THE
MITHRILAN
MINERAL |
Mineral which heightens the positive characteristics of most metals and other substances, so far found only in the south of the Aj'Nuvic Grounds. Mithrilan has at a first glance nothing to do with the prized and now extremely rare metal mithril, however, it enhances, if enough of that substance is added, the qualities of known metals, especially iron or steel in a way, that these metals nearly reach the quality of mithril - or other positive characteristics of a metal like flexibility and grindability are heightened.
Appearance.
The substance of Mithrilan is found in a mixture with salt in flat, dried out
pools. There the mixture has, especially under the hot sun
of the southern
Aj'Nuvic Grounds
a greyish-silvery to silvery-glimmering look, depending how much of the
substance is actually solved in the salt and of which quality it is. When
purified, that is when all the salt has been washed out in a long lasting
process, the lesser valuable, but still highly prized Mithrilan has a grey
shimmering colour, the best quality has nearly no colour but is reflecting the
light, mirroring the surrounding that it is hard to look at, and its colour
can't be defined. Maybe the best description is, that - when poured on a flat
table - it looks at the first glance like a highly polished silvery ball which
floats apart to cover finally the whole surface - provided it has a rim,
otherwise it just drops onto the floor.
The same happens with the grey powder as well. It forms an ordinary heap for the
moment, when poured out of a bag, but tends to spread over the whole area
available soon. It has no taste, nor does it smell, but if touched it initiates
a revolving feeling, an unease in the whole body. Mithrilan is a heavy mineral.
One ladle of the greyish powder weighs nearly an
od, the shimmering variety is even
heavier, one sip weighing two and a half ods.
The finished product has a high prize, though it varies with the region sold,
and gets higher with the distance from its origin.
Usages and Effects
on other Substance, especially Metals.
Mithrilan is not much worth as a substance of its own, but if mixed in the right
amount with metals or other materials, it enhances their quality unexpectedly
high, so it is well worth its exorbitant price.
The most Mithrilan is used to forge swords
and knives. As everybody knows, a sword is
made of two kinds of iron: One which is soft and if it would be formed to a
sword it would be very flexible and not
break easily, but it is not hard and is easily cut or gets damaged when it takes
a strike. The other kind of iron is hard, strong and can be granddad very good.
However, it has no flexibility and could break easily. The art of a good
sword smith is now to combine these two
kinds in a way, so that an excellent weapon
is the result: flexible and hard at the same time, and very sharp. This is
achieved in a difficult process of putting flat pieces of the two kinds on each
other, heat them, hammer them to a certain degree (not too long though!) and
then let them cool again. In a second work step, this piece of metal is folded
under heat, hammered, cooled down again. The process can be repeated quite
often, the more the better the sword.
Mithrilan now enhances, when added to the initial two kinds of iron, both
characteristics. So quite a good sword can
be obtained in only a few of the described work steps. However, if enough effort
to make a good sword is put in a
weapon enriched with the precise amount of
Mithrilan, an excellent piece of craftsmanship will be the result. Only the best
experts can tell such a sword apart from one
out of pure mithril. Here even the disadvantage of the higher weight can be
avoided, because it is possible to make the blades very thin.
However, if too much of the substance is used to enhance its abilities, a
negative effect will take place: In the beginning an excellent
weapon is created, but it will disintegrate
in a short time, depending on how much of the Mithrilan was used above the
optimum amount.
Of course Mithrilan enhances any other metal and other substances as well. Her
only a few can be mentioned:
Aureum
An anyway precious metal, its soft golden glow is accentuated and its hardness
increased, so that it is equal to the best steel
weapon - at
least to those made without Mithrilan.
Copper
Of course its normal characteristics are deepened, but it is mostly added in
very small quantities, if jewellery is produced which needs no polishing for a
long time.
Ithildin (Moonsilver)
Not used very often in its pure form, a new usage is currently tested in
New-Santhala.
When a small amount of Mithrilan is added, the property of Ithildin to reflect
moonlight is enhanced very strongly as we know already from their usage as
torches. So the government of
New-Santhala put
along the river bench of the Thaehelvil
River rows of small pieces of Ithildin to prevent nightly visitors from
falling into the river.
Udzerene
Though the Shendar always deny the
use of Mithrilan in their mixture for getting this bright blue colour, it is
widely known, that it was at least added when the blue tiles for the northern
gate of Strata where made, to lessen the risk
of breaking them during the transport.
Method
of Production.
