Ritual Daggers
While the knives for rune carving or potion preparation are not magical in the strictest sense, they are tools for magic or mysticism. There are other knives specifically for certain tasks as well. A ritual dagger however is a very different thing, it is a tool specifically designed and crafted for use in rituals.
The first and surely most fascinating thing about ritual daggers is that many of them are not daggers at all. At least not in the way a weapons master, smith or woodsman would describe a dagger. Ritual dagger seems to be a generally fixed term for a bladed tool. Many are actually just knives, some are flamberge bladed daggers or even short swords and it is known that various tribes on Telasina, Mitarin and Alver use small ritual hand-axes all the while still calling them a dagger.
Ritual daggers are quite common in various religious or magical traditions, the Athame found in many cultures, the mottled dragon's tongue used by certain mages, and the sacrificial dagger used during the Feast of knowledge. All those are prime examples of such a tool.
Most often the tool is produced from materials sacred to the owner's religion or from such that are considered divine. Many are made of Star Iron.
Another thing those tools have in common seems to be the materials selected in their making. All known examples combine three types of materials, one associated with the heavens, one with the earth and one with the seas.
Some very prominent examples can be found in the Exibition of Foreign Artwork such as the "Dark Dagger of Black" a ritual dagger with a regular knife-blade of Star Iron, for the sky, featuring the finest of marquetry, made pure gold for the earth, all over the dagger , with a handle made from a unicornwhale's horn, exquisitely carved and also with gold inlays.
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