Materials

Due to many years of collaboration between the prominent cities, an exotic trading community has flourished, especially in the capitol, Alera Imperial. This trading has brought exotic materials, trinkets and artifacts from all corners of the realm, and a few even from other planes of existence.
As an item imbued with magical properties is not outside of time nor harm, people got innovative in ways to strengthen the durability or magical resonance through the use of different materials. An iron sword enchanted with a simple spell might hold up the spell for a decade or until the sword is badly harmed or gets excessively rusted. Meanwhile, a yggra wood or rosantium sword might not be as sharp, but will hold the spell for centuries or millennia if safely stored and unharmed.
== Materials: ==
A wide range of materials are known, some rarer than others. But all very valuable and hard to track down.
=== Protective materials: ===
Materials sought after for their high durability and protective capabilities.
* Darksteel: Most often mentioned in relation to duregar, drow, and other underdark humanoids. Is said to have a brother variant, forged from the heart of a meteor. 
* Ironwood: Wood as hard as iron. An almost pitch black wood type, which grows so slowly that only the elves has the patience and lifespan to utilize it properly. In the days of old, druids of high stature was seen equipped with magical ironwood weapons and armor. 
* Mithril: A light weight, corrosive resistant and strong metal able to be imbued with magical properties. 
* Dragon scale: As the name suggests, the hide of a dragon. This was regarded as the main reason dragons went extinct on most continents. Said to have magic dampening or magic repelling qualities. 
* Dragonsteel: Said to be forged from dragon blood and heated with dragon breath. 
* Adamantine: Commonly known as an incredibly tough and protective metal. Adamantine is an ultrahard metal found in meteorites. Most often used for armor, as one carrying a full set of adamantine armor cannot receive a critical hit. 
* Titanite: The less filthy rich mans version of adamantine.
* Elderglass: As indestructible a material as one can acquire in this world. A glass-like material with attributes ranging from light absorption in the day and re-emission at night, to things like not showing the reflections of living creatures. Often used as simple walls or fragments inserted into melted metal to form near-indestructible plates of armor. Is only found in Adua and originates from the Eldren. Due to its properties it cannot be mined or manipulated, it can only be gathered and used in the state it is found in.
* Rowan Wood: Rare and slow growing tree, which core-wood is anathema to witches and will burn their skin by its touch. There are tales of it similarly burning other creatures of the night, but these are largely heresay.
=== Economical Materials: ===
Materials sought after for their ornamental value. Turning them into objects of stature, power and wealth.
* Emendi: Also referred to as 'Karma stone' by old texts. It is only found in the Omasu dessert. The material is no harder to shape and work with than iron, but its price is due to its rarity in larger amounts as it is only found in the form of grains of green sand. No easy way of collecting, locating or separating it has been discovered as it holds little to no properties distinguishing it from normal sand other than its color and it is almost impossible to separate from something once the two things have been mixed together in the liquid state. Little is known other than it was the most treasured material of the Omasu monk dynasty when it existed. When a large amount is collected, the sum resembles jade to a large extend, leading to jade becoming the poor nobles emendi.
* Dawnstone: A rock resembling semi translucent marble. Extremely hard in its natural state. Has to be grounded up and melted at obscene temperatures and then cast from molds. Each time this rock is heated to its melting point and cooled again, it requires a higher temperature to melt it anew, resulting in some ores of dawnstone to be literally unmeltable. This material can (normally) only be shaped, damaged or otherwise manipulated while submerged in water or under a running stream, at which point it becomes more malleable and very brittle.
** Is sometimes gifted, in the shape of medals, tokens, spear tips or arrowheads, to denote honorary soldiers (originally elves) for exemplary service in the legions. 
** Is sometimes traded between nobles in the form of dawnstone ingots or given as a 'white elephant gift' to lesser nobles who do not have the wealth to utilize the gift, nor the audacity to trade or gift it away.
=== Magical Materials: ===
Materials sought after for their innate property of resonating or interacting with magic.
* Yggra Wood: A magical tree, growing solely on magic as nourishment, resulting in heavy magic use had to be conducted near it daily, or its roots had to entwine the bodies of fallen spellcasters. Its bark is a bright purpleish-pink. The wood is extremely flexible and resonates perfectly with enchantments put upon it, making it one of the few ways to store spells or enchantments over a near limitless timeframe. Now the trees have gone extinct in Alera as a result of the yggra wood hoarding caused by the mage war.
* Moonstone: Often spoken in hush words in regards to mages and their witchcraft.
* See also Mithril under 'Protective materials' above.
* See also Dragon Scales and Dragonsteel under 'Protective materials' above.
* Sylvum: A metamaterial created when ultra pure silver is laiden with charms that allows it to contain magical resonances. This results in an intricate resonance, which can be used to create memory containing items or items with specific activation allowances. The methods of creating this metal has been banned for hundreds of years due to a mage's discovery of it being able to hold other things, such as consciousness of a living being, as well as other, more foul things.
* Rosantium: A metal often used by clerics for their religious tokens that they carry.
* Scarif crystals: Obscenely rare crystals with strange magical interactions. Previously the focus of extensive research until the project scientists began dying off one by one of unnatural causes until none were left.
