Fantastic Metallurgy: Orichalcum

Or an essay on the Properties of that Wonderous Substance of Mystical and Majestic Potentcies, unpublished.

One of the resurgant, if somewhat obscure, commonalities between various myths and legends of the great cities of ages past is the presence a metal, occasionally said to be red gold or red copper in many of their works. Used for decoration, ceremonial purposes, and even as walls, in those ancient cities of yore said to be fabulously wealthy.

Not simply restricted to legends who's truth has yet to be properly verified, Orichalcum, under a variety of names, appears in more recent tales as a metal of some fabulous value, used as a coinage in the third dynasty of Irem, the crown jewels of Hestabus are said to be made of the substance, though few can confirm it.

Depending upon the source the metal is a deep red in colour, or it shines as if gold, though much harder and with the faintest hint of red colouration.  There are, of course, conflicting accounts which would normally be a problem in ferreting out the true substance, but in many cases these conflicting accounts are from the same sources, or identically match other accounts, leading to the inescapable fact that both are true.

Of its other properties we know but little except from careful analysis. It is said to hold great mystical properties, its use in ceremonial items and adornments of temples, along with the legendary power of the magi-queen of Hestabus, would lead some credence to that attributation.   Its non-use in weaponry and, to a lesser extant armors, would suggest it was not an ideal weapon even for the wealthy nations of lost ages, I suspect, given its stated hardness the problem is one of brittleness.  Indeed, I hope to show how this is even the very truth of the matter.

Of its origins we know little more. It was said to be an impossible alloy of copper, tin, gold and mercury... though the exact composition is unknown. Certainly blending those metals is not particularly hard in and of itself, though the quicksilver does provide some measure of challenge. However, doing so produces a shiny, but not particularly notable, form of bronze with no additional properties of note.

The most notable, and relevant, legend would involve Irem, who's coinage was supposedly of the stuff, and whose alchemical guilds were famously powerful, supposedly controlling the very treasury.  If we assume that simple, ordinary metallurgy was not sufficent to produce Orichalcum, we may assume that Aetheric Alchemy, or some variation thereof, was necessary.

Knowing the properties of the material desired, that is a certain arcane and theurgic resonance, a certain hardness, while still retaining the ability to be worked for decoration, I was able to divine a sequence of processes involving reduction of the base alloy, infusion of residues from certain mystical reductions and processes, and eventually a bath of the molten alloy into a particular acid easily obtainable in the region that supposedly housed Irem, a process that proved nearly impossible until I devised a method of suspending the molten blob in a sealed glass and boiled the acid beneath so that the fumes suffused it, the device has proven useful to other alchemists in a variety of purposes since then... and finally allowing the alloy to cool in carefully prepared molds, blessed and made only of purified sands and waxes.

I then compared my result, a remarkably blood colored plate of metal, with a coin I had obtained at great expense from a collector of antiquities, said to be from Irem.

Aside from the matter of color, for the coin had much the appearence of Gold, though untouched by the wear of ages, the two metals proved remarkably similar in all other ways.  It seemed that I had, at least, produced the perhaps older, cruder version of the wonderous alloy.  

I later determined that a simple leaching, as any skilled metallurgist or smelter could perform, perhaps excluding the Dwarves who hold it to be a blasphemous technique created by the Elves, with certain salt acids would remove the deep red color and rough seeming surface leaving the golden sheen behind, and smoothing the texture significantly.

Do not take my simple description too lightly, for it involved many false starts and was conducted at only great cost, barely made up for by the eventual sale of the plate I had created.  Certain of the techniques were rather dangerous, and were I not already familiar with the challenges of my craft might have resulted in the loss of my labs and those assistants who I employed.  I maintain that only my knowledge of the related craft of Metallurgy enabled me to perform the operation correctly in the end.

I was able to determine, both in my artifact and my artifice, that the metal is both exceedingly hard and yet brittle. A simple wand, no thicker than a finger, may be snapped in twain by the exertions of a reasonably strong man, yet it is nearly as hard as the Adamantite awl I used to engrave it.  Once made it can be melted somewhat easily, and reformed as needed, though I was reluctant to test the same property in something so old as my simple coin, sacrifices must be made.