The Mithrilan-salt mixture is harvested by the
Shendar tribe of the Kha'si, who
transport most of it through the southern Nirmenith Mountains and the Lands of
Pain down to Thalambath, about a quarter
is brought to Varcopas. In both places the salt is removed till the Mithrilan is
extremely pure, for any remains of salt would spoil its effect on the metals.
The only way to get it clean is to add a huge amount of
water to the salt-mithrilan mixture and dissolve the salt. The Mithrilan as
a non-soluble substance remains in the washing pans, while the salty
water is replaced bit by bit with fresh one. This
process has to be repeated again and again. Finally the spring
water has to be replaced by distilled
water, until the pure Mithrilan is gained. The
shimmering variety of the Mithrilan is much more difficult to treat than the
lesser greyish-silvery powder. There are only a few experts who are able to do
this work without loss of the valuable material.
The productiveness is dependent on the place where the Mithrilan was found, and
on its quality. The lower the quality, the more Mithrilan is gained from a pygge
of the salt-mixture. The best results ever gained in
Thalambath were 5
ladles of the grey power in a
pygge salt. But it could be just a
ladle in 10
pygges as well. The better quality, the
shimmering variety is even much more rare. It is due to its movability measured
in sips. So two
sips on a
pygge is the best result ever seen in
Varcopas.
Most times, a mixture of both, the lesser and the higher quality are found. It
is impossible to separate them. So charging the right amount of
sans for it is often a problem, because it
is difficult to tell how much of which quality is in it.
The advantages Mithrilan has in the forging of mainly
weapons is enormous. However, its prize is
not only so high because of its rareness, but of the dangers of producing it as
well, for Mithrilan is extremely poisonous. It seems to have no effect or only
little when imbedded in the salt. But as soon as the salt is washed away, it
gets the more poisonous the purer it is. It is not yet known exactly how it gets
into touch with the body, but probably just parts of the fine powder are hanging
in the air and is inhaled by those working with it. The
high quality is suspected to evaporate, to give away some sort of gases, though
it doesn't smell.
Symptoms of the poisoning are generally bad health which leads in bad cases to
an early death, it starts with coughing, respiration problems and bloody sputum
in the end. There are no known cases of a murder with this poison, probably
because it is so expensive.
The price for Mithrilan varies greatly, of course depending on the quality, but
on the place where it is sold as well. The lowest fair is to pay at the place of
its production, in Thalambath, only very
little is available for sale in Varcopas.
Rough numbers are: 500 sans for a
ladle of the low quality powder,
purchased in Thalambath, and up to 3000
sans for a
sip or two of the highest pure quality up
in Voldar or
Nyermersys. The highest prizes are
however paid in Shan'Thai.
Areas of Production.
The main producer of Mithrilan is the southern town of
Thalambath where
two third of the collected salt goes to. The ever-present snow-cap of the Norong'Sorno
and the from there emerging rivulets provide the town with enough fresh
water to clean the Mithrilan from the salt. The
production area is exclusively west of the town, some
strals away and outside the town
fortification, but located in old lava tubes and fortified enough to fend off
common thieves who try to get some of the precious stuff the cheap way.
Thalambath is
therefore the town of quite a lot of sword
smithies which produce high quality weapons,
though they try to accomplish this with using a lot of Mithrilan instead of
working on them for a long time, heating, folding and cooling them in a long
process. Most of the weapons
sold to the continent of Aeruillin are coming from
Thalambath. Pure Mithrilan is sold
to Shan'Thai as well, but only to an oversized prize.
Thalambath
is said to be the place which produces the highest amount
of good quality weapons in
the known world, in total and referred to the count of its inhabitants as well.
The other only place where Mithrilan is gained is near the city of Varcopas, on
its western shore to the south of the city. There the foothills of the cloud
forest provide the working areas with plenty of water.
If it is possible at all, there the purest Mithrilan is washed out, the amount
of high quality Mithrilan is much higher than in
Thalambath.
The Thalambath
smithies therefore blame the
Shendar with providing them generally
with lower quality, but as long as only a few
Shendar are
able to judge the salt for its contents of good Mithrilan
(and even they deny that it is possible), nothing can be done about this than
lamenting. The Mithrilan gained in Varcopas is used only partly by local
smithies, maybe a quarter stays in the town, a quarter goes to
Bardavos where the most artistic and
beautiful weapons are made, the rest is
sold world-wide.
