A Brief Guide to the Metallurgy of Falacaerr
as written by Grandsmith Throggar Grund.
 
 
 Come to Chak Ram'Thuk to study mining and the forging of rare metals, have ye? Well, lad or lass that ye might be, you've come to the right place! Nobody works metals better than a dwarf! Ask any Annalist worth his beard and he'll tell ye, that the gods made the Dwarves to drink harder, smith better, and bluff outrageouslier than any other children of Ilanwylln. Now then, pull up yer stools and sit down and I'll do me best to learn ye of all the different metals ye might soon be workin' with yer pasty hands!
 
MYTHRIL
 Ah, mythril. Truly a wondrous, wondrous metal, almost as valuable as gold, an' versatile enough to be forged with many a different ore. The old mythril mines of Edune are gone now, lads and lassies, the best mythril ore that any a Dwarf ever laid eyes on, but the mines of Sapphiras and the Sunbirth mountains still forge plenty of good mythril! Look closely now and see how the mythril shines like silver, but softly, without reflectin' the light straight back at ye like silver. Aye, mythril is a pretty mineral to behold when polished - certainly a sight prettier than those beardless women of yers - but leave it exposed too much and it'll tarnish sure as most other materials.
 
 Feel it, now. Feel how soft it is, almost like it yields beneath yer touch, don't it? Aye, mythril be a very malleable and ductile metal - ye can spin pure mythril into strings finer than gold, beat it and hammer it like copper, and it'll conduct magic like no other mineral. Them Lian first discovered the wondrous metal, used it for all kinds of decorations and magical artifacts. They're impractical as weapons, though - too soft unless ye alloy them with other minerals, and the wee Lian couldn't exactly work those, made 'em stick to working with copper and orichalcum for their weapons. If yer feeling sick, some very finely ground mythril sprinkling in yer drinking water - what, even Dwarves have the sense not to drink beer when we're sick! Not that it happens often for a Dwarf to fall sick, mind ye! Anyways, ye can sprinkle some mythril in yer drinking water and it'll pick ye right up! Fights the baleful spirits, it does.
 
 Now, you'll feel that mythril is surprisingly light for its quantity. Go on, take it, it's not just me massive bulging muscles making it look light, even a slim lass like ye can heft it. Makes fer excellent chainmail when properly smithed, though it be far too light for the likes of a sword or a hammer. If ye alloy it with steel or iron, however, it serves much better for body armor - can be married to orichalcum too. We Dwarves say that mythril be friends with many a metal and enemy to none.
 
ORICHALCUM
 Orichalcum ... a beautiful metal worked by the Lian long before even the Dwarves discovered it. Soft and shiny like gold, lustrous and ductile, it will never tarnish nor rust once properly purified and smithed in a forge. Takes a higher temperature to work than mythril, but ye will be able to temper it easily enough with the bellows. Cool it slowly, and it will retain its wonderful malleability, but cool it quickly with water and the orichalcum will set, not as hard as iron but firmly enough. It won't resist blows like iron would, but the mineral is a tough one - will bend and deform quite a way before it breaks. Heat it up and cool it slowly again and it will regain its ductility. Beautiful thing, ain't it?
 
 Orichalcum conducts magic finely too! When them Lian learned us some magic, they used orichalcum to show their power. Imbue it with the proper forging rituals and the correct magic, and orichalcum will be able to hold magic for a long time - some even say forever, when they're a mile short of sober! Har har, get it? Short of ... nevermind, it's Dwarven humor. Now orichalcum ain't no light metal, it's no heavier than iron but that makes it heavy enough. You ever see the circlets made for the queens of Morning? Yes, that's orichalcum, each one's made specifically for every new queen. The royal family keeps 'em after the woman's cremation, they have a whole gallery of every circlet ever worn by queens of Falacaerr.
 
 The precious mineral be mined nowadays by the Dwarves and by the Nationalists too. May surprise ye, but the Elves also buy a large quantity of it. Grind orichalcum very finely, mix with some pigments, and it creates that magical golden ink the Elves use which dazzles the eyes under the sun. Full of magical power those runes be as well, whether written into scrolls, inscribed on rock, or chiseled into weapons. Them Furinax masters always carry a sword with orichalcum runes written on the blade.
 
