Mythral

A Crystal of Pure Magic

Mythral is a magically occurring substance. A crystal in its natural form, mythral grows in geodes below the earth. Folklore would have most believe that it grows where major historical events and stories of legend have taken place. Like a catalyst for powerful arcane use, mythral can be used in its crystalline form to execute spells, power arcane creations, or otherwise magically influence the world around it. Rarely if ever does magic manifest physically without the presence of mythral.
"To believe there is a physical manifestation of pure concept; a harmonious unionization of the Veil and Virosia herself. If indeed Virosia is always breathing, The Veil must be her mythral-drawing lungs, and Sar, the blood of her veins." -Nvaeran Iaelinras Qenaarae

Mythral In Virosia

Mythral is an important cultural resource. The Elves of Shaelarin seek to preserve the wonder of the natural resource, and manipulate it such that it could be used without shattering its esoteric and wonderous beauty. The Mythrael Arborium, a religious and spiritual destiny held by the Elves would have them care for these trees of mythral for centuries, using only what twigs and sheddings the trees saw unfit to continue growing itself. The Dwarves of Fjorlosia by contrast exploit mythral where they can, and take great pride in this. To find mythral is a great honor, and to be the dwarf to crack open a geode is a life-ending, greatly honorable endeavor. The raw mythral crystals can be processed by the Dwarves using safely guarded metallurgical techniques to process it into Mythraline; a light, supremely durable metal that can function both as a magical catalyst like normal mythral crystal, as well as an anti-magic buffer.

The Mythral Crystal

Mythral when pure is crystalline, and a pure manifestation of magic in physical form. Mythral ore is the crust that surrounds their geodes, and bears no value as it is brittle and does not trap sar. Mythral is thereby many things at once, capable of shaping itself into whatever suits a sartor's needs. It is volatile in that when it touches living things, those things lose their typical structure in favor of a mythralish-crystal shape, for better or for worse of the victim. This act restructures and revitalizes the mythral crystal. Most mages, therefore, have some form of carrying case for their mythral, such that they do not accidentally make contact with the crystal, but may still have it ready for spellcasting purposes.
The crystal itself can be more or less densely suffused with sar, or raw magic. Depending on the treatment of the crystal by a sartor, a stone may lose or gain potency. Most things that touch the crystal will suffuse the crystal with an imperceptable amount of sar as the welding occurs. When a crystal is held within a small iron cage, the crystal itself is welded to the iron, and the iron becomes rather brittle, but will not spread the mythral curse further. Silver, however, allows mythral to pass through it much more easily, and if the material is too thin, can spread mythral through to a wielder if used as a housing.
Mythral forms in supremely rare circumstances, creating gargantuan geodes encrusted by mythral ore. Their discovery is a once-in-a-dwarven-generation event, and are generally considerable political events when found. Only a handfull have ever been discovered, and each are named. The smallest geode ever found and excavated was just a hundred meters across, and the largest, the Saendaarin, is over a mile accross.
Below is a list of known crystals, where they are and whether they've been excavated.
Fjorlosia

• Sequan (A.T. 599) - Two hundred fifty meters in diamter, this was the first geode discovered by the dwarves, and was subsequently cracked into. Dwarves quickly discovered their aptitude for using the gems and developed applications for them. This news quickly reached the Shaelarin and sparked their ire, the elves referring to it as the "Murder of Sequar". A warning was issued, a mercy for their ignorance, and it was motioned that another "killed crystal" would result in war.

• Derenkam (G.N. 79) - Two hundred meters in diameter, found below the southern reaches of Loch Fjorla. This geode began filling with the lake above shortly after it was opened. In G.N. 82, covert Shaelarin forces were able to exasperate the cracks leading to the lake and flood the crystal on the many thousands of dwarves that had been mining it. This began the First Shaelarin War, the Shaelarin visciously eradicating what remained of those that lived in Old Fjorlosia before eventually declaring their victory and leaving entirely by G.N. 110.

• Uenderkam (723 G.N.) - One of the larger geodes, Uenderkam is over four hundred meters across at its widest, though it is rather long as opposed to a sphere. It's also one of the more vertically deep geodes, with its deepest height from floor to ceiling at over two hundred meters.

• Inehvazredalg (1001 G.N.) - A midsized geode, Inehvazredalg was located under the Old Fjorlosia ruins, and has since been the longest expedition to recover within Fjorlosian borders. The excavation was cut short for multiple reasons and to this day goes unfinished. Around 10% of the way through the excavation, incursions of beasts made of mythral ore and crystal began to occur with worrying frequency. In addition to prying elven forces taking out the odd caravan, it was deemed a lost cause after less than 20% of the mythral had been extracted.

• Mitzkethal (489 A.C.R.) - A larger than average geode, around one hundred twenty meters across, this geode is located west of Ardottr and south of Dhurrithjall, and was the primary reason for the founding of Eindrjall. Mitzkethal provided the first stones used for Velkazar and the invention of Adzir, preceeding the Bloodless War that began in 584 A.C.R. As a result, it has since been once of the fastest extractions for its size, and considered a golden age of mythral for the dwarves.

• Sveyikam (1417 A.C.R.) - This was one of the smaller geodes, around a hundred and fifty meters across, and almost perfectly spherical. This and Sverokam are referred to as the twin geodes, as they were both an effort for Fjorlosia to have an influx of mythral crystals. Just north of Fjorladdr, this geode is nestled neatly in the Oledmarr Valley's southern edge. It was cracked open, and though being large, it was not extremely richly filled, though Virosian law dictates that another cannot be opened for a very long time.

