House of Caliburn
The House of Caliburn - A family of master swordsmiths and forgers has made every sword carried by the King's Knights in modern times. The forge is located in the northern mountains and has been in continuous use for centuries. Tradition claims that each sword adopts a portion of the soul of its user.
A knight, when retired or when they are lost in combat, will have their sword passed on to another knight to be chosen by the king. No sword made by the House of Caliburn for a Knight of the King has ever broken in battle.
Only two swords carried by Knights are not accounted for. The sword of Sir Gaylord was lost when he went mad and rode into the forest of memories and never returned. The second missing sword belonged to Sir Torkien. The knight had gone deaf and was to retire. He chose to embark on one last quest. Since he had lost all hearing, he sailed to the island of the mermaids, believing he would not fall victim to their enchanting songs. It is unknown what became of Sir Tolkien, but he nor any of his party ever returned.
The House of Caliburn forges its own ore from an on-site mine. The ore is of a very high grade and helps make the swords strong, light, and durable. A sword made for a King's Knight will be approximately six inches longer than the average one-handed sword, measuring thirty-seven inches. The Knight's sword will weigh in at three pounds and is perfectly balanced.
Short Story about the finest sword to ever be crafted at the Calburn Forge
The Final Hammer-Fall: Old Caliburn’s Last
Command
The Caliburn Forge thrummed like a tireless, metallic heart. It
was a cathedral of industry, its stone walls stained black by four centuries of
perpetual smoke. The sign above the massive hearths declared its name, and the
reputation spoke for itself: every sword wielded by the King's Knights, from
the smallest dagger to the largest greatsword, was born here. It was the place
where steel learned not to break.
The founder, Old Caliburn, was a man already carved into legend.
He was the grandfather of all blacksmiths, an innovator who treated metal as a
language and, remarkably for the time, ensured his female apprentices like
Elara and Torvin's mother worked the anvils with equal respect and skill.
But time, even for a master of fire and iron, was running out.
The Great Hearth, usually reserved for the bulk of production, was quiet.
All focus was on the smaller, ancient hearth Caliburn himself had first
kindled. The master was bent over a flawless billet of metal—not the standard
King’s Steel, but something he had smelted in secret: Celestine Ore,
rumored to be a fragment of a star that fell onto the highest peak of the
realm.
Old Caliburn was frail now, his great muscles thinned, but his eyes still
burned with the fire of the forge. His apprentice, Elara, stood ready by the
bellows, and Torvin, a young man who already held the promise of his master's
skill, waited by the quench tank.
“The final heat,” Caliburn rasped, his voice rougher than emery paper.
“This is not a blade to win a battle, children. It is a blade to seal a Victory
forever. It must be perfection.”
He directed Elara. “Slower on the air, girl. Let the fire breathe, not
choke. This metal does not demand speed; it demands respect.”
Elara adjusted the bellows, her movements precise. The Celestine Ore
began to glow, not the fierce yellow of common heat, but a deep, luminous white
that seemed to pulse with an inner light.
Caliburn seized the tongs. With a staggering effort that drew a sharp,
silent breath from his apprentices, he laid the blazing billet onto his
personal anvil. He chose his hammer—not the massive Judgment used for
shaping, but a smaller, perfectly balanced hammer called The Whisper.
He raised it. The first blow was not a strike of force, but a tap of
resonance, testing the metal.
CHIIIM
The sound was shockingly high and pure. Caliburn then worked for an hour
that seemed like a lifetime, moving the sword through the fire and back to the
anvil. He was folding the metal, not forcing it, but guiding it into an
intricate, self-sustaining pattern. His strikes were rhythmic, light, and
always, perfectly placed. The fire gave the steel life, but Caliburn's
blows gave it soul.
Finally, he held the completed shape—a longsword of elegant, timeless
design—over the quench tank. This tank held his secret, centuries-old mixture
of oils, herbs, and meteorite dust.
“Torvin,” Caliburn commanded, his eyes fixed on the metal. “The quench is
the steel’s scream. If it cracks, the soul is flawed. If it stays silent, the
soul is dead. If it sings…”
He lowered the blade.
FZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ-
Steam erupted violently, a massive, obscuring cloud. Torvin and Elara
watched the master’s outline through the haze. After a long, agonizing moment,
Caliburn slowly withdrew the blade. It was flawless.
He held the sword high above his head. And then, the air in the great,
smoky forge grew utterly still. The swords mounted on the walls seemed to hold
their breath.
The newly forged blade began to emit a sound: a low, sustained harmonic
tone, a note so clear and powerful it caused the steel tools on the
workbench to subtly vibrate. It was the sound of complete, final, and utter
metallurgical perfection.
MMMMMMM-WOOOOOOOM.
