Unholy Water
Description
A squat vial of smoked glass bound with wire and sealed in black wax. The fluid within shows a faint, oily iridescence; when disturbed, shadowy whorls crawl along the inside of the glass before settling. Its scent is metallic and clove-bitter, like incense soured by old blood. A practiced hand keeps such vials close—tucked in reliquaries, lashed to belts, or slung on cords—ready to defile wards, sully relics, or power rites that feed upon spite and fear.
Lore
Unholy water is not merely “cursed water,” but a portable pledge: the bearer carries a shard of their patron’s malice wherever they go. Cult celebrants use it to spot the devout—anointing eyelids and lips during initiations—while saboteurs “salt” the lintels of rival sanctuaries to spoil consecrations in the making. Smugglers wrap vials in leaded cloth to evade ward-scrying, and black markets prize batches bottled with particularly infamous symbols. In formal practice, it sees regular use as a ritual component, whether to bend the ear of a dark power, to overwrite a sanctified site, or as the seed of a rain that falls foul upon the righteous.