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Claws 319 of the Zephyr Slipstream

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by

Dale
in
  • Lore: Forged along the sheer, wind-scoured ridges of the Whispering Escarpment, these aerodynamic talons were engineered by avian beastfolk gliders and high-altitude couriers of Saṃsāra. Rather than encumbering the natural sweep of the hand with heavy metal plates, these claw sheaths are cast from hollowed, wind-tempered sky-bronze and shaped with teardrop foils. When an avatar moves their hands through the air, the sheaths split the air current cleanly, shedding drag and transforming awkward, wide-angled swings into frictionless, whistling arcs. Initiates wear them to master the interplay between sudden acceleration and boundary-layer flight.
  • Description: A set of four curved, featherweight digit sheaths fitted over the user’s natural claws, anchored securely with sky-blue woven silk lacing across the back of the hand. Each casing is cast from polished sky-bronze, etched with micro-venturi flutes along the dorsal curve and hollowed on the underside to reduce mass. When swung, the claws emit a high-pitched, hollow whistle as air is compressed and smoothly routed across the polished leading edges.
  • Detailed Tier 1 Stats:
    • Item Tier: Tier 1
    • Item Rarity: Common
    • Item Level: Level 1
    • Designated Slot: Claws / Hands
    • Item Hit Points: 14 plus wearer’s maximum health points
    • Armor Check (AC): +1 (Deflection against incoming light projectile and slashing attacks)
    • Resilience: 9
    • Weight: 0.8 pounds
    • Suggested Valuation: 9 silver coins (accepted across standard World Bank trading posts)
    • Attunement: Requires simple attunement (seated meditation facing into high winds for one hour while balancing a feather across the talon points)
  • Skills Gained When Openly Worn:
    • Aerial Agility / Acrobatics: +1 bonus to physical maneuver rolls involving balancing on thin ledges, leaping across open drops, or navigating turbulent wind shear.
    • Rapid Unarmed Striking: +1 to attack speed or initiative during the opening round of close-quarters brawling due to zero aerodynamic drag.
  • Passive Magic:
    • Laminar Shearing: Air resistance around the wearer’s hands and forearms is reduced to absolute zero. Natural claw strikes ignore the standard penalties imposed by strong gale winds, turbulent storm currents, and underwater drag, moving with unimpeded velocity.
    • Slipstream Stabilizer: When the wearer falls or glides from an elevated ledge, extending the hands outward forms an aerodynamic boundary layer that stabilizes their descent, granting an extra 10 feet of horizontal gliding distance for every 10 feet fallen.
    • Draft Shield: Incoming light, non-magical missile attacks (such as blowdarts, light crossbow bolts, and loose thrown gravel) aimed at the avatar’s upper body suffer a minor aerodynamic deflection, giving attackers a -1 penalty to hit.
  • Activable Magic:
    • Vortex Swell:
      • Action Cost: 1 Action
      • Effect: The avatar sweeps both arms forward in a cross-slash motion, projecting a concentrated crescent of high-pressure air in a 15-foot line. The gust snuff out small open flames, disperses lingering vapors or mists, and forces light creatures or loose objects to make a physical resistance check or be knocked prone. Usable twice per day, recharging after a long rest.
    • Whistling Airbrake:
      • Action Cost: 1 Reaction / Interrupt
      • Effect: When falling, being violently knocked back, or sliding across slick surfaces, the avatar flares the venturi flutes on the claws outward against the air current. The sudden acoustic drag acts as an airbrake, safely arresting up to 20 feet of falling velocity or halving forced-movement distances. Usable once per short rest.
    • Wing-Tip Rip:
      • Action Cost: 1 Bonus Action / Minor Action
      • Effect: The avatar channels kinetic momentum through the curved teardrop edges, causing the talons to hum with localized low pressure for 1 minute. The wearer’s next successful unarmed claw strike deals an extra 1d4 wind/slashing damage and pulls the target 5 feet off-balance. Usable twice per day.
  • Tags: Claws Slot, Hands Slot, Tier 1, Common, Aerodynamics, Air, Wind, Slashing, Gliding, Velocity, Sky-Bronze, Deflection, Slipstream, Acrobatics, Venturi, Airbrake, Gust, Boundary-Layer, Gale, Featherweight, Airfoil, Swiftness, Turbulence, Downdraft, Zephyr
  • Additional Information:
    • The sheaths require periodic cleaning with dry chalk powder to prevent road grit from clogging the dorsal venturi flutes, which can slightly dull the whistling acoustic focus if neglected.
    • Beastfolk, birdfolk, and reptilian avatars with prominent natural claws gain the most ergonomic benefit, though humanoid avatars can mount them onto reinforced leather glove fingers with minor strap adjustments.

