In the time since the gem dragons quietly announced their return, a new magic has awakened deep beneath the world’s mantle. Perhaps it is a result of the dragons waging war against Shuriig somewhere in the Deep, or perhaps it is simply a missing part of the world returned now that their wings have spread once more, guiding the untamed flow of magic in a way forgotten by the rest of the world. Whatever it is, those who know how to listen can hear it.
The world sings.
Chromatite
This harmony, this resonating euphony beneath the conscious world above, has caused a curious reaction in the minerals of the world. Magic has solidified, creating an entirely new mineral folks have started to call
Chromatite for its polychromatic qualities. The material is as hard as the hardest metals, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow and with all the qualities of a jewel.
The material itself is infused with latent magical properties and is the source of revolutionary developments in the fields of artifice. It has given rise to the process dubbed
Resonance, a ritual technique using sound and music to alter Chromatite until it takes the shape and form of a
magic item. The larger and more pure a sample of Chromatite is, the more powerful magic items manifested from the ritual may be.
Ruby Tears
Chromatite isn’t the only new discovery, either. Veins of dragonshards - jewels that grow throughout the realms in all manner of locale - have been discovered with wondrously pure rubies beading on the surface of the shards like tear drops. The rubies, as rare as they are, appear to contain memories and experiences of the world, and just like the dragonshards they emerged from share the same ability to preserve the memories of someone holding it.
What sets these
Ruby Tears apart from their spellshard cousins (aside from color and clarity) is their ability to transmute the memories that created them into an item, and transform that item into a reflection of both the memory and the individual who created the new item.
Echoes
Coining the term Echo, these peculiar items have demonstrated the capacity to absorb the magic of other items and in turn achieve heights equivalent to the legendary artifacts and relics of yore, items whose power was thought to be lost to time and war.
It would seem in the face of the end times, the world is changing - and in doing so, a new era of might and magic is coming.
