5 MM under the Primordials

[uteck]

Is this discussed in any book anywhere?


What were the 5 Magical Materials like prior to the First Age? Under the Primordials who or what were associated with them? Under the entry for Liger it mentions that the Green Sun once shared the sky with the Unconquered Sun, so I imagen that Orichalcum may have once been associated with Malfaus perhaps. Maybe it was even Brass but that changed when he became a Yozie, or Orichalcum was created prior to the war just for use by Solars?


Any ideas what other Primordials should have a magical material and what it should be? I don't think the gods would have any since at this time they would not have any chosen that serve them.

 

[Plague of Hats]

Magical materials are simply...magical materials. They are what they are. You might happen to resonate with them. Ligier isn't golden, he isn't based on gold (he might have even been blue and loved sapphire when he wasn't Ligier but somebody else, during the Time of Glory). Orichalcum has always "belonged" to the Unconquered Sun. It's even his blood. It resonated with the Dragon Kings long before the Solars showed up. The Exalted are not necessary for resonance with magical principles.


That which became Malfeas was probably not heavy into brass. Empyrean and all that. He might've favored adamant for its unyielding nature, though when it comes to beings whose souls wield panoplies resonance is less of an issue. They get what's appropriate to their theme and don't need to bother with normal attunement costs. Titans twist to their purposes; they make things resonate.


"The Five Magical Materials" is a label of popularity. At the beginning of the First Age, there were only Four Magical Materials, because soulsteel hadn't been popularized. In Autochthonia there's six, but whether you're there or in Creation, it works just the same.

 

[uteck]

I forgot about Dragon Kings. So what used Moonsilver then, just Luna? Or Jade? I suppose one of the races that was wiped out during the war could have used them.


I am just curious about some of these historical details that might be buried in some fluff text, if they exist at all. Would be neat for players to come across some artifacts dating from that time and watch them try to figure them out. But depending on the race, it would have different ascetics and priorities, so items may not look or work the way you expect it to.

 

[Ker'ion]

I forgot about Dragon Kings. So what used Moonsilver then, just Luna? Or Jade? I suppose one of the races that was wiped out during the war could have used them.
I am just curious about some of these historical details that might be buried in some fluff text, if they exist at all. Would be neat for players to come across some artifacts dating from that time and watch them try to figure them out. But depending on the race, it would have different ascetics and priorities, so items may not look or work the way you expect it to.

Wandering past, thanking uteck, giving him a coin of Moonsilver wrapped ambrosia and wandering off with his idea.
"Don't spend it all in one place."


I was looking for something to spice up things for game 52.


A year in the same storyline and you start running low on ideas.

 

[Joni-san]

[CaptainObvious]


I suspect jade would be in widespread use.


[/CaptainObvious]

 

[polajum]

Rather than MM resonating with gods, maybe the gods were created to resonate with the MM?


Orichalcum resonates with power and excellence-when you make a god who's the embodiment of those things, Orichacum works for him, and figures into his creation. Likewise, the god/dess who embodies change is going to use moonsilver. And obviously the material that resonates with life and the elements-Jade-is going to figure heavily into the creations of Gaia.

 

[magnificentmomo]

I can't necessarily site anything, but I know that the MMs are closely associated with Autobot, and seemingly always have been.

 

[Gylthinel]

Soulsteel didn't exist until after the Primordial war.

 

[cyl]

IIRC, soulsteel predates both the primordial wars and the first age. It's a MM Autochton "created" when he destroyed one of the races he had created (now known as the dark brood, shadows of their former selves) swallowing their insolent and defiant souls.


It wasn't used or even acknowledged except perhaps by a happy few, and was definitely not associated to any deity or a place.


After the creation of the underworld though things change... since the raw materials to forge it could be found there (souls and the black ore) in vast quantities, and then it became known and associated with various concepts, said associations evolving through time altered by some events (rising of the deathlords, Contagion, creation of the deathknights).


There is plenty of unexplained stuff about soulsteel... why is it associated to deathknights ? why did it have the power of the Void BEFORE the Void even existed ? etc etc...

 

[Moonstone Spider]

My personal canon is that there are many magical materials, the 5 big ones are "the five" because major exalted groups happen to resonate with them. If an exalt type survived in creation that resonated with adamant, there would six magic materials. There may be many more as yet undiscovered, or used only in conjunction with obscure thaumaturgical rituals because no Exalt cares about them. Moonsilver, after all, is nearly useless unless it's been carefully forged and alloyed, if Lunars didn't resonate with it the creepy moving silver veins would just be an oddity of the areas where wyld meets creation. If Five Days Darkness of his own exalts they might resonate with coal, and they'd find a way to alloy it and make daiklaves and powerbows from coal.