Acquisition, Trade Networks, and Commercial Valuation of the Slipstream Claws

  • Direct Methods of Acquisition:
    • Escarpment Nesting Caches: Avatars scaling the updraft chimneys of the Whispering Escarpment often find these talons tucked into cliffside messenger roosts, abandoned glider perches, or the aero-shrines of mountain beastfolk hermits.
    • Aeronaut Courier Contracts: Completing delivery runs across turbulent canyon gaps for the Sky-Pike Messenger League frequently yields a set of surplus bronze digit sheaths as a standard completion reward or sign-on bonus for Tier 1 pathfinders.
    • Downed Skyship Wreckage: Wreckage from high-altitude glider barges occasionally deposits intact pairs inside wind-scoured ravines, where the sky-bronze remains uncorroded under the buffeting mountain squalls.
  • High-Altitude Courier Waystations and Aviary Outposts:
    • Setting: Perched on narrow stone ledges or suspended suspension bridges across alpine chasms, these open-air gazebos smell of ozone, dry mountain feathers, pine resin, and cold gale winds. Shelves of oiled silk gliders, signal chimes, and hollow sky-bronze fittings line the timber walls.
    • Buying: Passing couriers and mountain scouts can purchase the sheaths directly from waystation quartermasters for the standard Tier 1 baseline price of 9 silver coins. Characters carrying verified tokens from an affiliated Aviar Caravan or Courier League receive the standard 10% guild discount, paying 8 silver coins and 1 nickel.
    • Selling: Station factors test the venturi flutes by blowing through them to hear the pitch of the whistle. An avatar selling an intact pair receives the legal Tier 1 salvage rate of 9 copper coins (rising to 1 silver coin if seasonal updraft storms have depleted local stock), with payment credited to the seller’s World Bank ledger account.
  • Municipal Aerodrome Riggers and Sailmakers’ Lofts:
    • Setting: Located beneath the mooring towers of city skydocks, these sprawling workshops smell of pitch, boiled oil, canvas sizing, and hot soldering irons. Racks of rigging pulleys, wind vanes, and pneumatic tools share floor space with heavy cutting benches.
    • Buying: Rigging merchants sell these sheaths to aerial dockhands, rig-runners, and adventuring avatars for the standard 9 silver coins. If unseasonal squalls or high-wind advisories threaten grounded airships, the high demand for boundary-layer stability tools can push the spot price up to 10 or 11 silver coins.
    • Selling: Aerodrome brokers inspect the teardrop bronze blanks for structural hairline fractures using sound resonance. Avatars offloading a pair receive the standard baseline of 9 copper coins in direct coin or an equivalent credit toward airship passage and rigging cordage.
  • Cliffside Smuggler Perches and Outlaw Glider Dens:
    • Setting: Concealed in natural sea caves or hollowed canyon chimneys accessible only by gliding or climbing ropes, these makeshift hideouts smell of salt brine, damp hemp, and cheap grain spirits. Goods are displayed across rough crates salvaged from sky-raids.
    • Buying: Rogue avatars, runaway messengers, and sky-corsairs can purchase the sheaths without logging their identity with the World Bank or municipal guilds. Because trade here operates off the books, fences demand physical cash, charging an unrecorded markup of 12 to 14 silver coins.
    • Selling: Smuggler fences pay out immediate physical coin without requiring bureaucratic paperwork or proof of salvage rights. An avatar offloading the item receives 9 coppers, though if local patrol skiffs have tightened port blockades and silent gliding tools are scarce, a persuasive seller can negotiate an immediate payout of 1 to 2 silver coins.

Tactical Roleplay and Environmental Applications of the Slipstream Claws

  • Windswept Mountain Ridges and Chasm Bridges:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Balanced precariously along a frost-slicked suspension bridge over a mile-deep gorge, the avatar does not wobble under howling crosswinds. Holding their hands low and angling the teardrop bronze foils into the prevailing gale, the avatar allows laminar shearing to bleed off turbulent gusts that would throw others over the edge. When an aggressive mountain raptor dives to knock the avatar from the cables, the avatar snaps their hands wide, engaging the whistling airbrake to absorb the kinetic shockwave, plant their boots firmly on the timber planks, and hold their ground.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Advancing across a narrow knife-edge ridge toward mountain brigands holding a defensive barricade, the avatar sweeps both arms forward in a fluid scissor motion. The resulting vortex swell unleashes a crescent of compressed mountain air that smashes into the front rank, scattering their shields and sending two guards skidding backward into the scree. Closing the gap instantaneously without air resistance slowing their swings, the avatar activates wing-tip rip, cutting across the remaining bandit’s guard with a whistling vacuum slash that pulls the fighter off-balance toward the drop.
  • High-Altitude Skyship Decks and Rigging Spars:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Clinging to a high yardarm during a turbulent storm crossing, the avatar uses the slipstream stabilizer to navigate pitch-black squalls. When sky-corsairs launch a volley of light hand-crossbow bolts and barbed darts from an approaching boarding skiff, the passive draft shield takes effect; the micro-venturi flutes redirect the slipstream around the avatar’s upper body, harmlessly curving the lightweight missiles away from the avatar’s vital core to splinter into the rigging ropes.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Leaping from the upper spar onto the enemy deck thirty feet below, the avatar flares the venturi flutes on the talons mid-drop to deploy the whistling airbrake, cleanly killing their vertical momentum and landing with a featherlight crouch. Before the deckhands can bring boarding pikes to bear, the avatar springs forward, driving the sky-bronze talons through an enemy’s leather vestments. The zero-drag edge glides effortlessly past the armor’s seams, while the low-pressure vortex generated by the strike yanks the defender off their footing and directly into the ship’s churning paddle-wheels.
  • Confined Subterranean Tunnels and Mining Chutes:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Fleeing subterranean burrowers through a narrow, sloping ore chute, the avatar loses their footing on loose gravel. Rather than tumbling uncontrollably into the pit below, the avatar drags the claws along the stone flume while angling the back of the hands outward; the aerodynamic braking force creates immediate acoustic backpressure against the tight tunnel walls, slowing their slide to a controllable halt. When a burrowing insect lunges with snapping mandibles, the bronze casing acts as an armored guard, deflecting the chitinous pinchers without catching on rough stone walls.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Trapped in a dead-end corridor filled with choking furnace soot or toxic damp-gas, the avatar turns toward the pursuers and delivers a sweeping double-handed vortex swell. The concentrated line of compressed air flushes the soot and stagnant gas forward like a pneumatic ram, blowing the suffocating cloud directly into the eyes and throats of the oncoming subterranean guards. As the blinded enemies choke and stumble in the dust, the avatar slips through the breach, striking with high-velocity claw arcs before the dust settles.
  • Crowded Urban Plazas and Rooftop Mazes:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Fleeing municipal bounty hunters across the sloping ceramic-tiled roofs of the merchant quarter, the avatar takes a desperate leap across an impossibly wide alleyway. By extending their arms forward to engage the slipstream stabilizer, an aerodynamic boundary layer forms along their forearms, extending their horizontal glide just far enough to grasp the opposite eaves cleanly. When an archer on the roofline loose a blowgun dart, the micro-venturi flutes deflect the light projectile mid-flight, letting it clatter harmlessly off the tiles.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Trapped in an enclosed cobblestone courtyard with city watchmen barring the arched exits, the avatar pivots on the balls of their feet and unleashes a localized burst of wind. Sweeping the claws through the air, the avatar directs a vortex swell across the plaza, overturning market awnings, extinguishing torches, and sweeping loose cobblestones into the guards’ shins. As the formation breaks in confusion, the avatar uses the frictionless speed of the sky-bronze sheaths to deliver three blinding, whistling slashes in rapid succession, disarming the lead officer’s spear before leaping over the barricade.
  • Submerged Riverways and Flooded Caverns:
    • Defensive Roleplay: Caught in a torrential river spate or flooded drainage vault, living avatars are usually battered by raging hydraulic undertows. The slipstream claws, however, treat dense fluid dynamics with the same boundary-layer efficiency as high-altitude air. Extending the bronze sheaths allows the avatar to carve through roaring torrents without their arms being twisted or pulled by the current, letting them maintain their course toward an air pocket while avoiding jagged riverbed boulders.
    • Offensive Roleplay: Fighting waterlogged lurkers beneath the surface of a flooded cistern where standard weapons suffer massive hydraulic drag, the avatar’s claws encounter no water resistance due to laminar shearing. The avatar executes underwater claw strikes at full terrestrial velocity, cutting through thick silt and murky depths with razor-sharp ease. Activating wing-tip rip beneath the surface produces an underwater cavitation wake that tears into the predator’s scales and pulls the thrashing beast directly into the avatar’s lethal finishing arc.

