Metals in Indratera

Certain metals in Indratera had supernatural intrinsic properties.

## Copper

A soft, conductive, malleable metal. Nicknamed 'Lightning Metal' in Euluska. *Pure* copper was used from the 1500s onwards for its electrical conductive and storage properties. Electric wires, coils, capacitors, and more were made from it. It had a natural affinity for electrical or lightning elemental power, even when unrefined.

### Red Gold

Red Gold was an alloy of half copper, half gold. It had a distinct reddish-orange-pink hue. It was the coating metal for the Euluskan and Halcyian 1-gold-crown coins (the coins were later cast in cheaper metal and veneered with red gold from the 6th century onward).

A separate but identically named alloy of red gold was made of mostly gold with about a third copper and about 10% silver. It was alloyed by the early Rakki people, who prized it as a mixture of their three most valuable decorative non-weapon metals, and used it to make a lot of artifacts.

### Green Sterling

An unusual alloy, green sterling was a Lakayan native invention, a mixture of verdigris'd copper (greenish oxidised copper) with 50% silver, giving a pale green tinge to it. It was used for the Lakayan 1-silver-waar coin's casting, from the 1500s to the 1600s when they adopted the Halcyian standard again.

## Bronze

An alloy of copper and tin. Dubbed 'Pirate's Bane' in Euluska.

It was the casting metal for the Euluskan and Halcyian 1-ember coin (one hundredth of a golden crown).

### Fulxan Bronze

A copper-tin alloy with a large tertiary proportion of silicon (from quartz), this alloy was responsible for almost all of the weaponry and armour of the Fulxan (Sky People) of the southeastern continent beyond the edges of the map, *Vereazora*. It was relatively strong, not quite as strong as iron, but incredibly light and workable. This lightweighted property was valued highly because the Fulxan were an agile people, many of whom still bore vestigial feathered wings; so, a light but strong metal was prized higher than a tough but heavy one. Fulxan Bronze was a rosy reddish-bronze colour with hints of gold.

## Iridium

One of the densest and toughest natural metals, but also ridiculously heavy, iridium was rare worldwide *except* for the gorges of Turmish, where huge deposits of it were found. The local Turmish people for millennia had used iridium as their main metal in metallurgy, leading to heavy and tough tools.

The Lusken Empire used iridium as the coating metal for their tin-cast 10-real coins from the 400s to the 1400s, until white asterium started rising in ease of production and replaced its use.

## Silver

A lustrous, conductive, reflective metal. Called 'Fair Lady' in Euluska. It was expensive and sought after. It had anti-poison properties. Silver was also the bane of almost all monsters (except sea monsters) - it bypassed their resistances and defences. It was used by monster hunters on their blades; however, truly effective silver weapons were expensive and soft, because a coating of silver was not as effective as a pure silver weapon.

### Sun Sterling

Sun Sterling was an alloy of mostly silver with about a fifth copper. It was a predominantly silver colour with the faint red-orange hue of a sunset. Sun Sterling was the casting metal of Euluskan and Halcyian 1-silver-crown coins.

## Lead

A heavy and dense ductile dull naturally occurring metal. Known as 'Grandfather Lead' in Euluska.

Lead was completely and utterly unaffected by magic. Magic could not pass through it, destroy it, heat it, move it, or flow over it. No one knew why this was. The presence of lead made magic users nauseous - it seemed to make their cruor [the silver sanguine substance that allowed magic] heavy and cause clots and headaches.

Notably, Fascist Halcyon (and other anti-mage states through history) used lead restraints, lead face masks, lead cells, or lead torture devices to restrain or contain mages. A mage locked in a lead room would experience similar symptoms to weak radiation poisoning.

## Mithril

> *"No, I've never seen this mithril of which you speak, but, I, uh, I have gazed upon its fine ore many a time, just never the finished thing."*
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> *[snickering] "I am sure you have, O great visitor. Please, you and your warriors, bring us some of this ore to gaze upon, would you please?"*
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> *- Elna Carrinstoke tries to brag to Vice Regent Fanakhati of the Verdis Tribe whilst asking for help in the struggle for independence, 1512.*
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Mithril was a pure white luminous special metal which was incredibly light and strong. In Euluska it was called 'Darim White Gold'

It did not produce sharp edges, even when worked by a master, but it distributed incoming force with ease into musical sonorous tones (a property it was prized for), and was ethereally light-feeling. Therefore, it was never used for weaponry. If you tried to fashion an edged blade, it would break. If you made a hammer with it, it would feel like a feather upon being struck with it, even if swung by a giant.

Mithril was formed uniquely. It was made of most other naturally occurring metals exposed to intense and prolonged pressure and heat, until they went near-pure white and became tough and endowed with the magical sonorous ability to resonate with music when hit. Therefore, the subject of some jokes or idioms by mining-peoples involved 'mithril ore', the joke being that such a thing never existed. Because of the conditions required, Mithril pretty much only formed deep, deep underground. Therefore, the only cultures known to have produced more than a fluke handful of mithril were the Verdis of Lakay, the Darim of the NE Danderillon, and the Drow of the Underdark, all being subterranean folk.

## White Asterium

When Mithril was only partially formed (less than a quarter of the required pressure or time), its intermediary form was a soft ductile, malleable whitish impure metal known as Asterium. Asterium was fairly useless for anything but decoration on its own - it was as soft as putty to body heat.

Asterium was alloyed with the much more tough metal gold to make White Asterium, the casting metal for Halcyian and Euluska 10-gold-crown coins (the highest denomination of coinage). It was a white-cream-pale-gold coloured alloy which had a faint golden shine. It was also used for decorative purposes.

## Eol

The metal that landed upon Indratera from starfalls (meteorites) came to be known as *Eol Anglachion* (from the ancient Alder language), or *Eöl* (Euluska widespread name). It was black iron with a very high composition of unidentified cosmic metal impurities and nickel. It formed distinct patterns and lattices, and was a dark glittering black colour.

Eol was the *most* rare, esoteric, prized, and strong metal in Indratera. The appearance of a meteor foretold great things in history, and the metal that landed on the earth was priceless to a master smith, but easily ruined by a clumsy one. Most of it was impurities that would be boiled off into slag, leaving black lustrous metal that glittered like fiery starlight.

A meteorite of Eol was used to forge the Black Blade Xanwyr in the first century before 0. Also, the famous Lakayan freedom fighters witnessed a starfall in the Heartlands of Lakay and took about 30kg of unrefined Eol with them. They used it as a gift to curry favour with the wealthy Verdis tribe to get them to agree to lend arms in the eventually-successful fight for Lakayan independence!