Caliburn's strength gave out. He lowered the sword into Torvin's waiting
hands, his task finally complete.
“It sings,” the master whispered, his legendary eyes already dimming.
“The last sword is forged. Name it Excellence.”
Old Caliburn passed that night, having poured the last of his immense
skill into that single, flawless weapon.
The Caliburn Forge continues its work to this day, making every King’s
blade, forever striving to match the sound of that one sword—Excellence,
the legacy of its founder, a sword whose song is the perfect measure of skill.
Short Story of Elara
The Fire and the Steel: Elara of Caliburn (Revised)
The Caliburn Forge operated on
a single, sacred truth inherited from its founder: skill was the only
currency. For centuries, this creed had ensured that every blade was
flawless, for only the best hands were allowed near the fire. Elara was,
unequivocally, one of those hands.
She was a woman of immense physical
power, her figure honed by years of wielding the ten-pound hammer—a tool she
handled with surgical precision. Her form was striking; she wore the necessary
heavy leather apron, but the constant heat of the forge demanded minimal layers
beneath, and the intense physical work gave her a raw, captivating athleticism.
She was undeniably beautiful, and her powerful movements captivated all who
watched her work.
The Respect of Steel
In the King’s court, the Knights of
the Realm were pragmatic. They knew their lives hung on the temper of a
Caliburn blade. Their appreciation for Elara was not simple admiration, but a
deep, professional respect. They did not care if the sword was forged by a king
or a commoner, a man or a woman; they cared only that it would not break.
When Knights came for custom work,
they specifically sought her out. They understood that Elara did not use brute
force; she used understanding. She could read the exact readiness of the
metal by the color of the heat—a language lost on most masters.
- The Apprentices: While a few younger apprentices—new to the forge
and perhaps less mature—would whisper comments about her beauty and
physical form, the veteran smiths recognized that her impressive figure
was a function of her strength, not a distraction from it. They
grumbled occasionally about her popularity, but they never doubted her
technique.
- The Knights: They saw her as a legend. Lord Valerius, the
sternest Knight-Captain, once stated, "Elara's steel knows fear,
but her heart does not. I trust her edge with my soul."
Mastery and Admiration
Elara's dedication was total. While
others saw her beauty, they were immediately faced with her singular focus. Her
raw strength was simply a requirement of her job, enabling her to lift and
strike with the power needed to fold high-carbon steel flawlessly.
Her greatest accomplishment was the development of a unique, multi-layered folding technique—dubbed the Dragon’s Spine—that added elasticity without sacrificing hardness.
Her presence drew crowds. Foreign
dignitaries and merchants often lingered, mesmerized by the rhythm of her work.
She handled the attention with professional distance: a brief, polite
acknowledgement for a compliment on her technique, and an absolute indifference
to any praise of her appearance, which she saw as extraneous to the steel.
The Defining Test: Lord Kaelen’s Greatsword
The final acknowledgment of her
irreplaceable talent came with the arrival of Lord Kaelen, the King's
Master-at-Arms. He was not skeptical of her gender, but skeptical of anyone
claiming perfection.
"I need a greatsword,"
Kaelen announced, his voice booming. "A weapon that feels like an
extension of thought, not muscle. It must be beautiful, but above all,
lethal."
Torvin, the Chief Smith, stepped aside
immediately, deferring to Elara. "Lord Kaelen, only Elara can forge the
balance you demand. She is the only one who can make a cleaving greatsword feel
like a dueling rapier."
Elara took the commission. She
selected the finest materials and hammered the blade with relentless focus for
three days. She was crafting the masterpiece of her career, integrating the Dragon’s
Spine structure with her Whispering Edge temper.
When she presented the finished
weapon, Kaelen took the hilt. The enormous sword felt astonishingly light. The
blade shimmered with a flawless, rippling pattern.
Kaelen slashed it through the air.
“Perfect balance,” he breathed, his skepticism melting into awe. “But let us
test the temper.”
Elara retrieved a thick, inferior bar
of military-grade steel. Kaelen watched, speechless, as Elara took her own
creation and, with a single, perfectly aimed arc, sheared the steel bar
completely in half.
She presented the greatsword again,
its flawless edge completely unmarked.
“My Lord,” Elara stated, her voice quiet but ringing with authority. “The sword is Caliburn. It will
not break, it will not dull, and it will ensure victory.”
Kaelen did not speak for a long
moment. Then, he performed the deepest bow the legendary warrior had ever made
to a smith. “Master Elara,” he said, using the highest title of the forge. “My
life is now safer in your hands than in my own.”
From that day forward, her recognition
was absolute. Elara remained at the forge, admired by all for her unquestionable
power and skill, her beauty merely the sparkling dust on the unmatched
diamond of her craft.