Perception of Activation:

  • Sight:
    • What’s Perceived: A luminous, curling wake of pale-cyan vapor and shimmering thermal distortion trailing the talons.
    • Description: As the claws accelerate, the micro-venturi flutes vent razor-thin ribbons of spiraling turquoise condensation. The air directly ahead of each bronze foil ripples with refraction lines—resembling heat shimmers on summer stone—as atmospheric pressure bends light around the leading edges.
    • Positives: Provides immediate visual feedback on the exact trajectory of every swing, making it effortless to track strike paths and detect gaps in enemy guards through the spiraling ribbons of vapor.
    • Negatives: The brilliant cyan trails and refractive distortion make subtle hand movements impossible to hide, instantly ruining visual stealth in shadows or dim light.
  • Hearing:
    • What’s Perceived: A multi-layered, rising tonal whistle paired with a crisp, vacuum crack.
    • Description: Sweeping the hands through the air draws an ascending, flute-like whistle that starts as a dry reed purr and sharpens into a piercing, metallic shriek. When the swing terminates, an abrupt snap—like the whip-crack of breaking silk—rings out as the cleaved air collapses back into the vacuum wake.
    • Positives: The disorienting, high-frequency whistle easily startles untrained beasts, masks the softer rustle of footwork, and signals the release of kinetic power to coordinated allies.
    • Negatives: The shrill acoustic profile carries over long distances across valleys and echoing stone halls, immediately alerting sentries and predators to the user’s presence.
  • Touch:
    • What’s Perceived: Weightlessness along the fingers followed by a cold, pressurized cushion against the palms.
    • Description: The moment the item activates, all tactile drag against the hands drops away entirely, making the arms feel hollow and unnervingly light. At the peak of an arc or when engaging the airbrake, the air hardens against the underside of the bronze plates into a firm, icy resistance resembling dense silk batting.
    • Positives: Completely eliminates muscle fatigue caused by atmospheric drag, wind shear, or dense water resistance, allowing rapid, repeated swings without straining wrist tendons.
    • Negatives: The total loss of natural air resistance makes delicate handling difficult; the sudden drop in tactile feedback can cause an unpracticed user to overextend strikes or fumble brittle objects.
  • Smell:
    • What’s Perceived: The sharp, cold scent of high-altitude ozone and sun-baked copper.
    • Description: The sudden compression and shearing of air across the sky-bronze foils ionizes surrounding gas molecules, filling the user’s immediate space with the pungent, clean smell of a sudden lightning strike mingled with the dry, metallic tang of warm bronze.
    • Positives: Clears the immediate breathing space of stale dust, marsh miasmas, and heavy particulate smoke by washing it with clean, freshly ionized air currents.
    • Negatives: The sharp chemical odor of ozone clings to the hands and clothing, making the user easy to track by scent-hunting beasts long after the wind dies down.
  • Taste:
    • What’s Perceived: A brisk, copper-tang chill on the back of the tongue.
    • Description: Drawing breath while swinging the talons pulls in the ionized draft produced by the boundary-layer wake. The palate experiences an effervescent, slightly sour metallic prickle, much like touching a weak galvanizing battery to the tongue on a freezing winter morning.
    • Positives: Staves off dry-mouth and mental sluggishness in arid or high-altitude environments by stimulating saliva production and keeping the senses alert.
    • Negatives: Leaves a persistent, bitter metallic aftertaste that numbs subtle taste perception and makes water taste brackish for several minutes after combat.
  • Extra-Sensory Perceptions:
    • Barometric Slipstream Mapping:
      • What’s Perceived: A tactile mental impression of surrounding air pressure, drafts, and invisible thermal columns.
      • Description: The avatar’s spatial awareness expands into an intuitive three-dimensional map of regional fluid dynamics. Downdrafts feel like cold weight hanging overhead, unseen ventilation shafts pulse like gentle heartbeats, and the wake of an invisible approaching projectile manifests as a distinct pressure wake before it arrives.
      • Positives: Grants early awareness of incoming lightweight missiles, detects invisible or cloaked foes through their atmospheric displacement, and reveals hidden draft doors or ventilation shafts in dungeons.
      • Negatives: In chaotic environments like raging forest fires, explosive artillery barrages, or hurricane downdrafts, the sensory flood of colliding pressure waves can cause sudden migraine-like sensory overload.
    • Kinetic Vacuum Echo:
      • What’s Perceived: An instinctual pull along the fingertips toward open air and high-velocity vectors.
      • Description: The attunement link imparts a constant, phantom tugging sensation through the hand bones, urging the limbs forward into empty space. The user feels an unnatural harmony with falling, sensing the horizon not as a boundary, but as an open plane inviting perpetual forward momentum.
      • Positives: Suppresses instinctive vertigo and fear of heights, instilling total physical confidence when jumping across terrifying alpine chasms or dropping from high rigging spars.
      • Negatives: Encourages reckless spatial overconfidence, subtly eroding the instinctive self-preservation impulse when standing on the precipice of lethal falls.