 

[cyl]

Hmm in that case what is it that defines something as a MM apart from the processing ?!

 

[Moonstone Spider]

Well rarity might be reasonable, Exalted has an overarching theme of limited, exclusive power. Only so many shards, only so much jade, and even a single-dot artifact is a rarity most people in creation will never even see. Power and magic are limited. You can even roughly gauge the power of the Exalt types by rarity, the most common Dragonblooded are the weakest, Lunars at 300 are much stronger, the 150 remaining Solars are awesome, but the 100 Deathknights have much better support than Solars, the 100 Sidereals are actually running the planet. Hmm, the analogy may fail with the 50 Infernals but they have an entire dimension in Hell to themselves and lots of support as well. So it would be in-theme to say that to be a MM, it would have to have a certain base level of rarity that hair from a stray dog or cow's milk wouldn't suit.


But more importantly, it has to actually be, well, magical. No amount of processing can turn dirt or water into a magical material, a patch of soil from a deeply significant battle where a hundred solar-circle spells were cast might be charged enough be used as a magical ingredient but that wouldn't be because it's dirt, but because it was in that location and any random chunk of garbage at the sight of those hundred spells would be equally charged. Moonsilver, on the other hand, is clearly magical in and of itself, and so is jade, and soulsteel, etc. They display clear supernatural properties that speak of their being Magical Materials.


I did say it was my own personal canon, though. Probably falls apart at some level.

 

[Persell]

The MM are defined by there supreme durability mainly. The MM bonus is well...bonus.

 

[Plague of Hats]

IIRC, soulsteel predates both the primordial wars and the first age. It's a MM Autochton "created" when he destroyed one of the races he had created (now known as the dark brood, shadows of their former selves) swallowing their insolent and defiant souls.

"The Greys" did not become the darkbrood. "Darkbrood" is a general label for the varieties of troublesome creatures the Mountain Folk are constantly at war with. These beings were driven underground by their Primordial makers and, in the First Age, by conquering Solars. As a group, they are a patchwork amalgamation of those shunned by the ultimate rulers of Creation, driven from the light above.
I also don't recall anything claiming that Autochthon actually made the Greys. He only simply liked them, until they pissed him off.

There is plenty of unexplained stuff about soulsteel... why is it associated to deathknights ?

Death-taint calls to death-taint. Sometimes things don't have to be particularly complicated.

why did it have the power of the Void BEFORE the Void even existed ?

The Void did not necessarily "exist" only after the first true death of a Primordial, but, regardless, it is more about death-taint and corruption. The original soulsteel from Autochthon is tainted by his cancer, which is tainted by the shades of death, which is metaphysically associated with the Void. Despite this relatively close relationship, the Void does not have to be the ultimate source of all death-taint.

 

[Persell]

Should also point out that the Void and Oblivion aren't actually the same thing (not since MoEP: Alch came out anyway). The Void is Auto cancer.

 

[Virjigorm]

My theory on the whole mess is that the "Void" as such was merely a theoretical lack of all existence, but not necessarily evil. This emptiness was the mathematical opposite of Pure Chaos, but may never have even been proven to "exist". Autocthon knew of it's possibility and probably experimented with it, tainting himself early in the pre-Creation experimenting of the Primordial designers.(and creating soulsteel out of his own substance in the process)


With the first Primordial death, the spiritual remains of that Titan were outside Creation's cycles and so began to slide into the void, approaching true oblivion. The passions of a Titan, however, are powerful enough to suspend spiritual decay and keep the shattered spirit of the dead god tenuously lashed to Creation. That resulted in a realm of existence coming into being around the ghostly remnant of that world-monster and the birth of the Underworld. Now, the Neverborn lie on the edge of nothing, whispering their dark dreams up from the mouth of the Void. It is not the Void itself that is evil. The madness that the prospect of nothingness creates in once-living and almost eternal beings twists them to darkness and hatred.


With regard to souldsteel, I would say that some of it is "natural" and some is crafted. The crafted type is forged from mortal souls, trapped forever in it's substance and never at rest. This is inherently evil stuff. The natural kind results from the interaction between Primordial flesh (or spirit) and the emptiness of the Void, sort of like frostbite. This I would not call necessarily evil, just morbid in it's nature.


As for the other MMs, I agree that they are a natural component of Creation's highly magical nature. Things that resonate with these materials do so because they are conceptually and symbolically linked. I would guess that many other MMs may have existed before the Three Spheres Cataclysm and were destroyed by She Who Lives in Her Name.