Endless Blue - Week 36.7 - The Building Blocks from Under the Sea

Fabrication

Building Blocks from Under the Sea

Piscean settlements -- except for perhaps those of the nomadic Locanth -- are not a primitive clumping of lean-tos clustered together for safety.  Their buildings are permanent structures, planned and built not only to be a resilient form of shelter, but also as an artistic expression of vision.  The tools used in every day activities are similarly designed, with form and function melded together, embellished with as much ingenious craftsmanship as everything they create.  The materials available for construction are varied, having evolved from the basic bone, hide, and sinew of hunted beasts through the more robust harvested coral, quarried stone, and hydraulic mortar to the more exotic materials that in the hands of a master produce a masterwork artifact.

Exotic Materials

Presented are some of the more unique materials used by the civilizations of the Known World.  More commonly items that require flexibility are made of kelp, hide, or leather, and item that dictate rigidity are comprised of bone, stone, or mundane coral.

Abalone -- Abalone is another organically created precious material, this time constituting the inner lining of some shells.  The material possess a shiny metallic look which can be polished to a near-mirror finish.  Abalone items are carved from these reflective shells, so it allows for larger and more complex shapes than nacre.  Abalone items invoke cultural images of success and greatness, and as a result imbue the bearer of abalone items a bonus of +1 to leadership, though such items cost greatly more than their mundane counterparts

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Speargun ammunition	+120 gp
Light nautilus	+10,000 gp
Medium nautilus	+20,000 gp
Heavy nautilus	+30,000 gp
Unguis	+6,000 gp
Aegis	+4,000 gp

Clear Quartz -- This common crystal is called the assassin's jewel: good to pay a killer with, hard to find when a blade is made of it.  Blades made of quartz are difficult to spot in shadows, and the mineral crystal has the envious property of being transparent to ultravision.  The manner in which crystal grows makes it good for small, thin, flat or conical items unless an unnaturally large node can be found.  It is often used in windows, cut into into small tiles and arranged in a mosaic frame.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Speargun ammunition	+12 gp
Light nautilus	+1,000
Medium nautilus	-
Heavy nautilus	-
Unguis	+600
Aegis	+400

Dearthsteel – Lumulan technology at the pinnacle of its achievement, dearthsteel is derived from the metallic remnants of meteorites.  These meteors formed in whatever catastrophe gave birth to the Sargasso Ring that orbits the planet of Elqua between Oberus and Ymaris.  Its unusual name comes from the rarity of finding the requisite ore from which to smelt the metal.  It is the only known ferrous metal that will not succumb to the normal oxidation of rust (though corrosion and acids will still affect it).  It is the equivalent to adamantite in the Endless Blue campaign setting.  The prices presented below are for previously existing items made of dearthsteel -- the Lumulus do not trade the material with outsiders.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Speargun ammunition	+60 gp
Light nautilus	+5,000 gp
Medium nautilus	+10,000 gp
Heavy nautilus	+15,000 gp
Unguis	+3,000 gp
Aegis	+2,000 gp

Jade -- This mineral has a rich light-green color of semi-translucence.  It has a good hardness that can be cut in exacting degrees, making it excellent for minute carving.  Jade is found in portions of the Cetacean Oceans, Mer Currents, and the majority of the Chelon Sea.  Items made of jade gain a +1 to their hardness.  It can be used in both nautiluses and ungues, but due to scarcity and cost is is only used as an accent in construction.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Speargun ammunition	+100 gp
Light nautilus	+8,500 gp
Medium nautilus	+17,000 gp
Heavy nautilus	+25,000 gp
Unguis	+5,000 gp
Aegis	+3,500 gp

Lumulated metal – Not a material in itself, Lumulated metal is more of a process.  A highly protected method of quenching metals that adds to its hardness and lightness, the process grants protection to the newly forged metal from the corrosive effects of water oxidation.  The tinge of color the process adds to the metal signifies which Lumulus forgeclan produced the item, which run the gamut of the spectrum.  The byproduct of this process enables spellcasters to imbue this metal with permanent magic; without it, dearthmetal remains stubbornly resistant to enchantment.