Recipe: Claws of the Zephyr Slipstream

  • Materials Needed:
    • One Tier 1 Magic Crystal (coin-sized and coin-weighted, harvested to serve as the atmospheric kinetic battery and aeromantic catalyst).
    • Eight ounces of sky-bronze ingot (a lightweight, wind-tempered alloy of copper, tin, and meteoric zinc).
    • Two yards of sky-blue woven silk lacing (tightly twisted, wax-impregnated cordage harvested from mountain silkworms).
    • Four ounces of oil-tanned calfskin or soft kidskin leather (for internal digit sleeves and knuckle cuffs).
    • One dram of dry chalk powder (for scouring and polishing internal venturi channels).
    • One sacrificial common glider rib-strut or avian courier dispatch-tube (consumed entirely during the process to transfer authentic flight-aerodynamic properties).
  • Tools Required:
    • One jewel-maker’s chasing hammer and miniature steel claw mandrel.
    • One curved jeweler’s saw and assorted needle-point riffler files.
    • One hand-cranked jewelers’ rotary drill with micro-burrs (for carving venturi flutes).
    • One bench crucible and charcoal hearth with foot-bellows.
    • One fluid collector fitted with a vacuum siphon nozzle.
    • One fine-gauge leather punch and bone lacing bodkin.
  • Skill Requirements:
    • Metalsmithing / Jewelry Crafting: Skill Level 2 (for precision hollow-core casting, thin-gauge sheet chasing, and mandrel forming).
    • Aeromancy / Kinetic Arcana Manipulation: Basic familiarity with channeling laminar air currents and zero-drag boundary layers.
    • Leatherworking: Skill Level 1 (for skiving anti-abrasive inner digit linings and tension-lacing hand harnesses).
  • Crafting Steps:
    • Melt and Sacrificial Imprinting: Place the eight ounces of sky-bronze ingot inside the bench crucible over the charcoal hearth. Suspend the coin-sized Tier 1 magic crystal directly above the melt using fine wire. Introduce the sacrificial wooden glider rib-strut or courier dispatch-tube directly into the flame beneath the crucible. As the wood chars into white ash, direct a continuous spiral of kinetic air currents through the rising smoke, drawing the released aerodynamic resonance into the magic crystal until it hums with a faint cyan glow and the sacrificial tool is fully consumed.
    • Hollow Blank Casting: Pour the molten sky-bronze into a two-part clay investment mold prepared in the shapes of four tapered, hollow teardrop digit caps and a smaller thumb plate. Allow the castings to cool gradually in open air rather than water-quenching, preserving the natural ductility and spring temper of the alloy.
    • Mandrel Forming and Venturi Milling: Mount each rough bronze casting over the miniature steel claw mandrel. Using the chasing hammer and fine needle riffler files, draw down the leading edge into a razor-thin, curved teardrop profile while leaving the underside hollowed to reduce overall weight. Using the hand-cranked drill with micro-burrs, cut four parallel micro-venturi flutes along the dorsal spine of each sheath, angling the intake ports outward so oncoming air compresses smoothly along the claw’s curve.
    • Lining and Knuckle Mounts: Cut the soft kidskin leather into contoured strips matching the inner concave belly of each bronze cap. Skive the edges to feather-thinness and cement them inside the bronze casings using a light film of resin to protect the wearer’s natural claw keratin from metal friction. Punch twin lacing eyelets through the reinforced base collar of each digit cap.
    • Cleaving and Seating the Catalyst Shards: Using the jeweler’s saw, carefully cleave the attuned Tier 1 magic crystal into four matched teardrop shards. Fit each shard into an open aerodynamic chamber situated directly behind the dorsal venturi intake flutes on each claw cap. Using the fluid collector, draw fine ribbons of molten sky-bronze across the shard edges to seat them flush within the metal frame, ensuring no raised seams disrupt the exterior laminar airflow.
    • Silk Lacing and Boundary Attunement: Thread the sky-blue woven silk cord through the base eyelets of the four digit sheaths using the bone bodkin, braiding the lacing into a figure-eight harness that crosses over the back of the hand and ties securely around the wrist. Scour the internal venturi flutes with dry chalk powder to remove metal burrs. Complete the assembly by holding the finished talons facing into a steady wind current while whistling an ascending tone, locking the aeromantic boundary layer until a high-pitched, hollow ring emanates from the flutes.

Bird-Footed Courier Who Cut Great Cloud into Five Ribbons

In the epoch when the wandering planetary sphere VaporSphere did hang upon the horizon like a basin of copper grease, and the mother-goddess Gaialilith had not yet counted the bones of the hill-dwellers, there existed a deep cleft in the high plateau which the carver of the horn-cylinder names the Chasm of the Howling Teeth. Across this chasm there blew a wind that did not cease by day or by night; it was a wind of cold knives that came from the northern ice-shelf, carrying with it neither rain nor sweet smell, but only the anger of the sky-demons. No wagon could cross that gorge, nor could the horned beasts of burden set their hooves upon the rope-walks, for the gale was so fierce that it tore the pack-baskets from their flanks and dashed their carcasses upon the black boulders two leagues below.

Now upon the near rim of that chasm dwelt an avatar of Tier One whose name in the bird-foot syllable-marks is spoken as Kestrel-Ke. Kestrel-Ke was of the winged-folk lineage, yet he possessed not the great feathered pinions of the cloud-emperors who ride the lightning vessels, having only small, tattered wings upon his elbows that could carry him no farther than a sheep might hop from a ditch. Nevertheless, his toes and fingers were tipped with heavy, yellow claws of hard horn, such as his grandfathers had used to cling to the wet limestone when the winter storms battered their nests.

It was the office of Kestrel-Ke to carry the small leather cylinders containing the price of dried mutton and the royal birth-notices across the chasm to the city of the high priests. He had only a simple glider of split willow-withes and greasy fish-skins, and whenever he leaped from the rock to catch the cold gale, the heavy air did fight against his arms like water rushing against an iron grate. His natural claws, being blunt and wide to grasp the crags, caught the rushing wind like oars; they dragged his limbs backward, causing his glider to tremble and pitch into the abyss, so that his heart was dried up with the terror of falling, and three times in one season he dropped the King’s silver cylinders into the hungry scree.

The Master of the Courier Post was a person of thick neck whose coat was lined with the fur of white foxes. He smote Kestrel-Ke upon the beak with a measuring-rod of boxwood and shouted: “You low hop-toad of the cliffs, your wings are like cabbage leaves and your heavy paws hold the wind like two barn doors! If you let fall another parchment into the teeth of the canyon, I will cast you down into the salt mines where the sun Helios is never seen, and your food shall be only the tails of water-rats!”

Kestrel-Ke went out upon the wind-shelf with his chin against his feathers. In that place sat an old worker of copper who had come from the sunken islands of the South Sea, where men did once forge needles that could sew the sea-foam. The copper-worker had no hair upon his brow, and his ears were filled with red wax because the howling of the gorge had deafened him seventy years before. He sat over a small hearth of sheep-dung coals, turning a rod of greenish bronze with an iron tongs.

