Jhora Sap-Skin Armor

“They came at us in the full light of day. Took out our spellcasters with those damn shrieking throwing sticks of theirs in the first volley and never made a sound. It was cold enough in that forest to freeze your blood, but they weren’t wearing anything but loin-clothes. And that warpaint. Those damn painted bastards: the light seemed to bend around them, made them hard to see even in broad daylight. Our weapons would bounce off their skin or someone would cut them only to get a face full of acid and go down screaming. And even if you managed to wound the fuckers; that paint all over them would just crawl up inside the wound whilst they kept on fighting. I’ve never fought a naked elf before and gods be merciful I never will again.”

-Genji the Maimed (previously Genji the Mighty)  former mercenary.

Rendered from the sap of the Jhora trees (whose acid secreting roots are used to dissolve the bodies of their respected dead), Jhora sap is used exclusively by the most primal of the houses (or tribes as they are often called) of the wood elves. The wearer soaks in a pool of the viscous substance, said to contain the latent memories and spirit of those deceased that have been consumed within it, and it quickly bonds to the skin. The process is excruciating and not every warrior survives the process but those that do acquire a ‘second skin’: a type of flexible body armor that possess a myriad of magical abilities.

Each ‘Sap-Skin’ as they are called in the tongues of men is unique, owing to the most dominant traits of the deceased that make up its biological matter. Accelerated healing and tissue regeneration, resistance to physical damage, immunity to temperature, and even a form of chameleon like invisibility have all manifested. The longer the warrior soaks in sap, the more potent the armor is. However, such power comes at a price; in addition to the risk of being dissolved entirely by the hungry substance, the most potent sets of Sap-skin armor inherit not only arcane abilities but the mannerisms and even the memories of those deceased whose remains were interred within that particular tree.

Overexposure can result in a form of madness where it becomes impossible for the warrior to separate their identity from the one (or more) identities that are embedded in the sap. As such, Jhora sap is used exceedingly sparingly and only for short amounts of time under urgent circumstances, lest the collective dead seek to usurp the living.