Blood Metal

Metal from Beyond the Veil
In the Lost Frontier, most abilities and powers that would be considered magical in other settings are instead careful (or sometimes instinctual) applications of a new substance commonly known as blood metal. It is also referred to as deep ore, blood of the earth, and darksteel.

Blood metal deposits are found in locations where crossovers occurred during Hell on Earth. Uses for the ore are many, and more are discovered every year. A burgeoning industry is developing around blood metal, with demand far in excess of supply.

Some have discovered they can perform miraculous feats simply by ingesting blood metal. This was the first use of blood metal, and by far the most common. It is commonly known as "burning" metal.

Others seek to study and manipulate blood metal as artists or scientists, observing its behavior under various circumstances and recording reproducible steps. Runes can be written using special inks mixed with powdered blood metal, which can later be used to cast spells. Small amounts of blood alloys can be manipulated into intricate shapes, producing a wide variety of effects. This is becoming known as "bending" metal. It is an emerging field, with only a small body of accepted knowledge and few practitioners of true expertise.

Some eschew (or have no talent for) the use of blood metal as a means of gaining supernatural abilities, instead seeking to integrate the metal into existing crafts, primarily through the use of alloys. When alloyed with another metal, the properties of deep ore change, producing a wide variety of useful applications in the crafts. Blacksmiths can use blood metal alloys to enhance a blade's durability and cutting power; engineers can create intricate machines with uses and properties far beyond what was possible with mundane metals alone.

The use for blood metal that will likely have the greatest overall impact is as a power source. When alloyed with gold, blood metal burns with incredible intensity and longevity, making it far superior to coal. Alloyed with platinum, it produces a field of energy which some have speculated to be electrical; uses for this field seem to be limited, but experimentation continues.

Blood Metal Alloys
While pure blood metal is potent in and of itself, it's scarcity and unpredictability make it difficult to use in most applications.

Alloying the metal has proved an effective solution. Alloying blood metal channels its potential energy in a set direction, and stretches its usable quantity significantly.

Only a few useful alloys have thus far been discovered. Of these, blood silver has the most universal application - a single bead of blood metal (~1/20 oz.) can be alloyed with up to 100 oz. of silver without diluting the potency contained in the original bead. A pound of blood silver contains no more potential energy than a bead of blood metal, but it is far easier to work with the larger amount in many applications. It is also the only alloy that can be combined with another alloy without diminishing or eliminating the potency. Thus, blood silver often serves as a base metal for craftsmen and techmaturgists.

Blood aluminum has become known as the "magic metal," as it is the primary substance used by those who practice burning or bending. The exact nature of this process is mysterious.

Very recently, some have shown an aptitude for using blood platinum in a manner distinct from but similar to burning. Blood platinum alloy had been thought to be inert, as platinum alloyed easily with blood metal but showed no obvious effects. It is now known that the alloy allows a gifted few to perform feats which surpass the normal limitations of the human mind and body. This has come to be known as "bursting."

Some metals resist alloying with blood metal. Others alloy smoothly, but with no detectable effect. It is not known whether these alloys are inert, or if their application has not yet been discovered, as was the case with blood tin.

The chart below lists discovered alloys and their known effects. Note that this list exclusively lists those metals with widely known effects which have been tested repeatedly. There are tales of other alloys with various effects, but lack of testing and verification prevents their inclusion here.

The Blood Metal Economy
The history books speak of the great gold rushes of the old world, where men by the tens of thousands would leave safety and civilization behind to seek their fortune in the great unknown.

If men did that purely to make a fortune, it should not be surprising that men now do much more in pursuit of blood metal. The deep ore is valuable, to be sure - but it also carries power within itself that mankind is just beginning to understand.

When word of blood metal's discovery spread, the Lost Frontier saw a panic fueled rush the like of which had been unknown up until that time. It did not take long for folk to draw the connection between places the demons had crossed over into our world and the appearance of blood metal. Known crossover sites were quickly claimed by prospectors, many of whom were immediately forced to defend their find with their life.

