Metals, Subtle and Gross

As any alchemist will tell you, there exist only seven metals – gold, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin and lead – that correspond to the seven planets, the seven colours, the seven days of the week, the seven noble trees, etc. etc.

But what, then, should we make of mithril, or adamantium? Again, ask an alchemist and they will tell you that mithril is a perfected, or subtle form of gross silver, and that adamantium is subtle lead. What they will not tell you, what is only for the highest initiates of their mysteries, is that there are processes by which gross metals may be transmuted – mithril ore is entirely fictional – and that some alchemists are looking for ways to perfect the other metals

Metals in italics are as yet theoretical

Mithril

Mithril is one of the most common and well known subtle metals, refined from silver bearing galena in a process that involves relatively inexpensive herbal reagents, but the crushed galena must be washed in sea water at the appropriate hour on a Monday, under the light of a full moon. Typically only one or two moons a year fall on a Monday, and only a few pounds of galena can be washed in the appointed hour, yielding only an ounce or two of mithril.

Mithril is of the moon, and like lycanthropes can only be effected by silver, so artisans use silver tools to work it.

Hihi’irokane

Hihi’irokane, or crimson steel, is a relatively recent subtle metal, and has become popular amongst blade smiths. While adamantium is the hardest of all metals, hihi’irokane is the sharpest, although getting the best edge requires a dog leather strop impregnated with ruby dust. Hihi’irokane is made by allowing high quality steel to rust in a solution of boar’s blood and pine turpentine over a course of 325 days. The rust is then placed into an adamantium crucible with a tightly fitting piston-like lid, the whole thing heated and hammered until the rust has been compressed into hihi’irokane.

Azoth

Azoth is a purely theoretical metal, much discussed by senior alchemists. The current leading theory is mercury would be poured into a crucible made of carbonised bamboo and placed into some sort of sonorous furnace, though some still work on the older theories of amalgams and the sophyk tree.

Although azoth has not been discovered, recent experiments have created an alloy called asterium from mercury, calamine and starlight. Bells cast from asterium produce tones not audible to mortal ears, but sounding some aspect of the music of the spheres - it is from such bells that alchemists hope to construct the sonorous furnace, but because they cannot be heard in the normal sense, tuning has proved difficult.

Fulminans

Fulminans is still listed amongst the theoretical metals, but several impure samples have been created, and it is only a matter of time before the process is perfected. The current process involves laminating eight sheets of tin with eight sheets of cloth, plus powdered amber between each layer, passing the whole repeatedly through a rolling mill, washing with storm water collected on a Thursday between pressings. The chief argument now is over what type of cloth should be used: silk or wool, how or if should it be dyed, what weave is the best?

Fulminans will build up static electricity whenever it is moved, and proposals have been drawn up for shocking arrow heads when the process is perfected. The samples have also been shown to attract lightning, lending credence to those natural philosophers who have proposed that lightning and electricity are the same phenomenon.

Orichalcum

Orichalcum is the oldest subtle metal, manufactured since antiquity, though it is not much used today. It is made by mixing calcined dove bones into molten copper on a Friday, producing a metal similar to bronze, once popular for making enchanted spear heads, but now used mostly for decorative purposes and cultic daggers.

Due to its antiquity, the process of creating orichalcum is known outside of alchemical mysteries, and for that reason alchemists do not openly admit it to be subtle. They will instead identify hepatizon as the perfected form of copper, and lament that the secret of refining it is lost.

Adamantium

The hardest of the subtle metals, adamantium, is made from the softest of gross metals, lead. This is helpful, because adamantium is too hard to be worked, so any adamant item must be shaped while it is lead. Because lead will not hold an edge, blades are difficult to create, at least sharp ones, but armour, maces, and vessels are all manufactured from adamantium. Because lead can be cast with very fine detail, these items are commonly very beautiful.

Once the lead has been worked into the desired form, it is bombarded with carefully graded diamond dust on a Saturday. In the past, this was done by magical means, but since the creation of steel pressure vessels, air cannons are used; this has allowed alchemists who are not also sorcerers to manufacture adamantium, and it so now merely very expensive, some even perfect lead badges to sell to the better class of pilgrims.

Gold

Most alchemists and philosophers agree that there is no corresponding metal to gold, that it is already perfected, both gross and subtle. This is not strictly true, while there is no other metal that gold may be transmuted into, it is theoretically possible to purify gold into a form of solidified light known as lux.

The purification is not an alchemical process, rather certain energies are directed the correct patterns, at geomantically significant sites at dawn on a Sunday. The process is not known to any living being, but from time to time it happens naturally, turning nuggets of gold into lumps of lux.

Lux is more like a stone than a metal, and may be worked in the same manner as any other hardstone. Seals made of lux can be used to empower charms against the undead.