Forgeclan	Lumulated Tinge
N’dlan’gisa	Red
G’dlu’mauex	Orange
T’dlang’athi	Yellow
K’honk’coshe	Green
Q’oma’ithi	Blue
M’zims’he	Indigo
X’hamel’af	Violet
J’warh’abvo	Ultraviolet

The J'war'abvo forgeclan made the ultimate sacrifice, bearing the brunt of the Kraken Empire in the final years of the war in order to bring lumulated dearthsteel to their ancient nemeses the Chelon for ultraviolet enchantment and finally break the stranglehold created by their occupier's unearthly camouflage abilities.  While this mating of technology and magic tipped the scales in favor of liberation, the Kraken wiped out every J'warh'abvo Lumulus before their ultimate fall.

Since then, a new forgeclan has slowly been building a formation.  This clan, based not on ties of blood but ties of ideals, has been maneuvering individuals into places of power in other forgeclans, waiting for a moment when the political climate is ripe for their public revelation.

The prices presented below are for previously existing items made with the lumulation process -- the Lumulus do not produce the material for outsiders.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Speargun ammunition	+50 gp
Light nautilus	+4,150 gp
Medium nautilus	+8,300 gp
Heavy nautilus	+12,450 gp
Unguis	+2,500 gp
Aegis	+1,750 gp

Nacre -- Nacre is the hardened excretions made by mollusks and oysters to coat irritants trapped in their shells.  The perlescent sheen given off by polished nacre is uniquely beautiful.  Items can be inserted into domesticated bivalves and left to collect layers of the substance until it is completely covered.  The drawbacks of this art is that only small items can be fit inside the shell to be coated, and the process takes months and only produces a tiny amount of nacre.  The extra thickness added to items coated in nacre increase its dexterity penalty by +1.  Like abalone, nacre is traditionally a symbol of greatness, but more associated with the upper class than that of the common piscean.  Nacre items grant the wearer a +2 bonus to attempt of changing the attitude of those they speak with using Diplomacy.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Speargun ammunition	+120 gp
Light nautilus	+10,000 gp (chain shirt)
Medium nautilus	+20,000 gp (chainmail)
Heavy nautilus	-
Unguis	-
Aegis	-

Obsidian -- Technically not a mineral, obsidian is formed by volcanic heat melting igneous rock into glass.  It cleaves well, resulting in a keen edge.  This makes it excellent for spear heads and other small lengths (too long a blade and it would snap in half).  The Lumulus Basin and Sahaguin Lagoons are festooned with deposits of volcanic glass, and the Sahaguin in particular make great use of it in weaponry.  Items made of obsidian enjoy +1 to damage from the razor-sharp glass easily slices through natural armor and toughened hide.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Speargun ammunition	+24 gp
Light nautilus	+2,000 gp
Medium nautilus	-
Heavy nautilus	-
Unguis	+1,200 gp
Aegis	+800 gp

Shell (Chelon) -- This ghoulish material is the bony shell harvested from the back of a Chelon.  The use of a sentient species as construction material is repellent to nearly all the civilizations of the Known World, and as such are never seen in use outside of the savage Sahaguin, decadent Yaun-Teel, or barbaric Narwahl.  It does bestow a damage reduction of 1 to anything made from it due to the shell inherent resiliency.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Black Market only	-

Shell (Lumulus) -- This semi-rigid material is carved from the carapace of a Lumulus.  Unlike the shells of Chelon, Lumulus shed theirs as they grow and need not neccessarily require the death of the piscean to harvest it.  Despite this it still garners the same stigma that Chelon shell invokes.  Lumulus shell offers superior protection than that of Chelon shell, expressed as a damage reduction of 2, but offers no protection against bludgeoning weapons.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
Black Market only	-

Xanthellae -- The art of coral shaping is sole province of the Chelon, and has been practiced for longer than written record or racial memory.  Through the generations of practice, the xanthellaettes have learned the secret to bending coral -- living coral, not the empty husk of coral used in construction -- into nautiluses, ungues, even buildings.  Items are formed rather than constructed, and the living material they are comprised of can regenerates damage at a slow rate (approximate 1 hit point per day).  The downside is that items must be contiguous, with no moving parts, so items like nautiluses cannot be removed.  Luckily the coral is porous, allowing the influx of water for breathing and the excretion of waste without hindrance.

Cost Modifier	Type of Item
By individual arrangement	-