Stock Stories

'Stock stories' are a form of oral history facilitated through complex carvings inlaid into the stock, grip, or other components of a firearm. Long after the metallic components of a weapon have rusted away or been salvaged for other purposes, the stock stories of legendary gunslingers of bygone eras still adorn display cases in museums or racks on the walls of family homes, providing a much-needed connection to an exalted past in an increasingly complicated world.

History

Associated more with the steamtech era that spelled the end of the Age of Exploration, stock stories are less commonly composed in the modern world except in the most isolated parts of it or among itinerant peoples like the Leather Jacket Nomads. One unfortunate reason for the practice's decline is that, with the introduction of powerful dieseltech armored vehicles and fully-automatic crew-served weapon, the lifespan of a lone rifleman who would otherwise compose a stock story of great reknown grows shorter by the year. As the War of Reunification drags on, grease guns and other low-budget weapons are increasingly pumped out of factories with all stamped metal furniture to save precious resources, further hampering the ability to create durable stock stories.
While it might be assumed that the advent of film, radio, and other mass media would further hasten the demise of stock stories, popular depictions of historical men of action making their way in the steamtech age with signature longarms at their side has actually renewed interest in the practice among certain audiences, especially in Petalcap Vale and the Free Faces League.

Execution

Stock stories are inscribed into the soft parts of a weapon in minute detail, combining pictorial, symbolic, and chronological elements to reflect events and contexts in which the weapon has found itself by dint of the wielder's deeds. These carvings are most often worked on during moments of calm shortly after the events in question take place, as this is when the events will be most fresh in the artist's mind; before the invention of photography or radio communications, stock stories, sketches, and journals were important means of conveying the realities of conflict to people who never experienced them firsthand. Embellishments (see Components and Tools) might be added to the stock to indicate, for example, where or when a stock story was carved beyond what could be fit on the limited space of a rifle stock.

Components and tools

Traditionally, stock stories only require three elements: a sharp knife, a wooden rifle stock or set of pistol scales, and a set of experiences worth preserving for posterity. Occasionally, pigments and other adornments might be added to the stock to set context for particularly important events within the stock story. For example, many Rostran examples of stock stories are accompanied with small strips of sacred Eudoxium or fragments of oar-markers dedicated to fallen brothers in arms, each tied with cord to the strap lug near the butt of the weapon of which the stock is a part.

Observance

Stock stories are surprisingly ubiquitous among cultures contemporary with the Age of Exploration and, as visual - rather than textual - records of events, tend to hold onto their meanings well even across cultural contexts. In the present day, nomadic groups (i.e. the Leather Jacket Nomads), those with no land- or state-based identity (i.e. Freelanders), and especially groups for whom storytelling is a defining practice (i.e. the Burning Hearts Social Club) have members who seek to preserve the otherwise declining practice of carving stock stories as a way of preserving their groups' history. Stock stories are definitionally executed as part of weaponry directly involved in the events and historical contexts being depicted and, as such, they are most often inscribed by soldiers, lawbringers, explorers, and hunters.