Copper is a versatile metal, commonly used in construction and arcanotechnical development. Due to this versatility, the material has become extremely rare, with much of the world's copper having been reclaimed from ancient ruins and artifacts. Recently, a number of copper mines were opened in the Forgotten Lands, an area crawling with corrupted beasts from the time of The Blight.
History
Historical evidence dates the earliest refinement of copper to around 7,100 PB. Initial uses for the material were simple, with agrarian societies using them to produce farming implements and pots. The usage of copper would expand greatly around 2,500 PB, as dwarven settlements began to incorporate copper into their more advanced arcanotechnical devices. The dwarves' use of copper is often compared to the elven discovery of shimmer, as both were a driving factor behind their rise to technological dominance.
Due to the sheer size of the dwarven empire at its peak, historians estimate that nearly eighty percent of the world's copper had already been harvested and refined prior to the dwarven empire's collapse during The Blight. As a result, most of the copper utilized today has been reclaimed from old dwarven structures and machines. This has raised a number of ethical concerns, as many are worried that destroying old dwarven artifacts could inadvertently erase pieces of their history. Events and individuals important to dwarven culture were often commemorated with massive bronze and copper statues, and even if replicas were created of the artifacts prior to their destruction, the destruction of the originals can impede and corrupt the history they were meant to preserve.
In 6E 208, a large copper vein was discovered by expeditionaries in the Forgotten Lands, a massive archipelago that was created during The Blight. Due to the number of dangerous creatures living on the islands, the copper remained untouched until 6E 522, when Lithos Holdings received approval to begin extracting resources from the area.