MOONSTONE
 Moonstones! More rock than metal they are, and better suited for the chisel or the hammer than the forge. Aye, there be three moons in the skies of Falacaerr, an' thus three kinds of Moonstones! The most common, as ye might imagine, come from dusty old Callido. These rusty red Moonstones carry traces of magic and are easily worked. They'll melt right well at high enough temperatures, but they be brittle objects - too easy to break with a determined blow, they are. Here, see if I just hammer this rock with an iron spike ... and see how it crumbles when I crush it in me fist?
 
 Blue moonstones, far rarer, come to us from the azure moon Raferas. These moonstones carry a soft, predominantly azure hue but if I move the torch like this ... see how it scatters the light? Feel it too - these Moonstones always feel wet to the touch. It's the most uncanny thing you've ever felt, ain't it? Fantastically ductile this rock is, can be spun and woven like thread. Them rich aristocratic ladies in Morning will pay a fortune for a garment made from this rock, I tell ye. It can be alloyed with mythril too, makes for a substance that has a very powerful magical affinity towards water. Don't be trying this in yer spare time, you ain't got any, and you'll just end up wasting two precious resources. It's a task fer masters is what it is.
 
 An' lastly, white moonstones, the rarest and most valuable of them all. Those come from the white moon Ivina, but nearly all of them burn up in the atmosphere before ever falling to the earth. White moonstones be delicate, delicate rocks. Very light in the hand, ye have to treat 'em delicately or they'll crumble to powder, but they're completely proof to magic - magic won't touch the things. They be beautiful stones too. If I snuff the torch right now, like this ... see how it glows with a light all of its own? Uncanny, ain't it? Ye may not want to fix yer eyes too much on the rock, it can do strange things to a man, and ye find yerself thinking only of it and coveting it and ... hoi, Aerin! Snap yer eyes away, lad! Someone pull his face away from that accursed rock -! Fetch me a barrel o' Stoneheart Ale -!
 
ADAMANTINE
 Ain't no metal been found that's quite as hard as adamant, lads and lassies. And ye know who discovered it? That's right, none other than the Dwarves! We mined it first, and worked it, and were astonished by an ore that seemed to be completely impervious to even the most extreme of heat. No hammer or chisel made of any material short of adamant or diamond will leave an impression on it either. Nay, this ancient metal has to be shaped by magic - in fact, we think it was molded by primeval magic forces deep in the heart of the earth long before the Dwarves first mined any of it! Now, I ain't no great magician meself, which is why adamant is usually shipped off to the alchemy labs to be worked. Here, however, I have some of it.
 
 Note the deep, jet black color of adamant. It's always found pure in the earth, lads and lassies - adamant alloys with no known material, ever, and any attempt has failed, often spectacularly. Most of the time you'll find it in small black beads, barely visible unless yer a Lian, but I've managed to preserve me a fist-sized chunk that I won by drinking Thane Athelmane under the table! Pass it around the room, will ye? Har har har, none o' ye weaklings will be working with a smith's hammer if ye can't even heft a goose egg-sized piece of adamant ... aye, it be heavy, extraordinarily heavy. Too heavy even for the Dwarves to use as armor beyond a few thin leaves of plate, but it does make for a fantastic hammer or the back of a sword.
 
 There's nothing subtle about adamant, folks; the mineral represents pure, raw strength in its simplest form. Can't really polish it much, either. At most it'll show a dull black gleam if ye work it with magic, but that's about it, really. As to which magics exactly ... well, that's a lesson you'll be taking from Archmage Lonneda.
 
EREMITE
 Eremite ... now here's an evil, evil metal used by the wicked Edunian empire. No self-respecting Dwarf will craft with the vile substance and I don't even have a sample with me, for a very good reason. They say long before the Lian learned to write or the Elves had their civil wars, Zeanir defeated the wicked old god Eremos and buried him still living beneath the earth. Eremite is made from his blood, fossilized. It will run quick at normal temperatures, ye would have to freeze it before it hardens into a mineral. Hard and durable it is, too - stronger and harder than steel. Most metals - copper, bronze, tin, iron - will corrode and weaken, becoming brittle upon contact with eremite. Aye, it's an evil metal indeed, seems to suck the life right out of others.
 