Kestrel-Ke laid his claws upon the stone slab and spoke into the ear-horn of the worker: “Old father of the slag, my natural talons are stout to grasp the cliff when I sleep, but when I leap into the sky, the wind catches them like sheepskins. My forelimbs are dragged back by the invisible mud of the air, and my glider falls like an ox. Cast for me casings that will not fight the blast, but will teach the wind to run like water around my fingers.”

The metal-worker spat into the coals. He took eight ounces of sky-bronze which had fallen from a burning air-ship in the days of the iron war—a metal that was lighter than copper and as springy as the horn of an ibex. He took also the center rib of an old ash-wood glider that had carried forty couriers through the thunderclouds, and laid the rib upon the coals. As the wood turned into white smoke that smelled of boiled resin, he suspended a small bead of magic stone above the fire and blew upon it with a skin-pipe until the stone drank the lightness of the wood and became like a frozen droplet of summer sky.

Then the old man pounded the bronze upon a pointed iron stake, hollowing the inner belly so that it had no more thickness than the shell of a raven’s egg. He filed the outer spine into the shape of a drop of morning dew, carving four narrow furrows along the metal so that when the breath blew over it, it gave forth a keen, whistling shriek like an arrow shot through reeds. He laced these four hollow sheaths over the claws of Kestrel-Ke with ribbons of blue mountain silk that had been dipped in bee-gum.

When Kestrel-Ke tied the sky-bronze to his hands, a strange coldness ran through his marrow, like the pouring of melted snow into an earthen jug. He moved his fingers to and fro, and behold, the air did not resist his skin; his hand passed through the storm-blast as an oiled needle passes through soft fat, making neither rustle nor draft, but only a clear, ringing note like the strike of a bronze bell.

At that hour there came down to the chasm a high ambassador from the Emperor of the Sunken Plains, bearing a seal of carved lapis lazuli that must be delivered to the temple before the shadow of the needle touched the midday stone, else seven thousand spearmen would march across the border to burn the barley barns. But the storm in the canyon had grown monstrous; a great black cloud had seated itself inside the chasm like a fat spider, vomiting forth hail and whirlwind, and all the sixty couriers of the post lay upon their faces behind the stone parapet, weeping and refusing to spread their wings.

The Master of the Post tore his white fox collar in despair: “The barley will be burned and our children shall be slaves, for no creature that has blood can ride this devil-wind without having his ribs shattered against the rocks!”

Kestrel-Ke took the lapis seal and tied it into the feathers of his throat. He took no heavy willow glider. He walked to the edge of the stone shelf, where the air blew so hard that stones the size of walnuts were lifted from the ground and cast into the sky. He did not crouch; he stretched his forelimbs wide before him, with the four sky-bronze talons pointed directly into the mouth of the black cloud.

The tablet of the horn-cylinder records: “The gale did strike his breast, but it could find no handle upon his arms. The bronze claws cut the wind into five thin ribbons that slipped past his shoulders like the skin of an eel.”

Kestrel-Ke leaped into the empty air.

The watchers upon the parapet gave a great cry, expecting to see him dashed against the bottom of the black abyss. But Kestrel-Ke did not fall. Because the bronze casings allowed no drag to catch his hands, he moved forward with the speed of an iron bolt. When a violent cross-gust rushed out of a side-fissure to dash him against the wall of basalt, he did not fight it with his muscle; he turned the back of his hands into the blast and flared the four whistling flutes outward. A piercing shriek went up from the bronze, and the air behind his knuckles hardened into a solid cushion of wind that arrested his fall and bore him upward, higher than the nests of the mountain eagles.

Inside the belly of the cloud there was a great beast of the mist, such as dwells in high places—a serpent with four wings of grey vapor and a mouth that swallowed the light of the sun. The serpent rose from the dark to snap the courier in two, but Kestrel-Ke did not turn away. He drew his hands backward and channeled the momentum of his descent into the teardrop blades. He struck the mist-serpent across the snout with a double cross-stroke of his bronze talons.

The ancient script records: “A great vacuum crack went through the cloud, like the tearing of forty yards of temple linen.” The low-pressure wake of the talons pulled the mist into a spinning whorl that tore the serpent’s eyes, and the air split with such sudden violence that the beast was cast down into the depths of the gorge, wailing like a broken horn. The great black cloud itself was cleaved through the center, leaving a clear road of blue air from rim to rim.

Kestrel-Ke dropped upon the far terrace before the temple just as the needle of the sun touched the middle mark of the stone. He untied the lapis seal and laid it upon the altar, and the high priests blew their trumpets, declaring that the peace of the seven thousand spears was preserved. The high ambassador fell upon his knees and gave Kestrel-Ke three hundred gold coins and an armlet of green jade, but Kestrel-Ke looked only upon the bronze pipes upon his talons, which were humming in the quiet breeze like bees within a hollow log.

When the Master of the Post crossed the chasm on the next morning by the rope-carriage, he sought to take the bronze claws from Kestrel-Ke, claiming that all implements of flight belonged to the account-ledger of the King. But when the Master reached forth his fat hands to unlace the blue silk, Kestrel-Ke merely made a swift, sweeping motion with his fingers through the air; the whistling slipstream tore the fox-fur coat from the Master’s back and cast it spinning over the precipice into the abyss. The Master fled into the baggage-shed, and no official ever dared again to lay a finger upon the runner’s hands.

For forty years Kestrel-Ke carried the dispatches through the howling chasm, never blunting a talon against the stone, and never losing a parchment to the wind. When his feathers grew white and his sight was dimmed by the high sun, he gave the bronze casings to his nephew upon the wind-shelf, instructing him in the five angles of the teardrop foil and the rhythm of the whistling brake. And the ancient chronicler has written that so long as the courier cuts the air rather than wrestling with its fury, the chasm remains only a step between two gardens.

Moral of the story: He who meets the violent gale with a stiff arm and an open palm is dashed against the rocks, but he who shapes himself to slip cleanly through the tempest finds that the wind itself carries him to his destination.

