Frostfleece

The coat was exquisite, a beautiful double-breasted piece, dyed in swirls of turquoise and black, lined at every edge with the naturally bright white fur of frostfleece, which made it a shame that it was being used to cover a body in an Capital City alleyway. Phanae gingerly shifted the coat off the body, which was burnt and charred beyond recognition.
The guardswoman turned to Alistair. "What are you thinking?" The two were far enough away from the guardsmen cordoning off the scene that they wouldn't be overheard.
"Hrm." The wizard put a finger on the fur lining, then shook his head. "Misdirection. If the fleece ignited him, there'd be a magical signature on the resonance mineral in the fur, and the body would be burned....at the neck, wrists, and along the front buttons. But the body is cooked roughly evenly." Alistair gave a sniff. "Yeah, I won't be forgetting this smell for a while. But if a wizard did it, they did it without magic, I'd say."
The guardswoman frowned. "Why roast a man to death, leave him in an alleyway for all to find, then leave his incredibly expensive coat behind?"
"Sounds like more tales of sheathed knives, if you ask me. Whoever this person was had enemies." Alistair dusted the front of his fingers with lime and held them out; the lime began to glow, casting a yellowish hue over the dim twilight, but the light quickly dimmed and vanished as the wizard's fingers moved closer to the coat. "Right, forgot about that. No magic allowed."
Phanae handed him her lantern. "Must be frustrating having something magic can't do."
The wizard gave a slight smile. "Plenty of things magic can't do. Solving this murder mystery's one of them, that one's all on the fine guards of the Etoile Capital City."

Properties

Material Characteristics

Frostfleece is visually indistinct from its source material, the white furred pelts of the snow bears that inhabit the southern range of The Whitecaps. Frostfleece is a treated pelt, warm on the inside, and remarkably comfortable to wear whether as a pelt or once sewn into clothing.

Physical & Chemical Properties

Frostfleece, while a high quality warmth-preserving insulator in its own right, has a unique property linked to its production with a liquified solution of Resonance Mineral. Resonance Mineral ordinarily preserves the magic that was cast upon it, but Frostfleece instead sinks and converts all magic cast upon it into a heating effect, drawing heat from the environment and warming its wearer. This has two important applications - magically charged Frostfleece is excellent for keeping people warm, and those wearing Frostfleece are essentially impervious from direct applications of magic.

Compounds

Frostfleece is becoming in fashion as a material of choice for high-end fourth season clothing, an alternative to ordinary furs, though far more expensive and difficult to acquire. When used as a fur lining, it's properties as a magical sink are naturally weakened, but frostfleece coats allow magic-capable casters to stay warm with minimal effort expended.

Origin & Source

The snow bears of the southern ice cap are only rarely encountered in the Whitecaps themselves, but the general inaccessibility of the ice means that hunters looking to take a pelt must travel several days on foot south of The Icefalls until they get to the northernmost area of the bears' hunting range. The bears themselves, naturally, don't take kindly to being hunted - only the most experienced of wildland hunters carrying heavy warbows can reliably take a snowbear's pelt.

Life & Expiration

The Resonance Mineral treatment that's used to create frostfleece from snowbear pelts is known to lose its effectiveness over time, though the material is new enough to where none know the precise longevity of a frostfleece coat. It's expected that, once the magical warming properties fade, frostfleece simply becomes like any other high-quality fur. Re-treatment of the fur to restore this property is hypothetically possible, but is unnecessary as of yet.

History & Usage

History

Snow bear pelts were essentially novelties over most of history; their bright white fur was a contrast to the ordinary browns and reds of bear and fox pelts common across Saibh, and the story of their origin as they passed from trader to trader from the eastern archipelago to the west continent devolved into bizarre tall tales and fanciful mythologies. The mapping of the known world not long after The War of Unification laid to rest the myths, clearly identifying the bears and returning a few dead animal samples to The Academy of Etoile for study and taxidermy.
The discovery of Magic in 715 led to rapid experiments with Resonance Mineral in order to discover potential emergent behavior and new magical properties. The sample of bearpelt in the archives was found to have interesting properties after being soaked in a heated solution of powdered Resonance, Ryssae Oil, camphor, and a tiny pinch of Oreichal for a full thirty six hours - the imbued pelt had no visual difference, but reacted quite strongly to magical energies cast upon it, converting them to heat. 
The exorbitant cost of both sourcing the pelt and imbuing the minerals means that it is a rare and highly coveted material, though more for private displays of wealth than for practical use.

Everyday use

The Wizard's Association of Etoile maintains a number of full size bearpelts of frostfleece, not worked into anything resembling ordinary clothing. These pelts are used as protective equipment when conducting magical experimentation - unruly magic is converted to heat, and most mages would prefer relatively superficial burns over being lanced directly with magical energy, or having their skin itself ignited or frozen. It should be noted that frostfleece pelts do not protect against indirect magic; the pressure shockwave produced by a Charge: Snap spell, for instance, will go straight through a fleece, likely shredding and destroying it. Discussions of stockpiling amounts of this fleece for potential military use as some sort of magic-quelling armor remain in the realm of theory.
Apart from this practical use, sections of frostfleece are used to line expensive and customized clothing worn by the nobility. In the course of most travel in Etoile, ordinary furs will suffice, but the use of such a rare and expensive material, especially by people without the ability to use magic and make use of the fleece, is purely a signal of uninhibited luxury. That being said, it is easily the highest quality fur insulator available for use in warm clothing.

Hazards

One notable hazard of frostfleece is more or less by design - the active heating of whoever is wearing it, if the fleece absorbs magic. In any environment where the wearer expects directed magical energy, they must be prepared to discard the fleece if it gets hot enough to burn, if too much magic is channeled into it.

Environmental Impact

The high value of these fleeces resulted in an anticipatory restriction on the hunting and poaching of snow bears, though their habitat is formally outside the Principality of Etoile. This turned out to be unnecessary after the deaths of several would-be hunters in the Whitecaps, either slain by the bears themselves or falling victim to the harsh elements. The hunters of the Icefalls present snow bear pelts for trade sparingly, but the bear population seems to be in no immediate danger.

Reusability & Recycling

Frostfleece is a new enough material such that no examples of the fleece have outlived its useful design lifetime, but it's likely far less costly to refurbish it by re-doing the pelt treatment than by sourcing a new pelt and creating new fleece-lined clothing.

Distribution

Trade & Market

Pelts occasionally arrive by tradeships plying the great circular trade route, and are sold to open posted bids at the pierside exchange. Once sold, the pelts are imbued into frostfleece by custom contract with the Wizard's Association of Etoile, then either preserved as a whole pelt, or cut for use by couturiers. The trade of actual fleeces is quite rare; a given fleece is marked for end use from the moment it's purchased at the docks.

Law & Regulation

No laws yet restrict the trade of frostfleece, though it's magic sinking property makes it potentially useful in anti-magic applications of interest to the state. This is a subject of active debate in the Hall of the Princeps, though nothing has come of it so far.

Type

Biomaterial

Value

~50,000F for a full pelt

Rarity

Very rare

Color

Off-white