 And magic, even worse. Eremite seems to devour magic, drinking it in and always greedy for more. A magician who isn't careful could find himself being bled dry of mana in the vicinity of eremite. The Annalists say that this metal seems to be filled with some kind o' malignant sentience, but they're probably right. Now, eremite can alloy with orichalcum and mythril and gold, but you'll be able to tell those alloys. It never alloys equally, the eremite spreads sickly green veins through the other metal no matter how you work it. 'Tis an evil metal indeed, even with all of its powerful qualities - and powerful qualities it does have aplenty. Hard like stone, tough like steel, and a wound inflicted with a blade of eremite will fester and rot until it's cured.
 
 They say that Eremos' spirit lives on in the vile mineral, always seeking to seduce the unwary. So if ye pick up a strange, rusty green stone that seems to be whispering into yer mind, I'd put some distance between me and it fast as me stumpy legs can carry me! The Edunians always tried to bring the metal under their control, aye, and many paid the price for it. They were driven insane from trying to work the metal, lads and lassies. Insane. Think about that.
 
DILLAR
 Dillar, like moonstone, comes in several different kinds. It's a precious stone created by working ordinary rock ores with magic, a process which the eggheads still don't completely understand but use anyways. Funny thing about dillar ... if it's worked by a man, it turns into mardillar, and if it's worked by a woman it turns into quendillar. Hard to tell why when both processes are mechanically the same, but there you have it. Mardillar isn't safe for women to handle just as quendillar is dangerous to men.
 
 Finished dillar always seems to be covered in a thin film of ether. Mardillar is red, quendillar a shade of dark yellow, in their pure forms. Perhaps it shouldn't surprise me, but mardillar has strong magical properties with men and quendillar with women. It's no substitute for a good set of iron plate or a sword, however; while hard, dillar has no toughness, and it will shatter beneath a good blow. Quendillar tends to be rather more malleable than mardillar and ye might see it from time to time in a woman's jewelry ... mind ye, such ornaments be prohibited under Nationalist law.
 
 Here, have a look at these. And don't touch 'em if they aren't meant for yer gender! I mean it, there's always some stupid drunken sot on his fiftieth mug of beer who swears to hold a piece of quendillar and spends a fortnight in the infirmary for it. Moon Elves like to affix quendillar to their arrowheads, makes 'em a sight nasty against infantry in the thick forests.
 
DRAGONGLASS
 A word of caution to the wise. Dragonglass be made from the fossilized bones o' dragons, and dragons do not take kindly to having their bones despoiled by adventurers. The few we've managed to recover come from the remnants of great bone wyrms slain during the Crusades, and it might be a right shame if no more dragons exist in Falacaerr. But when a dragon dies, the fire in his belly seeps into his bones and crystallizes 'em, turning them into a very hard crystal. I have a few samples here, and I'd like ye to study the way that the glass cleaves off along these planes - shears easily in one direction, and not at all in another. Now, any material tempered in dragon's flame can never be forged again by mundane fire, but it can still be broken or split with judicious application of force.
 
 Feel the glass. It's remarkably light - has to be, to sustain the massive bulk of a dragon in flight. It's always smooth too, until it breaks, and then the lines where it breaks turned jagged. Aye, ye can cut yerself on dragonglass merely by looking at it. As for magic, water won't touch it, but it draws fire into itself like a sponge, and you'll never find a piece of dragonglass that's cold to the touch. Ye can't work it with mundane fire, but a dragon's heat or a magical flame will turn dragonglass into quick running substance. Once it sets, it will hold its shape by itself. Dragonglass don't rust or corrode or tarnish easily, either! Alloy it with mythril and you'll find yourself with one of the most difficult but most rewarding metals to forge.
 
 
 
 Well, there ye have it lads and lassies, a brief overview of the rare and precious minerals of Falacaerr! Of course, you'll have to start slowly - copper for you, and carefully work yer way up to dealing with tin, bronze, silver, and iron before we'll teach ye the secrets of forging steel and mythril. It's a long journey, never quite mastered, but plenty rewarding to see useful objects being fashioned by yer own hands and labor! Oh, and final warning! I don't care what me apprentices say, there will be no beer or ale permitted in the forge!