Sylvanheart Knives

The woodsman slowly drew the drawer of the dresser open in the pale, morning light. Reaching in, his wizened hands pushed away the various garments and clothes until they settled on the top of a box made of birchwood with silver clasps. He gives a weary grunt and lifts it up, before closing the drawer. With the chest under arm he strides out of the small, lonely cabin, pausing only as he reaches the door where upon a small peg a woman's coat hangs. Shuffling the box to the grip of his other arm, he reaches out and tenderly touches the fabric, drawing it towards his bearded face as his nostrils flare and soak in the lingering scent left upon it, before releasing a heavy sigh.
The dew of the morning is still wet and glistening upon the greenery of the woodland outside his door. With the chest under his arm he grabs a small wooden stool from the porch and carries it in his other arm as he crosses the wet grass into the nearby grove of chestnuts.
Between them lies a mound of freshly dug earth topped by a wreath of flowers, and marked with a simple, large stone. The sun pours down through the break in the green canopy overhead, shining like a pool of molten sunlight upon the turned loam, and its marker. He slows his pace as he passes it, and looks down to the boquet laid upon the breast of the ground.
"I hope I have not forgotten your face already..." He murmurs aloud, before continuing on into the deeper forest. He travels for hours, following the neck of the stream that courses through these hills, traveling higher, and higher into the Cascade mountains until reaching a moss-covered bluff where a single, grand Dragon Maple overlooks a crashing waterfall below. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he sets the stool down before its trunk, lays the box in his lap, and carefully unlocks it.
Opening the lid, he unfurls the moonsilver cloth within and sets its aside carefully before withdrawing a sheathed carving knife.
The handle is a pure, white ivory. The scabbard a green, moss-like leather of living hairs. Drawing the knife from its sheath he holds it out in the air away from him, letting the light of the midday sun gleam upon its surface. Faint traces of Syvan magic flicker upon the mysterious instrument. Its blade is not metal, but rather, the wood of the first trees, petrified, and sharpened into something older, and stronger than steel.
"It's dulled..." He says after a short inspection. Taking the cloth he sets the box aside and travels down back a ways to where the water flushes in the grotto below. Crouching at the water's edge he dips the moonsilver cloth into the stream and lifts it again into the sunlight where it shines with elemental energies. Bright rays of blue, and sea-green energy emanate from the fabric. It no longer resembles silk, but rather an awakened strand of the river itself. It was once the aqueous silk of a Nereid. With care the woodsman presses the Nereid's cloth to the blade and begins to stroke from hilt to tip until the knife is wet, shining, and sharp.
He smiles and slowly returns back to the bluff where he sits upon his stool and begins to carve the visage of a loved one lost so she might live again in image... and run through these woods as wild and free as his memories of her in the summer of their lives.

Manufacturing process

Only the Elladrin of the season courts of the Feywild know the ritual, and rites necessary to awaken the primordial magic of a Sylvanheart Knife. Such tools are incredibly rare gifts bestowed only upon those who have pleased the Archfey, and only to those with the skill to make use of such an object. To receive such a knife is considered to be one of the highest honors that can be bestowed to mortals by the Fey.

History

The original Sylvanheart Knives are said to have been constructed after the first eternal cycle of the Crown of Calyx was passed to the Archfey of Greenspring. Never had the Feywild seen the terrible wrath of the winter court, and its ravenous wolf. The depair of all that life, and greenery brought to ruin prompted the creation of these mystical objects in order to sow new beings, and fill the Wilds once again with life, and energy.

Significance

Dryads in the world of Orr are not born by rite of magic, or awakened by elemental powers, but instead carved by the Fey into living trees with the use of these objects. The blades of the Sylvanheart Knives carry in them the sap of the first trees, whose roots and trunks were soaked in the energies of the weave of magic when it was at its very zenith of power. These trees have long since turned to stone, but the potential that dwells within them is the power of the ages, and even after eons has barely diluted from its primordial beginnings.
These knives have the power to awaken dryads from living wood, who take on the visage of the image carved into their trunks and who bare the resemblence of the tree they were carved of. These elemental beings are natural protectors of the wild who care for the beasts of the wilderness, and tend to the nurture of the nearby lands from which their tree was carved.

Item type

Magical

Rarity

Few objects in the world hold as much possibility as these knives. Those rare few mortals who receive them as gifts pass them down to their children as irreplaceable heirlooms, and it is said that if a mortal does part with such a beloved gift for something as crude as coin, or if the knives are stolen from them the Fey will seek their vengeance on the trespasser. That does not mean, however, that such knives have not been lost, or missplaced over the millenia. To return a lost knife to the Elladrin of the Feywild is a perilous task, but those who have managed the feat have been rewarded beyond their wildest dreams.

Raw materials & Components

A Sylvanheart Knife is made from the petrified wood of the first trees of the world. They are bound with the ivory, and antler of the first beasts that walked the earth. They can only be sharpened with the aid of a Nereid's cloth wet in a natural stream.