'Whetstone with a cipher inscription, made to look like a small knifeblade. Allows the use of ashes of war at a site of grace to bestow new battle arts and affinities to armaments as skills. The battle arts of the Ashes of War remember the techniques of valiant warriors of the past.' The Ashes of War are the canon's quiet techno-memorial : small ashen stones, each containing the lingering memory of a single technique-of-arms used in the Lands Between's wars. Lion's Claw remembers the Redmane Knights. Seppuku remembers a Land of Reeds samurai. Carian Slicer remembers a Carian Knight. Each ash, when applied to a weapon at a Site of Grace, grants the weapon that named technique as a skill, and changes the weapon's affinity (Heavy, Keen, Magic, Sacred, Cold, Blood, Poison, Fire, Lightning, Bestial, Occult).

'Empty ashes of war, devoid of any memories of battle. Unable to apply any kind of affinity in their current state, but can be used by Smithing Master Hewg of the Roundtable Hold to recreate other ashes of war.' Hewg is the only smith in the canon who can copy an Ash of War from one stone onto a blank one. The lore-frame is that techniques are not abstractions, they are specific memories of specific bodies that died moving in specific ways, and they can only be carried in vessels that were once full of memory. The empty ashes are the canon's blank manuscript pages. Hewg, at his anvil, transcribes the past for the present's swords.