With the help of a local wizard of some repute, who it must be stated was quite eager to get his hands on the stuff, I was able to determine that Orichalcum does indeed have some remarkable properties in channelling and storing of mystical energies.  Its utility in the crafting of implements of the craft, and even as a receiver of enchantments was nearly on par with what the legends had suggested, perhaps even surpassing them.  With the sole exception of necromancy, no school of magic proved difficult, and those spells whose focus was upon the light of the sun or the heat of fire seemed particularly receptive to the metal, and vice versa.

I found a similar trend in the local clergy. Those temples dedicated to the sun proved eager to receive the fruits of my labors, and small amounts sacrificed to their gods were, if the priests are to be believes, particularly well received. Those temples whose gods dwelt in dark places, however, nearly murdered me in their haste to see me removed.

At a loss I turned once more to the old tales.  Irem, it must be remembered, was a desert city, and Hestabus's Magi-Queen's were sacrificed annually to the flames, though the meaning of that cryptic reference is now lost to us. Older tales always referenced the shining sun, and open temples... and of course in those days the Gods built the cities for their followers, or lived amoungst them.  While I could find no concrete evidence that this was the case, I believed that the Gods themselves, or certainly a God, had given the secrets of Orichalcum to their followers in ages past, perhaps even reintroducing the substance in later eras.  Even in checking my notes, the best progress in my quest to recreate it had always occured during the heights of the day, and my worst failures had routinely fell during the hours of darkness.

While my own patron is N'ur-Geb, an admittedly lesser known forge-god, I believe that He interceded on my behalf to allow its creation, for is not the goal of all of us the illumination of secret knowledge?    And while my faith had fallen by the wayside in recent years, lost as I had been in my quests and researches, I have since rededicated a small portion of my lab to Him, and the production of Orichalcum for His purposes, much to the dismay of the Faculty, who had hoped to profit more from its rediscovery.  Alas, their attempts to recreate my work have been in vein, and the astute reader need not guess why.

It's interesting you mention this because that's one of the sovereign materials Green Ronin used as a way to help characters bypass the need for "bag of swords" fighting.

I do not understand this 'bag of swords' comment of yours.  

I picked Orichalcum as one of the 'fantasy metallurgy' series because it is a common 'fantasy metal' going all the way back to the original story of Atlantis.

BUt I'm glad this interested you. Check out the other ones too in the big sticky in the other forum.

-Spike, who is unafraid to pimp himself out. Unafraid I tell you! Do not doubt!

Bag of swords is probably something of a misnomer, but more like golf bag of weapons. It basically represents the fact that (especially in 3.5) you almost need like...20 different weapons OTHER than your trusty +1 magic sword to fight anything after a few levels.

Quote from: Spike;318013I do not understand this 'bag of swords' comment of yours.

3.5 damage reduction:  many monsters need either silver or cold iron to hit, and cold iron isn't even, you know, actual "cold iron," but an alchemical substance comparable in cost to silvering.   I liked a lot of the errata type changes to 3.5, but this one drives me up the wall.  So close, yet so damn far!  "Silver or + X to hit" a la 1E wasn't "simple" enough for the bastards so they came up with a system where mid to high level fighters commonly carried around three or more different swords.

Didn't I just say that?

I must admit that the Damage Reduction mechanics in 3.5 are a bit unclear, but in the game I play in it hasn't been a terrible issue...  but then we have massive amounts of spell power and our main melee character is played by someone who has a serious math problem and regularly violates the laws of probability... even when being watched closely...

This all reminds me of Red mercury. Which I suppose could be useful for a modern campaign.

Quote from: Ronin;318561This all reminds me of Red mercury. Which I suppose could be useful for a modern campaign.

This mythical stuff has been known for over ten years, with all those references in pop culture and I just hear about it now?

Must be that my bullshit filter tolerences are too high.

Spike,

While I haven't played (or even run) that many high level games, it's interesting that your example has yet to happen in anything I've been through.

Spell power hasn't been in issue since the gamers I'm around generally don't do spellcasting.

I used to abstain from spell casting myself, but even as a GM I frequently saw spellcasters tossing 'encounter balance' out the window as low as the first two levels of D&D unless you plan around it.

Spike

So far it's not happened (yet) but then again not all of the spells that the spellcasters have are what I would consider using against PCs.

The GM of our Earthdawn game seems to like Orichalcum because every other widget we find is made out of the stuff... but I so hate they way he says 'Orichalcum' that I've gotten to where I hate the word altogether. It's become one of those annoying 'twee' words for me... like 'magick' and 'unicorn' and 'chakra'.

There is nothing wrong with Chakra! Sexy No Justu!