As per Library of Attnam's challenge and list. Some minor edits have been made for readability and flow.
Magical Metals
Oricalchum - The bones of the Earth-machine, of the great underworld labyrinth whose gates are barred with the faces of gods.
Antiferrum - Possesses a hatred of common iron so great that it will spit and foam like a rabid animal when in contact.
Crimson Band - harvested only from humans in which it has been concentrated - typically through tainted drinking water. Its raw form is worthless
Alchemist's Gold - Distinguishable by its propensity to tarnish, and ability to turn all metals in contact with it into more of itself.
Fuliginite - A glossy, smooth, black metal, silimar to obsidian though less fragile. Found only among the bones of the northern barbarians and their domesticated pseudo-giants.
Arakhnate - Silver-white and shimmering. In truth, it is a spider silk woven into ingots and used as a metal would. Light, malleable, strong.
Elephantine - Named so for the habit of herds to scrape at it with their tusks. Occurs in great monoliths across the savanna.
Taongór - Blueish metal collected from the sites of meteoric impacts. The prime conductor of electricity.
Tiger-Iron - Named for the stripes of rust that form on its dark, pitted surface when exposed to air.
Dreighaz - Exceedingly rare. Cannot be melted at all by ordinary means at all. Repels all manner of spirits, good and ill.
Animite - Drinks souls, concentrating their light and heat. Radiates deadly, invisible waves.
Ur-Lead - Specially treated by alchemists, it may form a barrier against all magic arts or influence of exterior powers.
Animals
Animal life that survived the Anthropocene mass extinction can be split into three main categories: pets, food, and those species that are damn near impossible to kill. Those that could adapt to pollution and urbanization would live, those that couldn't were forced into smaller and smaller enclaves until they could not continue.
True, the Collapse permitted some breathing room, and concentrated conservation efforts saved a few more, but for the majority of humanity a rhinoceros is no different than a unicorn - an animal that does not exist.
Birds survived in great quantities. Amphibians hardly at all. Lizards did well. The largest mammals to survive without reconstruction were cows and water buffalo - gone the giraffe, the panda, the leopard. Rodents did extremely well for themselves. Pigs, magnificently. Dogs and cats have gone feral dominate the predatory niches of colony worlds and have gorwn in some places to replace the wolves and big cats. There is a species of racoon - hairless and blind - that has developed a semi-bipedal gait and an uncanny amount of intelligence
Some filler to pass the time.
ReplyDeleteAlways love a good set of magical metals!
ReplyDeleteAlchemist's Gold - Distinguishable by its propensity to tarnish, and ability to turn all metals in contact with it into more of itself.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the way this tells a whole story of its own. "Your highness, do you want the good news first, or the bad news?"
The Anthropocene bit is well-done and chilling. I'll probably never get to it, but I have an idea rattling around for a game called Inheritors, somewhere in between Mousegard. Engine Heart, and Pariah/Wolf Packs & Winter Snow. The PCs are post-human-extinction beasts fumbling towards technological intelligence. Rat, Crow, and Parrot are among playable race-as-classes. Whatever feral hogs have become post-humanity are the setting's dragon-level threat--a being as clever as any of the players but far larger and hungrier. The octopi are an Outside Context Problem.
ReplyDeleteMetals are great, especially animite. I realize it is a transposed typo but "silimar" is itself a beautiful, mineral-sounding word and definitely needs to be used for something.