Ruberina

An expensive pigment

The legend tales that Orryc Cellaris, the forefather of a rich family of merchants from Saythian, discovered the exhistence of the ruberina accidentally. During a travel by sea, surprised by a storm Orryc suffered of severe sea-sickness, during a stop to repair the ship he went on the cost to collect some scented plants to wash his clothes. He couldn't know that some of the plants collected where contaminated by a lichen called Rubrock, hence when he warmed up the water to wash his clothes some of them where stained by a beautiful red tones. A different man would have complained about his bad luck for the ruined clothes, but Orryc was a curious resilient man so planned to come back in the area to figure out what stained his cloths and determined to make a good earning from it. A few century later, the commercial empire of his family is still rooted on the harvesting of the Rubrock, production of the Ruberina and his commercial exploitation.

How to obtain a rich crimson fabric

Cellaris family has developed and improved with constant research the technique to extract Ruberina from the rhizome of Rubrock. The first step is, obviously gather a sufficient amount of the rhizome, clean it carefully from the soil and remove with a sharp knife the thickened portions. Then you warm up to early boiling point the water, reduce the fire to cinders to avoid it from overboiling and throw the cleaned rhizomes inside, stirring frequently. A better result is gathered if the pot and stirring equipment are made of copper, although other material will still get a reasonable production. It is as well very important to choose high quality fabric, because since it isn't possible to farm the Rubrock, the spontaneous growth of the lichen will determine how much Ruberina can be produced. The ratio between availability and demand has kept the price of the ruberina to a very high level. The Cellaris family is not the only producer of the pigment but still is the most important, controlling or owning the vast majority of the areas that produce a good harvest of Rubrock, but generally rocky areas exposed to salty splashes and intense winds they have manage to buy them cheaply from their former occupants, who were sitting unaware on a pile of gold.

The favourite pigment of Be Chuille's clergy.

The church of Be Chuille traditionally wears paraments of a deep crimson colour, they obviously have priority among fabric buyers and through the century a strong bond between the Cellaris family and them was created and regularly renewed. Many cadet children of the family have joined the clergy, often rising rapidly through the ranks. The Cellaris family grants a favourable price for their most important purchasers, to a distracted eye that may appear as a selfless charitable gesture but the clergy of Be Chuille is capable to return favours in many way, furthermore, it would be rather unwise to cross them.