is enacted upon the world.

Manufacturing process

The tools and processes used in shaping other fine wooden implements are put to work here. Rasps, chisels, sanders and polishers are used to give the stem of the product a smooth taper towards the end, while small whittling knives are taken to the filament to cut it down to size. The stem is then wrapped around the filament and affixed with other components like the cap, the virelle, and the calyx. Then, delicate carving knifes are taken to the exposed head of the filament, carving it into the shape of a carpal to bless the wand with potent symbolic magic.

History

Wands and staves play a significant part in the storied history of Bastollo, as they are tools which one can use to enhance and amplify the expression of their will through spells. Essentially, it is much easier to accomplish with wands that which might be done with rhetoric alone. 
The first such items were an exclusive commodity meant only for the hands of high-ranking priests of the Spectral Church. These ancient wands were often much more unwieldy things. They were carved into shapes that often mimicked the forms of different plants, insects, and spirits, which themselves had accrued an iconographic role that set them apart from their kin. Bees, butterflies, roses, dandelions. These were just a few such natural forms that were referenced by early wandmakers to imbue their wooden works with the potent symbolic power associated with such creatures.
As the nuances of wandmaking grew more and more intricate over the years, the symbolic language of plants - flowers in particular - ended up deciding the shape of the archetypal wand as it exists today. Various parts of the tool are derived from forms of floral anatomy. These parts are named accordingly, like how the 'stem' of a wand refers to the item's length from hilt to tip. 
As the years went on, wands also grew into a more abstracted stick-like form - one that was more streamlined, and much easier to carry. This was an important design decision, as a much larger body of the elvish citizenry would begin to wands of their own. This (comparatively) widespread access to wands and other such devices began with a sect of priests in the royal court, who provided the royal family with counsel and tutelage on spiritual matters. Other such groups of priests soon came into the employ of noble families, all of whom fell varying distances from the crown. The royal family, feeling subtle pressure from this gradual armament, soon began to outfit whole divisions of their military with priests trained in the use of wands, so that they could decisively snuff out the rebellious intentions of any potential upstart nobles. 
All this said, access to wands was still gatekept behind a baseline amount of religious study, and thus the distribution of these items was kept limited by the Spectral Church. However, this all changed with the doctrine of southern expansion preached by Father Calva, which spurred a vast swathe of elvish citizenry into the labour force of the church as missionaries and pioneers.
The royal family and the upper ranks of the church had been frequent targets of civilian ire for years. Now all of a sudden, they had been mostly spared of this ire by Calva's gospel, which had redirected the elvish popular consciousness into the lands beyond the southern border. Knowing they had to act fast if they were to bring the public over to their side, the royal family and their advisors soon drafted and implemented an official policy of expansion, which would outfit every would-be homesteader with a variety of resources, including a wand to call their own. 
Though these pioneer's wands were relatively common implements, they were put to work in the vast imperial process of expansion and colonization that was to come over the course of the following centuries. Due to their frequent use during this time, wands would often experience a curious dampening of their capabilities, but at this point, the imperial might of the Elvish Empire was at its peak, and there was no stopping them.

Significance

Due in part to their religious origins, wands hold incredible amounts of symbolic power within Bastollo. And due to the properties of the dreamscape Lomb, that symbolic power can be turned into literal magical power with frightening speed. They have a legacy steeped in such death and subjugation, and it is often difficult to remember the full extent of what can be wrought with a wand, or with any other tool, which can undermine an empire just as easily as it can establish one.
Of course, it remains the case that symbols can lose their power if shown too much, which is why most wands are only to be used when absolutely necessary. A period of extended overuse will drain the wand of all symbolic meaning, rendering it nothing more than a fancy stick. This also explains the origin of several idioms, perhaps the most infamous being 'speak soft and carry a big stick'.

Item type

Magical

Creation Date

The First Period

Rarity

The rarity of an individual wand is often determined by its purpose - after all, there's a reason why arborist and arsonist are two different words (as the saying goes).
A wand's purpose is itself determined by a variety of the wand's qualities, including its component materials, as well as it's shape. While all wand share a general rod-like construction, a significant part of their power comes from the powers of innate symbolism and shape language. So it goes that a wand carved into a certain shape will suit certain tasks better than others.
Another factor which determines a wand's ultimate rarity is its quality. However, a wand's quality is generally less influential than its purpose, since the standards of its construction are most often guaranteed to be quite high. The wandmaking industry falls into the purview of holy work, to be controlled by the Spectral Church and its subsidiary commercial organizations, which maintain a baseline quality of product that is a direct result of its religious origins.

Raw materials & Components

A single wand is made up of several different components. Though each of these may vary in the details of their form, and an individual wand may vary in the specific arrangement of these components, each part must be present for the wand to work as intended. 
The cap of the wand, as opposed to what its name may suggest, is a component affixed to the base of the wand, intended to provide the tool with balance so that it may sit comfortably in the caster's hand. It can be made of several different materials, ranging from wood to metal.
Reaching from the hilt of the wand to the very tip, the stem of the wand is hewn from one or several varieties of wandwood. This material comes directly from the eponymous Wandwoods that grow close to the heart of the Lombraides, with the species of tree conveying a variety of subtle effects and benefits to the larger wand. The wood of the stem is carved from the sapwood of the living trees, which acts as fuel for spellcasting.
The filament is a thin length of dead wood harvested directly from the heartwood at the center of a tree. Though it runs up the entire length of the overall wand, much of the filament is contained within the stem, or otherwise covered up by individual pieces such as the cap, the virelle, and the calyx.
The virelle and the calix are two tiny, yet essential components of any wand. Found just before the very tip of the wand, they serve to stabilize and insulate the part of the filament that remains uncovered by the stem before the head. The virelle is the stabilizer - a small ring, most often made from metal, that fits  over the stem and maintains its rigitidy, binding it to the filament. The calix is a small band, often made from the same material as the virelle. It protects the exposed body of the filament, and serves as an attachment point for various additional wand modifications.
The stamen is the final part of the wand where a tiny symbol (known as a carpal) is carved directly from the heartwood filament core. Found at the very tip of the wand, it is the only part of the filament that is ever exposed to the elements. The exact shape of this carving varies tremendously and imbues the overall wand with much of its power. Because it is the only part of the filament that is ever exposed, special care is taken in its maintenance and upkeep. Failures in these areas could result in a split running down the entire stem, at which point the wand is completely useless.

Tools

Drawknives are used to strip wandwoods of their outer bark. Once the sapwood has been reached at a broad enough circumference around the whole tree, workers come in with borad, flat handheld blades known as Peels, which are used to strip wandwoods of their remaining bark layer-by-layer. Eventually, the peels find the heartwood, which is stripped away until no part of the tree remains. During these final stages of the process, a single tree can be harvested for years, even decades, which is why it's imperative for wandmakers to ensure their primary wandwood maintains a healthy source ratio of sapwood to heartwood, so that no part of a single tree goes to waste.