Suggested conversions to other systems:

Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)

Talons of the Zephyr Slipstream

  • Description & Lore: Forged from an ultra-light, wind-tempered bronze alloy and fitted over the fingers with silk cords, these aerodynamic digit sheaths channel an uncanny, zero-drag boundary layer. Originally crafted by high-altitude escorts and reclusive mountain cliff-dwellers, they whistle piercingly as they cut the air, allowing an investigator to deflect incoming lightweight projectiles, arrest lethal falls, and lash out with razor-sharp compressed-air strikes.
  • Item Type: Enchanted Melee Weapon / Aerodynamic Relic
  • Sanity Cost: None to wear; 1 Sanity point upon using the Vortex Swell or Wing-Tip Rip to manipulate physics and tear open vacuum wounds.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Laminar Shearing (Passive): The investigator suffers no physical penalties or combat maluses to attack rolls or manual dexterity tests when fighting in gale-force winds, hurricane squalls, or submerged in deep water.
    • Draft Shield (Passive): Incoming non-magical light missile attacks (such as blowdarts, thrown knives, or sling stones) aimed at the investigator suffer a penalty die due to the localized deflection slipstream around the torso.
    • Whistling Airbrake (Active): When falling, the investigator may snap their hands outward to brake against the air column. By spending 1 Magic Point, the investigator reduces falling damage by up to 20 feet of distance (subtracting 2D6 falling damage).
    • Slipstream Talon Strike (Melee Attack):
      • Skill: Fighting (Brawl)
      • Damage: 1D4 + Damage Bonus (Impaling)
      • Special: On an Extreme Success, the vacuum edge inflicts Wing-Tip Rip, tearing flesh for an additional +1D4 damage and knocking the target off-balance.
    • Vortex Swell (Active): Costs 3 Magic Points. The investigator sweeps both arms forward in a cross-slash, expelling a line of compressed air (15 feet long, 5 feet wide). Living targets in the path must succeed on a Hard DEX roll or be knocked prone; mundane open flames in the area are instantly extinguished.

Blades in the Dark

Slipstream Talons

  • Description & Lore: Featherweight sky-bronze claw sheaths etched with tiny venturi flutes and laced with fine cord. Designed for rooftop runners, sky-dock riggers, and daring scoundrels who operate along high parapets, these digit foils eliminate air resistance, allowing for silent gliding and sudden, pressurized bursts of motion.
  • Item Category & Load: Arcane & Mobility Gear (1 Load, worn on Hands)
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Laminar Flow (Passive): You gain Potency when performing acrobatic traversal, leaping across wide roof gaps, or maintaining balance in high winds and storms.
    • Draft Shield (Passive): When resisting harm from light ranged weapons (thrown blades, darts, light pistol shot from long range), you gain +1 die to your resistance roll.
    • Whistling Airbrake (Armor): You may mark your armor use to arrest a deadly fall, slide down a vertical wall without injury, or negate forced movement caused by concussive blasts or falls.
    • Vortex Swell (Special Armor): Spend 1 Stress to sweep the talons and project a concussive crescent of compressed air across a room. This inflicts the consequence Disrupted / Off-Balance on all immediate opponents and snuffs out torches and lantern flames.
    • Wing-Tip Rip: When you push yourself to make a close-quarters melee strike, you may choose to inflict an additional level of harm as the vacuum wake shears through enemy clothing and armor seams.

Dungeons & Dragons (5th Edition / 2024 Revision)

Claws of the Zephyr Slipstream

  • Wondrous Item, Common (Requires Attunement)
  • Description & Lore: Four tapered digit sheaths made from polished, hollowed sky-bronze and laced with sky-blue woven silk. Designed with aerodynamic teardrop foils and micro-venturi vents, these talons eliminate wind drag, steady high-altitude descents, and project cutting gale-force arcs.
  • Item Properties:
    • Unarmed Strike Enhancement: While wearing these sheaths, your unarmed strikes deal 1d4 slashing damage instead of the standard bludgeoning damage, and they count as finesse weapons.
    • Laminar Shearing: You ignore movement and attack penalties caused by strong winds, gales, or underwater drag.
    • Draft Shield: Ranged weapon attacks made against you using blowguns, darts, or slings have disadvantage on their attack rolls.
    • Slipstream Stabilizer: Whenever you fall, you can use a reaction to extend your hands and glide. You take no falling damage from falls of 20 feet or less, and you can move up to 10 feet horizontally for every 10 feet you descend.
    • Vortex Swell: As an action, you sweep your arms forward in a cross-slash, projecting a line of compressed air that is 15 feet long and 5 feet wide. Each creature in that line must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. Unprotected flames in the line are snuffed out. Once used, this property cannot be used again until you finish a short or long rest.
    • Wing-Tip Rip: As a bonus action, you prime the leading edges with vacuum pressure for 1 minute. The next time you hit a creature with an unarmed strike using these claws, the target takes an extra 1d4 slashing damage and is pulled 5 feet toward you or pushed 5 feet away from you (your choice). You can use this bonus action twice per long rest.

Knave (2nd Edition)

Zephyr Slipstream Claws

  • Description & Lore: Hollow, featherweight sky-bronze talon caps etched with aerodynamic vents and strapped over the hands with braided mountain silk. They slice cleanly through gales, cushion long leaps, and allow the wearer to buffet opponents with sudden vacuum arcs.
  • Item Slots: 1 Gear Slot (Hands)
  • Item Quality: 10 / 10
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Weapon Stats: Light Weapon (1d6 Slashing damage). Fills the Hands slot.
    • Aero-Deflection: Grants +1 Armor Defense against light missile weapons (darts, sling stones, light arrows).
    • Frictionless Flight: The wearer suffers no movement or attack penalties when operating in raging gales, stormy cliffs, or underwater channels.
    • Airbrake Glide: When falling from any height, the wearer can extend their arms to glide, safely landing from drops of up to 20 feet without rolling for damage, or converting 10 feet of vertical fall into 10 feet of horizontal leap.
    • Vortex Slash: Once per day, the user can spend an action to unleash a whistling blast of compressed wind in a 15-foot line. Creatures in the path must pass a Strength check or be knocked to the ground and lose their next movement action; non-magical torches, lanterns, and small campfires are extinguished immediately. Whenever this ability is used, test the item’s Quality: on a roll of 1–3, the claws lose 1 Quality.