Thalambath
produces a high amount of
weapons ranging from
good quality to high end quality. What comes from Varcopas is rare and without
exception the nearest what you get compared to a
sword out of mithril f.e. Many claim, that these
swords are even better than ones out of
mithril, because when forging them the excellent craftsmanship of the smiths
made them even better. They are not as beautiful than those of
Bardavos, but the simplicity of their
design stands for the excellent work concerning balance, the right amount of
flexibility and hardness. A Varcopas sword
is said to be an extension of your arm, it fights for
you.
History of the Industry.
Although the Aj'Nuvic
Grounds were explored quite early during the appropriation of the
Ráhaz-Dáth
by the Shendar, the discovery of how
to use the Mithrilan is of a far later date. The strangely shimmering salt was
known for long, that it was poisonous to ancertain degree and could not be used
for eating purposes was found out the hard way. It was the reason for the nearly
extinction of the Shen-Kha'si and the decreasing number
of Varcopas citizens. Soon after the Aj'Nuvic
Grounds were found and the northern part
was used as feeding ground for their animals. The salt
found in the southern part was harvested to season the food, it was even priced
for its nice shimmering appearance and sold on the markets of Varcopas,
Uderza and
Bardavos. It took years to find out the reason why the other two tribes, the
Shen-D'auras and the Shen-Siuu,
which used the salt out of the Makadi'Gadi salt pans,
didn't suffer under the same illness. It affected
especially the wealthy people, because they used the more expensive kind with
the most glittering appearance.
It was not until 1000 b.S. before the it was used again - but its significance
was not discovered until 567 b.S. when a talented
sword smith living in
Varcopas realised the importance of it and the possibilities lying in it.
Many thousand years after it was first discovered, about 1000 years before
Santhros ascended to the throne, a curios
young Shendar boy just wanted to find
out, why this salt was so different from the one gained in the salt pans. Of
course, how it happened and how he found a trace of Mithrilan is not really
known, but mothers like to narrate the story of a lucky little boy to their
children. The important fact however was, that he was luckily able to extract a
little amount and that it was used by his uncle, a
sword smith -
somehow. It was found, that traces of it helped improve the qualities of the
metals when mixed in it, but not to a great amount, and so it was only used
rarely, and the production was more a pastime for youths who wanted
to test working with a poisonous substance and get some
additional money.
Known for nearly five hundred years, it took a ingenious
sword smith to
perceive the vast possibilities of Mithrilan.
Tahirr Kha‘iry might have even been a descendant of the boy Kha‘re, who first
extracted the grey powder from the salt, for he was of Shen-Kha‘si origin as
well, though his family lived in Varcopas for three generations as well known
sword smiths. He was
very talented and had learned his craft from his uncle. But soon his skills
outflanked those of his master, and so he decided to travel and to see, what he
could learn and achieve elsewhere, how he could improve his skills and learn
from other smiths Santharia wide, what he
could not learn at home. He never related much of his travelling, but rumours
go, that he even had a dwarf of the
Mitharim as an teacher.
Back in Varcopas, after long years of travelling and learning he started again
to work in his inherited smithery. It is not known, what brought him to add the
Mithrilan first, but he was the man, who organised excursions in the southern
Aj'Nuvic
Grounds to recover more of the salt in one year than
was harvested in the last 100 years together. He learned to distinct the
different kinds of salt and though it is nearly impossible to say exactly what
amount of high paid Mithrilan is in the salt. However, he would not have
succeeded, if not his younger brother Zahid helped him to build up and supervise
the cleaning houses in which the pure Mithrilan was
gained. After thirty years of experimenting and forging, of adding more or less
of the substance to the iron, he finally found out, how much to use and how to
work with it. However, it is told, that on the day he finished the
sword which he considered perfect his
brother Zahid died of the poisonous effects of the Mithrilan. Tahirr wanted to
name the substance after his brother Zahidium to honour him, but from the day on
when it was clear that it was able to enhance iron to nearly resemble
mithril, Mithrilan was used by everybody.
Transporting the salt in more distant towns proved to be not cost-effective, so
Thalambath and Varcopas are the only two
towns producing Mithrilan till today, because they are the only two in this
region who have enough water for the extraction for
their disposal.
It is said, that 482 b.S. the sword King
Thar wore at his coronation to the king of the
newly found Tharania was crafted by Tahirr Kha‘iry of Varcopas.
The knowledge how to craft excellent swords
with Mithrilan was kept a secret for quite some time in Tahirr's family. Two of
his wife‘s sons and one daughter became famous sword
smiths as well, and the fame spread soon far.
