THE
MINERAL
URUYANT |
Uruyant is said to be the hardest, most robust
mineral to be found in all of Santharia, if not in
the whole world of Caelereth.
This mineral is so hard that it cannot be dressed by other materials than
itself. The color of Uruyant is undefined and varies with the changing
position of the diurnal astre. Uruyant can be found only at very
few special regions above the sea (e.g. the Warnaka mountain range in
northwestern Santharia); it is assumed
that great underwater territories of the oceans may contain Uruyant as well.
Description.
Uruyant has an extremely solid structure. At least it
is difficult to imagine any substance tougher than Uruyant as it is not only
impossible to dress it with the help of any other mineral but it seems to be
impervious to the tooth of time itself. Therefore Uruyant is virtually
indestructable, susceptible to be dressed only with purer forms of the same
mineral.
Per se Uruyant does not have any definite color. The spectrum of its lustre
varies with the changing position of the diurnal astre. This
makes the crystaline structure of the mineral unique and very appreciated by
women who enjoy uruyantine jewellry.
Territory.
Uruyant can be found only at very few special regions above the sea; it is
assumed that great underwater territories of the oceans may contain Uruyant as
well. Almost the whole of the northern Warnaka
mountain range in northwestern
Santharia are made up of this material.
The rough climate of the north has in all likelihood eroded the outer,
sedimentary strata of the mountains, leaving only their uruyantine core. The
same process is responsible for the formation of the uruyantine arches which are
today one of the distinct landmarks of the northern territories in the
United
Kingdom of Santharia. These arches very often can also be spotted in the midst
of the Dark Sea and are often mistaken for gigantic Sea
Serpents, which makes
them dangerous for ship traveling in this region.
Usage. As
the dressing of Uruyant is all but impossible, spezimen which are of the size to
serve as pieces of jewellery are highly prized in the southern parts of
Santharia.
Aside from the usage of jewellry Uruyant has become an important factor in the
gnomish measurement system: A small
piece of Uruyant which was given to Apothek Urdan Dwarffriend for his help with
creating the different types of iron in collaboration with
Harrgor es Mithen is the basis of the incredibly accurate
gnomish measuring system:
This small Uruyant piece weighs about ¼ of an od (the
exact conversion, established by
gnomish merchants to facilitate trade with
humans, is 11/39th of an od). The piece of
Uruyant is almost indestructible and
weighs almost exactly the same when it was presented as it does now and
it is impossible to shave flakes off it so it was considered perfect for use as
a weight. Originally Urdan Dwarffriend calculated its
weight using most of the primitive and ununified systems the
gnomes used then and he
used his piece of Uruyant to make sure he wasn’t swindled
and to check his weights during chemical reactions to make sure he didn’t make
any mistakes. When the usefulness of this system and its ease of use became
apparent it was adopted by all gnomes
as the standard and the earlier systems died out. The capital
gnomish
city, Gnorath, contains this piece of
Uruyant and in each village a piece of iron
can be found that has been weighed against this original.
For smaller measurements the weight, called an Uruyant,
is divided up. To do this a piece of iron is obtained which is slightly heavier
than one Uruyant. It is then divided approximately in
half, and the two pieces are weighed against eachother. They are then shaved
until they are the same weight and both of them are compared to an
Uruyant, and both are shaved by about the same amount,
until eventually you get to almost perfect half Uruyants
or more commonly halves. Of course nowadays you simply
get a lump of iron and shave it until it is the same weight as an already
existing half. About every ten years the iron uruyant in a village is compared
to the original Uruyant and if it has lost weight it is
re-made. The Uruyant is commonly subdivided into 512
pieces. Most chemists will have brass weights totalling one Uruyant
divided up as follows, one half, one quarter, one eighth, one sixteenth, one
thirty-second, one sixty-fourth, one hundred and twenty-eight, one two hundred
and fifty-sixths and two five hundred and twelfths. Apart from those shown above
there are no other subdivisions ever used and it should be obvious that anything
can be weighed to within one five hundred and twelfths of an Uruyant.
For larger weights Uruyants are used as the standard
measure, i.e. a loaf of bread would be about 4 Uruyants.
This system is also the basis for the measurement of liquids. The standard
measure of liquids is called rather unimaginatively "a
Measure" and is equivalent to the
volume taken up by one Uruyant’s weight of water. The
system uses identical subdivisions and most chemists will have a set of small
cups consisting of one half measure all the way down in the same way to five
hundred and twelfths.
The use of the words "Measure" and
"Uruyant" are often redundant. If
it is more than one Uruyant it is often shortened to
Uru. There are shortened names for all the subdivisions
of Uruyants which have developed due to constant use.
Half, a quarter and an eight of an Uru are normally said
without Uru all the time (i.e. a half of limestone). The
smaller divisions are sometimes referred to in terms of eights for up to a sixty
fourth (i.e. half an eighth and quarter of an eighth and confusingly double an
eighth). A 128th is a leaf, a 256th is a bee’s eye, and a 512th a grain.
This system has also been adopted by
Brownies, who learned of it through trade with
gnomes and now have
adopted the system with a few changes. The
gnomes, as stated above,
never use any other divisions of an Uru however as the
Brownies
need to measure even smaller things so have continued the subdivisions
and they use half a grain etc. all the way down to encompass all the weights
they need.
Information provided by
Artimidor
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