The metal itself appears in various ways. Occasionally it is found on the surface in the form of tiny beads, requiring only that it be sifted from the dirt and sand. More often it has been embedded into the earth, laced through surface rock or on the walls of caves.

Mining blood metal is delicate work. The metal itself is sturdy, and mostly inert unless consumed. The veins in which it occurs are typically thin, and removing it from the earth without risking loss requires patience and precision.

Pure blood metal has only a few direct applications - burners can consume it to fuel their abilities, but this often has undesirable effects. Burners report that pure blood metal is difficult to control and channel. It also emits an inconsistent but powerful magnetic field. Strangely, blood metal has no magnetic effect on itself, only on other metals.

When alloyed with other metals, however, the deep ore's true potential begins to emerge. This discovery led to a second great rush, this time for many of the same substances that led the great rushes of old - silver, gold, aluminum, and many others.

The blood metal industry has settled into a pattern over the last several years. Most known crossover sites have been tapped out and lay abandoned. A few particularly prosperous sites still produce the ore, albeit at a slower rate than in the first days of the rush. Each of the three largest prospecting gangs lays claim to one of these sites, located in Utah, Kansas, and Texas. The three gangs have a violent history, but an uneasy truce has been established in more recent days. Selling blood metal into territory controlled by another gang is strictly prohibited, and has been the source of most of the violence between the gangs.

The gangs provide the largest and most consistent source of blood metal. Most blood metal is immediately alloyed into blood silver at the dig site before being shipped out for distribution. While it is possible to find pure blood metal for sale by merchants in particularly large settlements, most vendors sell only alloys. Those who wish to experiment with alloy creation must either find a private source of deep ore (a difficult and dangerous undertaking), or go to work for one of the gangs.

Prices for blood metal are rigidly controlled - merchants either pay what the gang charges, or do without. The gangs do not sell to private parties as a rule, but there are many exceptions, particularly among the wealthy and influential. For the most part, the gangs sell to merchants, and allow for only a set markup on the goods.

The price of specific alloys fluctuates. Blood silver, which alloys at a rate of 1:1,000, typically sells for $10/oz. Most other alloys rate closer to 1:200.

Blood aluminum and platinum alloy at 1:100, and can usually be bought for $1,000/oz.

Pure blood metal is typically sold in the form of beads, each of which weighing roughly 1/20th of an ounce.

Finding blood metal, pure or alloyed, apart from going through one of the gangs grows more difficult by the day. The gangs are merciless with independent operators, and more so with smugglers.

Most of those interested in purchasing blood metals are only interested in alloys - craftsmen and techmaturgists tinker with several alloys, while burners and benders, and more recently bursters, need nothing more than blood aluminum and platinum, respectively.

Blood Metal Reference Tables
Copper is used as a common currency in the Lost Frontier. Copper slugs weigh about a quarter ounce, are valued at one dollar. Copper beads are worth 10 cents. A pinch of copper dust is worth a penny.

In the Mouths of Babes: The Discovery of Blood Metal
The great scientists and visionaries are often credited with shaping our world. Understandably so - after all, without our Edisons and Teslas, who can say where we might be today.

It is not always so, however. Sometimes, the greatest discoveries are made by those not even looking, or by those who wouldn't know what they'd found even if they had been.

So it was with the discovery of blood metal. The story goes that in 112 A.B., nearly eighty years after the end of Hell on Earth, an elf boy named Tommen wandered away from his family's homestead.

Now, most folk don't worry overmuch about their children being out from under their feet for a few hours. Indeed, elf parents in particular encourage their children to explore on their own - if they want their child to survive to adulthood, they will make sure their mask-making excursion is not their first time surviving on their on in the frontier.

Tommen's parents, however, had good reason to worry. First, Tommen was simpleminded - he talked slowly, learned slower, and lacked guile of any sort. His mother once caught him stroking a mantipede's head as one would a dog's, singing the nightmarish creature a lullaby. Fortunately the creature was fresh from its chrysalis and not yet fully awake, or Tommen would likely have been a venom-bloated corpse by the time he was discovered.

