Sometimes, extraplanar debris ends up in the Material Plane, creating particularly dangerous phenomena. But it can also be put to use in interesting ways: Ever-burning weapons can be crafted from fire-infused comets, for example. However, one has to be creative on how to manipulate such weapons, and those that wield it are often either resistant to the hungry flames, or willing to endure the pain.
Hello! The third Sword for Swordtember (Asteroid) is not a sword at all, but a censer! I had been itching to design one, and the idea of putting a burning rock in one was way too tempting. This one belongs to @zephyrbug , but you can check out other unclaimed Swordtember adopts in here!
Created in the Tehuacan Valley of the southeast corner of modern-day Puebla, this censer belongs to a class of objects popular among the Eastern Nahua peoples of the Late Postclassic period (ca. 1200–1500). Known as xantiles (sing. xantil), these ceramic braziers functioned as receptacles for a type of incense known as copal (tree resin) that, when burned, produced a thick, musky smoke. Rising through the central chamber of these anthropomorphic vessels, the smoke then billowed forth from holes pierced in the hands, chest, mouth, and nostrils. In this way, the burnt offerings allowed ritual practitioners to communicate with the gods.
This is one of my all time favorite things that we own. It’s a censer made for burning resin incense. I love lighting up the coal and pouring on the frankincense and myrrh.
Incense, in the form of tree resins such as copal (Protium copal), was a key component of ancient Maya rituals, as well as in contemporary rituals of Maya descendants. Ritual practitioners and royal families made offerings of burning incense to communicate with ancestors and deities in the supernatural realm. Maya artists depicted fragrant incense smoke in monumental sculpture and paintings; clouds of smoke were vehicles for ancestors to communicate with the living. This incense burner and others like it may depict ancestors of the rulers who burned incense in their chambers, or they may have been used to venerate a ruler after death, with the sacred smoke encouraging his apotheosis.