Orihalcum

Orihalcum is a bizarre, pseudo-organic crystalline substance with several unique properties. Vibrantly colourful, it appears to give off its own light in a similar manner to bioluminescence. It is a fairly hard material at about 7 out of 10 on the Moh hardness scale. The crystal structure of orihalcum is highly irregular, sometimes creating ammonitic spirals, dendritic branches, wavy tendrils, simple towers and more. But these are the least unusual of its features.

Orihalcum is only known from First Age literature and two specimens of New Rozsan plate mail, recovered from in a tomb in Xois.

Growth

"Live" orihalcum grows at a slow but steady pace, not in the way crystals do beneath Materia's crust, but as a plant or an animal would, in the open air. Combined with its hardness, this makes orihalcum extremely resistant to decay and damage; what few pieces of orihalcum arms & armour have been discovered are still in fine shape despite the intervening centuries, however they are no longer "live" (have stopped growing). At what point orihalcum goes into dormancy is not understood.

Reaction to Magic

But perhaps most unusual about orihalcum is its reaction to arcane magic (magic sourced from the Luminiferous Æther capping every plane): when magic enters the area of the substance, it behaves in ways that appear to be utterly random. The magical effect may deflect or refract wildly, fade to nothing, or transform into a completely different effect. Regardless, the result is usually not useful to the caster and thus orihalcum acts as an effective defense against unwanted magic. The mineral grows willingly on arms & armour, making it an effective tool in combat against mages, though this practice was strictly controlled (see § Use in New Rozsa below).

Use in New Rozsa

Drawings abound in New Rozsan literature of beautiful, tower-like or tree-like structures of orihalcum dotting major cities, acting either as defenses against invasive enemy magic or to discourage excessive wizardry in public life.

Orihalcum was a highly controlled substance in New Rozsa, due to the high potential for use in vandalism and murder in a heavily magical society. Only the elite paramilitary known as the Volgirre could make use of orihalcum arms & armour, for use in hunting down corruptive magical influences. Most private citizens could not own even a fleck of the bizarre stone, at risk of severe admonishment. Only in the rarest of cases were academics granted leave to experiment on the substance in the hopes of new innovation, and even then under the watchful eye of the Volgirre.

Creation

According to surviving New Rozsan literature it is not a mineral that is found naturally but rather grown artificially. Aside from this general knowledge, no documentation has yet been found that details its creation in any depth.

Type

Rock