Second, a crossover site had been discovered not half a mile from their homestead, and the near those places is strange and unpredictable. They say when it rains, it pours, and in that spirit Tommen's trail led directly toward that place.

A search party was formed by all the nearby families. Fearing the worst, Tommen's father led a party of eight elves armed with bows and one ancient shotgun to the place of the crossover.

There they found Tommen, alive and unharmed, playing in the scorched sand that marked the place where demons had once landed. As Tommen's father rushed toward his son, relief turned to shock. Giggling with simple pleasure, Tommen called "Catch, Papa!", picked up a small rock, and lobbed it in a gentle arc toward his father.

This would have been no great wonder, except that Tommen had thrown this rock without so much as touching it.

Over the next several hours, it became clear that Tommen was somehow able to move small objects simply by willing them to do so. Some of the elves feared Tommen had somehow been twisted by the demonic essence of the place - legends said that men who made pacts with outsiders during the days of Hell on Earth were granted strange powers. But through patient and gentle questioning, Tommen explained that he had found a "tiny, shiny rock," and, for reasons that would only make sense to him, had swallowed it.

Tommen had found a bead of blood metal, and had unwittingly become our world's first recorded metal burner.

At first the elves tried to keep the discovery quiet, but it wasn't long before tales of a metal that granted magical power began to spread. It was soon discovered the metal had a wide range of lucrative applications, and demand from all quarters began to rise. The blood metal rush had begun.

The elves were the first to begin prospecting for the metal, painstakingly sifting through the dirt and sand. As demand for the miracle substance grew, others followed. Prospectors quickly connected blood metal deposits with crossover sites, and the fear of those places was eased by the soothing power of greed.

New uses for the metal were discovered - craftsmen alloyed trace amounts with other metals, producing work possessed of wondrous properties. Inventors found ways to use the metal as a power source - a single bead of the metal, alloyed with a catalyst, could produce as much energy as a wagonload of coal. More recently, some have begun experimenting with blood metal runes and shaping, producing incredible effects without the need for ingestion.

All of this development might lead one to believe the blood metals are available in abundance, but this is not the case. Blood metal beads are typically the size of a grain of sand. An ounce or two is counted a rich haul, with many sites producing only a fraction of that.

There are some places in the Lost Frontier where crossovers once occurred in large numbers, and prospecting gangs have formed to stake claims, guarding their location and riches jealously.

Secondary markets for other metals have bloomed as well. One of the earliest breakthroughs made by blood metal scholars was the practice of alloying: Blood metal properties change and produce new effects when alloyed to other metals.

Silver in particular has surged in value, due to its ability to dilute the potency of a blood metal bead without diminishing it. A pound of blood silver offers no greater or lengthier power than a tiny bead of pure blood metal, but it is significantly easier to, say, coat the blade of a sword with the larger amount. Mines built before the Old War have been rediscovered and reopened, and the hope of discovering a new claim has led thousands of folk out into the Lost Frontier.

This metal trade is still in its infancy. New methods and applications are discovered with regularity, but the scarcity (and resulting expense) of materials means that only a few can afford to take part. Most major settlements will have one or two traders with some blood metals in stock (though rarely in pure form) supplying a handful of scholars and craftsmen.

And of course there are those who seek to profit from the blood metal rush in other, less reputable ways. Traveling entrepreneurs selling tinctures supposedly containing blood metal shavings mixed with exotic solutions. Small prospecting outfits that look to stretch their profits by selling blood silver alloyed at far higher dilutions than advertised. Self-proclaimed magicians and mediums claiming to be able to use blood metals to predict the future and perform other feats of questionable veracity.

Most frontier folk hold a certain measure of wariness for darksteel, but pragmatism and greed are great soothers of conscience. There are many, however, who preach against the use of blood metal completely, insisting its link with outsiders makes it untrustworthy at the very least. Several stockade cities have banned its use, arresting or even executing those who do not comply.

Understanding and Converting Magic from Pathfinder
See this article for a brief overview of magic systems in vanilla Pathfinder

See this article for tips on converting Pathfinder magic to the Lost Frontier