Fate (Fate Condensed)

Talons of the Zephyr Slipstream

  • Aspect: Aerodynamic Sky-Bronze Talons
  • Description & Lore: Forged from hollowed sky-bronze and shaped with teardrop foils, these digit caps cut through air without resistance. Designed for high-altitude couriers and mountain ascetics, they slice gales cleanly, deflect light missiles, and enable controlled glides across treacherous chasms.
  • Stunts:
    • Laminar Shearing: You ignore all situational penalties, hazards, or difficulty increases caused by high-altitude gales, extreme turbulence, or underwater drag when moving or making physical attacks.
    • Slipstream Airbrake: Once per scene, when you are subject to a fall, knockback, or forced movement, you may spend a Fate Point to immediately negate all physical stress from the fall or cancel up to two zones of forced displacement.
    • Vortex Swell: Once per conflict, you may use Athletics to create an advantage representing a sweeping crescent of compressed air across your zone (such as Blinding Pressure Wave). On a success, you gain one free invoke, all unprotected open flames in the zone are extinguished, and light targets are knocked off balance.

Numenera & Cypher System

Slipstream Digit Foils

  • Item Level: 2
  • Form: Four tapered, hollow finger sheaths cast from a featherweight coppery synth-alloy, etched with micro-fluting and laced over the knuckles with treated cerulean cord.
  • Kind: Artifact (Depletion: 1 in 1d10)
  • Description & Lore: Salvaged from the wreckage of ancient atmospheric exploration arrays, these aeromantic digit sheaths eliminate local fluid drag. When swung, the foils channel surrounding air into high-velocity boundary currents that steady falls, deflect light projectiles, and project concussive air crescents.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Laminar Flow (Passive): The wearer’s Speed-based attacks and movement actions are never hindered by severe wind, storms, or liquid immersion.
    • Draft Deflection (Passive): The wearer gains an asset on Speed defense rolls against light ranged attacks (darts, needles, sling stones, and light flechettes).
    • Slipstream Stabilizer (Passive): When falling, the user can extend their hands to create a stabilizing air cushion, reducing the effective falling distance by 20 feet (6 meters).
    • Wing-Tip Rip (Active): When making an unarmed Speed attack, the wearer can activate the foils to deal an extra 2 points of ambient cutting damage and push the target back an immediate distance.
    • Vortex Swell (Active): As an action, the wearer sweeps their arms to release a focused crescent of compressed air in an immediate line. All targets in the line take 2 points of damage and must succeed on a Might defense roll or be knocked prone. Unprotected flames in the path are extinguished.
    • Depletion Check: A depletion roll is made only when activating Vortex Swell.

Pathfinder (Second Edition / Remaster)

Slipstream Claws

  • Item 1
  • Traits: Agile, Finesse, Invested, Magical, Transmutation, Unarmed
  • Price: 9 gp
  • Usage: Worn gloves/bracers (fitted over natural claws or fingers); Bulk: L
  • Description & Lore: These hollow digit sheaths are cast from sky-bronze and shaped with teardrop foils that compress air through dorsal venturi channels. Favored by avian beastfolk and clifftop messengers, they eliminate wind resistance and allow the wearer to turn atmospheric currents into cutting implements.
  • Item Properties & Mechanics:
    • Unarmed Attack Profile: The claws grant an unarmed melee attack dealing 1d4 slashing damage with the agile, finesse, and versatile (piercing) traits.
    • Laminar Shearing (Passive): You ignore difficult terrain and environmental circumstance penalties to attacks or Acrobatics checks caused by heavy winds, storms, or aquatic drag.
    • Draft Shield (Passive): You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC against ranged attacks made with blowguns, darts, and slings.
    • Slipstream Stabilizer [reaction]:
      • Trigger: You fall.
      • Effect: You spread your hands to engage the aerodynamic flutes. You fall safely up to 20 feet without taking damage, and for every 10 feet you descend, you may glide up to 10 feet horizontally.
    • Vortex Swell [two-actions]:
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Area: 15-foot line
      • Saving Throw: DC 15 Reflex
      • Effect: You sweep your arms in an intersecting strike, projecting a blast of compressed gale-force air. Creatures in the area must attempt a Reflex save.
      • Success: The creature is unaffected.
      • Failure: The creature is knocked prone.
      • Critical Failure: The creature is knocked prone and takes 1d4 bludgeoning damage. All non-magical, exposed flames in the area are extinguished.

Savage Worlds (Adventure Edition)

Claws of the Zephyr Slipstream

  • Description & Lore: A set of four hollow sky-bronze claw caps laced with sky-blue mountain silk. Designed with aerodynamic venturi channels, they remove air resistance from natural strikes, deflect light missiles, and provide an emergency airbrake against deadly drops.
  • Item Type: Personal Gear / Minor Enchanted Weapon
  • Damage: Str+d4 (Slashing), AP 1
  • Weight: 1 lb
  • Cost: $90
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Laminar Shearing (Passive): The wearer ignores movement and attack penalties caused by strong winds, gales, or underwater fluid resistance.
    • Draft Shield (Passive): Attackers suffer a -1 penalty on Shooting rolls when targeting the wearer with light thrown weapons, darts, blowgun needles, or slings.
    • Whistling Airbrake (Active / Free Action): When falling, the wearer may flare the flutes against the downdraft. This reduces the effective distance fallen by up to 4 yards (8 feet), mitigating potential falling damage.
    • Wing-Tip Rip: When scoring a Raise on a Fighting roll made with these claws, the wearer may add an additional +d4 damage (instead of the standard bonus die cap) as the vacuum wake slices through the target.
    • Vortex Swell (Active): Once per encounter as an action, the wearer unleashes a whistling wave of compressed air using the Small Blast Template placed adjacent to them. Targets caught within the template must succeed on an Agility roll at -1 or be knocked Prone. Any open, unprotected flames within the template are snuffed out immediately.

