Blightwood Wand

Holly Arnuld travelled the world in search of materials for her wands. She would freely talk about the misadventures - making wands out of jade vines, for one - but would rarely talk about her successes. It was hard to know whether she was humble or unwilling to reveal her secrets.

One of those misadventures was in Bloodblight. She found a tree in the swamps with twigs that looked uncannily like wands. She wouldn't need to process the twigs much beyond snapping them from the tree. They glowed with magic, as if already prepared for their role.

Holly would treat this as a lesson to her students: perfection is an enemy. If something is flawless then it is hiding its flaw from you. Holly plucked a wand-twig from the tree and weighed it in her palm. But she could not shake the wand: it was stuck there. She was cursed to hold it in her palm, presumably forever if the blightwood tree had its way.

Holly was a sage enough wizard to remove the curse eventually, but it took some weeks to arrive at the solution. In the intervening period, she taught her lessons with a stony-face, grumpy temper, and a blightwood wand in her palm. She would point it threateningly at any student who dared to glance at her curse.