Akathia

• Ambyphia (932 G.N.) - This was a rather large crystal, over two hundred meteres across. Located under the souther reaches of the Akathian Peninsula, this geode was legend for having released the Ambyphala, a horrifying creature of stone and living mythral that slaughtered hundreds as it was released from its prison. The creature escaped into the peninsula, and its young now permeate the region. Crystalline groves and copses can be found all over the peninusla, home to these mosntrosities that prey on those foolish enough to explore through them. The Ambyphala has yet to be slain, though it seems the monsters are unwilling to leave the dense Akathian forests.

• Sverokam (1457 A.C.R.) - This is the most recently discovered mythral crystal, and was discovered relatively closely to Sveyikam, though it resides on the northern end of the Akathian peninsula, and is technically in human lands.

Mythral and Sar: The Process of Sartorcraft

The process of the creation of the spells can be distilled into a few steps.

1. Raw magical potential, Sar, saturates the Veil. This energy can be more or less saturated upon the Veil in accordance with Insallir and Ansallir, as well as with any spellwinds occuring.

This will dictate how a spellcaster wishes to manifest a spell. Sar can be manipulated more acutely if the caster is able and willing to draw more energy from themself, and so Insallir and Ansallir can be negated given enough magical talent.

• Casting any spell forces sar through the caster. Sar draws from the soul, and the exhaustion this causes is quite distinct, but can be strengthened over time. Sartors that exert themselves beyond their limit can force magic to happen, but the sar will begin to cleave soul and body, separating the two. When this happens, the death of the caster can happen abruptly if they are not careful.

2. The Veil is then manipulated in Virosia via mythral, and the amount of sar, along with Insallir, Ansallir and spellwind, impacts the shape and texture of the Veil as it is drawn into Virosia, along with whatever shape is being crafted with the crystal. The more rigid, isometric and crystalline the crafted spell, the more powerful it can be, and the more separate effects they can produce.

• Multifaceted spellpoints of a single shape work only up to a point before the benefits have diminishing returns. Often it becomes favorable to limit the shape's spellpoint count in favor of layering shapes within one another. Sometimes called different dimensions, layers, circles or depths, spell levels are separated into distinct categories, counting from no depth (cantrip) which requires no sarrish drain on the caster. Anything more powerful is a counted layer or circle, which draws on the soul of the caster. These number one through ten in terms of intensity. Exceeding beyond this limit is theoretically possible but each layer punches through another layer of reality's fabric, and operates with different laws. Determining those separate laws and rules at that depth has yet proven impossible.

3. After the Veil is drawn forth and severed from the mythral, the sar and Veil unite and "realize" or otherwise become physical aspects of Virosia.

• The process of this itself is magical, and can produce effects that are strictly magical in nature, reacting differently than anything truly physical. A large portion of the time, however, especially with spells considered expressive, the effects are not magical in their essence. A fireball spell produces a ball of fire, pure and simple. The flame is not magical, regardless of its production.

4. The sar and severed piece of the Veil are then reasoned to escape back from whence they came, unconsumed by the process.

• This is not known with almost any certainty.

Specific Spell Archetypes

Two major categories exist that spells will fall into, and if they don't fall into either of these, they are lumped into a third. These categories are Expressive, Implicit and Selven.
Expressive spells are powerful evocations of typically elemental magic. Conjuring a ball of fire, a wall of ice, or an arc of lightning are all expressive forms of magic. Generally the things that fall into this category are apparent and moreover visible, and have no or limited effects on the mind and soul of an afflicted creature.
Implicit spells afflict the mind and soul. These effects are often subtle by comparison to an expressive spell, and oftentimes have lingering effects that are not immediately apparent. Enchanting, some illusory, and almost all mind-warping spells land here.
The sartorship of these categories is slightly different, in that the application of material, verbal and somatic components take place at different times. Where implicit spells require them in the early stages of spell creation, expressive spells generally require one of their major components as a final catalyst. Something like a final dash of cinnamon to send a gust of wind through the air.
Selven magic is not well understood in academic sartorship. The requirements are all similar, and so are the motions. What is different is that the line between expressive and implicit is blurred. Apparent effects that hold the creatures mind, and what looks to be simple cascades of light that carry with them the burn of brilliant flame. This power is drawn from the veil of the selvedge, and is only accessed by those of Selven blood, or with the help of entities from the realm beyond.

Summoning Magic

Summoning is possible as an expressive and sometimes selven form of magic, and encompasses a few kinds of movement. Between locations on the same plane, both with access to mythral, rifts can be sundered for short periods, and traversed through. They are quite resource intensive, but more simple, short distance teleportation is also possible.
Summoning something from or to the Selvedge, however, is an entirely different problem. The portal must be opened from both sides simultaneously for either to work, and for that, coordination is needed. That sort of information, however, is hard to exact with such constraints, and so "calendars" are an important facet of making these gates possible. Once one creature can get simple messages through to the other side, they hope that the other finds it. These often take the form of some kind of universal calendar that their creator has left details of a summoning circle on. If they are fortunate, something finds it and opens an identical portal at the same time.

Mythral

Mythral is the only known way to shape magic. Use of the crystal is intrinsic to shaping the veil, and therfore the creation of spells. The raw stone resonates with the sar within the Veil around it, along the edges of its facets, and uses whatever runes that may be inscribed on its surface to articulate magical effects. In essence, the crystal will absorb and expel mana with different frequencies and in varied geometries which fabricates an array of effects therein. When a mythral crystal is crafted to be a focus for spells, it is known as a Manastone, a sarran focus or simply as a focus.
Generally speaking, the more sar that passes through the stone, the more powerful the effect, but the complexity and efficiency of the shape that the crystal takes will impact which effects come with ease to the stone, and how powerful they can be with an given amount of sar. Spellcraft is an emcompassing concept created by the dwarves of Fjorlosia to describe for the creation of sarstones and for their use.

Type

Ore/Mineral