Shadowrun (Sixth World)

Slipstream Talon Spurs

  • Item Type: Weapon / Minor Qi Focus (Force 1)
  • Subtype: Unarmed Weapon / Adept Aerodynamic Focus
  • Availability: 3 (Legal)
  • Cost: 1,800 nuyen
  • Description & Lore: Cast from an ultralight, wind-tempered sky-bronze alloy and fitted with micro-venturi flutes, these finger sheaths are favored by urban parkour couriers, rooftop infiltrators, and aerial physical adepts. By eliminating atmospheric drag across the hands and establishing a zero-resistance boundary layer, the talons allow lightning-fast unarmed arcs, deflect low-velocity ballistic needles, and project sudden concussive air bursts.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Damage Value (DV): (STR + 1)P, Close range
    • Attack Rating (AR): 9 / — / — / — / —
    • Laminar Shearing (Passive): The adept ignores negative dice pool modifiers to Close Combat and Athletics tests caused by high-altitude gales, rotor wash, storm squalls, or underwater drag.
    • Draft Shield (Passive): Ranged attacks targeting the user with flechettes, blowdarts, or thrown throwing knives suffer a -1 dice pool penalty due to the continuous micro-slipstream around the upper body.
    • Whistling Airbrake (Reaction / Minor Action): When falling, being violently knocked back, or sliding across slick surfaces, the adept can flare the venturi flutes to brake against the air column, absorbing up to 4 meters of vertical fall damage or halving forced movement distance.
    • Vortex Swell (Major Action): The adept sweeps both hands in a cross-slash motion, expelling a compressed crescent of high-pressure air in a 5-meter cone. Targets in the area take 2S damage and must succeed on an Agility + Athletics (Threshold 2) test or be knocked Prone. Unprotected flames in the blast area are immediately snuffed out. Usable once per combat encounter.

Starfinder (Second Edition)

Zephyr Slipstream Talons

  • Item 1
  • Traits: Agile, Finesse, Invested, Magical, Tech, Transmutation, Unarmed
  • Usage: Worn gloves (fitted over digits/claws); Bulk: L
  • Price: 85 credits
  • Description & Lore: Engineered from lightweight aerogel-infused sky-bronze with dorsal venturi flutes, these digit sheaths were originally developed by cliff-dwelling avian scouts and orbital riggers. By generating a localized aerodynamic boundary layer, they neutralize atmospheric resistance, assist in controlled descents, and cut through ambient drag with vacuum-edged precision.
  • Item Properties & Mechanics:
    • Unarmed Strike Profile: Unarmed strikes made with the claws deal 1d4 slashing damage with the agile, finesse, and versatile (piercing) traits.
    • Laminar Flow (Passive): You ignore difficult terrain and circumstance penalties to attack rolls and Acrobatics checks caused by severe planetary winds, atmospheric decompression drafts, or dense fluid submersion.
    • Draft Shield (Passive): You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC against light projectile weapons (such as darts, needle pistols, and sling stones).
    • Slipstream Stabilizer [reaction]:
      • Trigger: You fall.
      • Effect: You spread your hands outward to engage the boundary flutes. You fall safely up to 20 feet without taking damage, and for every 10 feet you descend, you may glide up to 10 feet horizontally.
    • Vortex Swell [two-actions]:
      • Frequency: Once per day
      • Area: 15-foot line
      • Saving Throw: DC 14 Reflex save
      • Effect: You sweep your claws forward, unleashing a whistling crescent of compressed atmospheric air. Creatures in the area must make a Reflex save. On a failure, the creature is knocked prone; on a critical failure, it is knocked prone and takes 1d4 bludgeoning damage. All open, non-magical flames in the line are extinguished.

Traveller (Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition)

Slipstream Aerodynamic Claws

  • Tech Level (TL): 9
  • Mass: 0.4 kg
  • Cost: Cr 400
  • Description & Lore: Precision-machined from low-density, high-tensile aerometal with integrated micro-venturi venting, these digit sheaths slip over gloves or natural appendages. Intended for zero-g hull walkers, high-velocity glider troops, and orbital scouts, they channel laminar airflow to prevent air drag, steady rapid drops, and deliver frictionless kinetic slashes.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Melee Weapon Profile:
      • Damage: 1D6 + STR (Slashing / Piercing)
      • Skill: Melee (Unarmed)
    • Zero-Drag Shearing (Passive): Grants DM+1 to Melee (Unarmed) and Athletics (Dexterity) checks made when fighting or maneuvering within gale-force storm environments, decompression breaches, or submerged aquatic zones.
    • Draft Deflection (Passive): Attackers targeting the wearer with low-velocity kinetic missiles (such as thrown blades, darts, or flechettes) suffer DM-1 to their gunnery or thrown weapon rolls.
    • Venturi Airbrake: When falling or undergoing violent atmospheric turbulence, the wearer may flare the flutes as a reaction, utilizing acoustic backpressure to reduce effective falling velocity by up to 6 meters, significantly reducing or negating falling impact damage.
    • Vortex Swell: Once per encounter as an attack action, the wearer sweeps their arms to vent compressed air in an adjacent 3-meter line. Target sophonts must pass an immediate Athletics (Dexterity) or END check (target 8+) or be knocked prone; small, exposed flames in the path are blown out instantly.

Warhammer (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition)

Talons of the Zephyr Slipstream

  • Price: 1 GC 4/–
  • Encumbrance: 0
  • Availability: Rare
  • Qualities: Fast, Precise, Shield (1 against light missiles)
  • Description & Lore: Forged from hollowed, wind-tempered sky-bronze by mountain-dwelling beastfolk and high-pass scouts, these tapered digit caps are laced across the knuckles with treated silk cords. Etched with acoustic venturi flutes, they whistle shrilly when swung, cutting through turbulent winds without drag and releasing razor-sharp gusts of compressed mountain air.
  • Game Mechanics:
    • Weapon Stats:
      • Weapon Group: Brawling
      • Damage: +SB + 2 (Slashing)
      • Qualities: Fast, Hack
    • Laminar Shearing (Passive): The wearer completely ignores environmental penalties to Melee (Brawling) and Dodge tests caused by howling mountain winds, violent squalls, or deep-water wading.
    • Draft Shield (Passive): Grants the Shield (1) quality against low-velocity missile weapons such as sling stones, blowdarts, and thrown knives.
    • Whistling Airbrake: If the wearer falls from a high ledge, cliff, or rigging spar, they may make a Challenging (+0) Athletics test. Success safely arrests up to 4 yards (8 feet) of falling distance, reducing the fall’s calculated damage.
    • Vortex Swell: Once per day, the user may spend an Action to sweep both hands forward in an intersecting arc, unleashing a whistling crescent of compressed wind in a 4-yard line. Opponents caught in the path must pass an Average (+20) Athletics test or gain 1 Prone Condition. Torches, candle flames, and small campfires in the area are extinguished immediately.