* Vartium: A glossy black to matte light blue metal depending on composition and purity. Holds an innate property of dampening or draining nearby magic. Orcish legends indicate that an alloy of mithril and vartium can be made which has properties very close to that of adamantium but more magically than physically protective.
=== Property Materials: ===
Materials sought after for their unique innate property.
* Ignis Brass: Said to be made from the heart of a dying volcano, whatever that means. A metal containing the essence of fire. It is always scorching hot to the touch, requiring equipment of the metal to be heavily padded to even be carried without blisters breaking out.
* Harmonic Copper: A metal said to have been granted to the gnomes by a god fond of their craftsmanship. A metal said to be the essence of balance and reliability. A clock made of this, would only have to be wound once in its lifetime and a blade of this is said to always find a perfect balance even if made by the lowest of smiths. A swordsman relying on equipment made of this should expect no great feats but neither any grave mistakes - always a perfect average.
* Chlorophyte: Chlorophyte is not a natural ore, but the product of a specific composition of ore being surrounded by magical plant life for many years. Usually only found under/near holy sites or magical forests, it is often controversial to mine for chlorophyte, as treants, druids, and other forests guardians see it akin to poaching. The process of an ore turning into chlorophyte usually leaves the metal a very dark green, and causes strands of vines or moss to grow around it. Even after being mined and processed into metals or armors, chlorophyte usually still sprouts moss, leaves, and the like. It is said that one can even grow plants on it like one would in fertile soil.
* Dentrine: Dentrine is a near-weightless, pure, shining white metal. A child would be able to lift a grown mans full plate mail if it was made of dentrine. Its origin and way of ore processing has been long lost and only a few ingots worth of the metal still remain in circulation.
* Floatstone: A porous white stone that is naturally buoyant in air, resulting in it floating upwards if released in its refined form. Harvested in the form of tiny corals found in the deepest parts of the ocean floor. Without an alchemical treatment they break down in air and turn to dust. Added to heavy equipment, worn by the upper nobility, to lighten the load, or to weapon cores, resulting in an unexpectedly light blade, securing the vital swing in a too short opening for a similar blade of normal weight.
* Skywrought Amber: An orange substance of extremely viscous liquid resembling amber. Changes density as a function of temperature. At negative degrees its weight is comparable to leaded rocks or glass, while at room temperature it is akin to fabric. If left baking in the midday sun, it turns as light as a feather and if put in a furnace at high temperature it gains a natural buoyancy much like floatstone. However at too high of a temperature the skywrough amber irreversibly turns to something akin to orange glass and fractures. The material is exported from Styria in small, well guarded quantities.
* Luminate: A type of metal with glowing capabilities.
* Blightsteel: Or 'Devils Lead'. An extremely heavy metal even by gold or lead's standard. An average man would hardly be able to lift a bar of the metal. The metal often comes off as a greenish hue due to impurities, which are seldom removed due to the metal giving off poisonous fumes when heated, quickly corrodes other metals and being toxic, even to the touch. Very little is mined and purified of the material due to the weight, rarity and toxicity, and the fact that it has little to no uses besides the best lock picks and daggers an assassin could wish for.
* Spark glass: A rough glass like material, which surface looks more like rock salt than glass with small crystal growths covering its surface.
* Lodestone: A black-ish metal with large metal grains clearly visible on the surface. Is known to have static or magnetic capabilities depending on material quality and handling. Can be manufactured but the hard part is the forging or manipulation of the material as it can easily loose its properties if subjected to hard impacts from a wrong angle, or high currents through it. Is mainly used in exquisite locks and intricate mechanical contraptions but can also, if expertly made, be used in exotic weapons.
* Etherius: A mineral of translucent, colorless and clear crystal in its original state. Is able to split light like a prism and often has one or more colors flowing through it like water. Is said to have gained its flowing colors from the plane fracture at the beginning of time. Can be used as a power source in machinery or as a medium for drafters to pull their magic from. These crystals are unstable and get bleached, loose their internal color, crack or worse when worn out, either from use or from direct sunlight.
* Mirror metal: A fragile metal, which, if buffed to a high sheen, reflects any light cast on it. Most often used by Hollow hunters.
* Deepsteel: A ore mined so deep down in the worlds core, that the temperature alone is enough to discourage any non-dwarfs to attempt it. It is not heated to a liquid, but instead sheared to a liquid by pure shear stress of friction. Has extremely low thermal conductivity and stores any heat absorbed for long periods of time.
* Silver: A soft material, mainly used in regards to equipment, when hunting cursed creatures of the night.
* Nitrium: A highly-explosive bluish metal. Studying it has proven difficult, as it tends to explode.
* Obsidian: Widely used in the mage wars for some reason.
=== Mythical or Unknown Materials: ===
* Orichalum: Rumors says it's solely mined from the bottom of the sea by Atlanteans, however the metal in itself is regarded as a myth just as much as Atlantis itself is.
* Arjale: Also referred to as 'True Ice' but the rumors of this material is so abundant that it is almost impossible to find fact from fiction. The only thing that all the sources agree on is, that it is dangerous, even to the touch.
* Mistarille: Said to only pierce living tissue and pass right through inanimate objects.
* Mordite or 'Deathstone': Is said to be congealed anti-life from 'the other side', but generally only found in old children's stories where someone is out to destroy the world or old tales of titans doing battle.