Of course it was known that Mithrilan was the secret of the fine swords,
but it took the smithies of Thalambath
about two hundred years to catch up with those of Varcopas. They never reached
the skill to do so perfect swords
like the meanwhile grown family Kha‘iry of Varcopas
though, but were content to do good quality swords
with less time and work needed to make them.
This was different with the dwarven
communities farer north. Shortly before Tahirr‘s death, a
dwarven order for a
small amount of Mithrilan was coming in, and to the surprise of his children he
wanted to send the dwarves
a fair amount of high quality - for free. He even insisted on a reliable
transport, and so his oldest son travelled to the Mitharim, who had sent the
request.
Among the dwarves the
substance was heavily disputed and most clans were very sceptical and refused to
even consider using it. The Mitharim
however decided to try out the slowly getting famous powder, with whom lesser
skilled humans were able to produce
weapons of a quality which reached the
dwarven quality, or
even surpassed it, which no one dared to say though.
Unfortunately the Mithrilan, known to be poisonous, turned out to have a far
heavier impact on the dwarven
body than on the human, and all
dwarves, it is said that there were seven in
number, which had worked extensively with the powder, died within three years.
After these tragic incidents, Mithrilan was a tabooed
substance, forbidden by
Trum-Baroll himself it is said, because it was deadly to the
dwarven
kind. Now those, who were against its use from the
beginning, brought forward that this had been clear from the beginning, because
it was not gained as a metallic ore within their mountain.
The factual basis to this belief was through the deaths of the
dwarven smiths obtained the hard, tragic way.
Whether this is due to the enlarged dwarven
nasal passages and lungs allowing a much higher level of
absorption, or simply a physiological difference, is till today unknown by their
alchemists and physicians. They insist that Mithrilan is
simply a corrupting influence on forge craft and refuse to have any items in
their households that contain the additive.
However, in these three years of the use of Mithrilan by the
dwarves, the best
weapons ever produced were forged under the
Mithral Mountains,
and none afterwards reached the high quality of this
swords, now called "Blood
Swords".
The Kha'iry family was shocked to hear about the impact the Mithrilan had on the
dwarves.
Tahirr Kha'iry died shortly after he learned about it, burdened by the knowledge
of the so tragic outcome of his gift - with which, is rumoured, he wanted to
thank for his teachings.
Nowadays eleven families live in Varcopas, who maintain a
sword smithery which
produces high quality swords
and other weapons,
all rivalling dwarven
standard, or surpassing it. All claim to be descendants of the first smith who
used Mithrilan, Tahirr Kha'iry. The swords
are very sought-after, but many people prefer
dwarven
weapons, because the
fear to have a sword,
which might have a whiff of too much Mithrilan in it and crumble just in the
moment when needed mostly.
There is another group which is interested in using Mithrilan, that are the
gnomes. Despite the high prize, it is quite
often found in their alchemist kitchens, and if there are only traces in a small
glass jar. Nobody exactly knows what they are doing with it, but maybe one day
they find another marvellous application.
Myth/Lore. Mithrilan is a doubtful
gift of the gods, poisonous, but very useful as well. So it is no surprise, that
a Shendar myth tells us that it is
nothing else than an unpleasant body secretion
Etherus left back when he stamped on the
Nirmenith Mountains to annoy
Baveras, forming accidentally the
Aj‘nuvic
Grounds.
Is it a myth, is it a lore, or is it reality? Nobody can say it, but rumours go,
that the sword of
Santhros, handed down or conquered from
king to king for generations now, is the original
sword given to
Santhros from the dwarves on the occasion
of his ascension to the throne. This sword
is said to have the most excellent, even marvellous
qualities, due to the process of forging it. It is said,
that the clan of the
Mitharim dwarves, who experimented with
Mithrilan till it was declared an impure substance and its use forbidden,
made three swords out
of mithril, enhanced with Mithrilan. Even then the mithril was a very rare
metal, but the dwarves may have had their own
resources. Who can say, if this is true or just a nice tale? And if it is true,
where are the other two weapons?
A saying known mainly in Uderza and the
Shen-Kha‘si territories is: "As lucky as Kha're!"
or "He is as lucky as Kha‘re!"
This means that somebody had a stroke of luck, several unrelated incidents which
turn out to be favourite for him, but don‘t really affect his life. The
following story told at the nightly fires explains it.
Information
provided by
Talia Sturmwind
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