Panmeridian: Substances

Slade

Slade is a ridiculously overdense mineral that is made entirely from a type of exotic matter. It doesn't burn or react to other elements, but can be eroded by magic: it is entirely immune to acid damage, and while it suffers normally from heat-based damage, it cannot catch fire.
It appears to be a dull, pure graphite black-grey, without striations and with very rare impurities. It can generally be found in very deep, dark mines and caverns that go far into the depths of the world, and is only found with any frequency in the hands of dwarves.
Its mass is roughly 200 times that of water, and it is thus massively, impractically heavy. Slade dust can be used as a weapon, and weapons made of Slade are unwieldy and brutal. It is physically painful to even LIFT Slade, and it can permanently damage objects containing it through weight alone.
Slade is both hard (hardness 8) and incredibly tough (40 hp/inch), but can- with care- be worked with metal tools; it holds an edge relatively well, but the simple mass makes it impractical for use in most weapons and armour. Most Stonemasons with access to the stone work it with a grindstone.
Uses: Slade paperweights are impractical as they damage paper too quickly and easily cut through it with even rounded edges.
Slade weapons are at -4 to all to-hit rolls, but deal damage as if they were two size categories larger.
Slade armour is ridiculously impractical: it is both too heavy and too soft to wear in sufficient quantities to effectively resist damage from metal weapons, and not flexible enough.
Slade is mediocre as a building material due to the extremely high rates of subsidence. With careful shaping and use of buffer materials, however, it can be used with some success. Its lack of reaction to elemental matter makes it relatively good for making laboratory equipment, with the usual problems.
Worth: Slade is both rare and, as noted above, not particularly useful. It therefore is generally worth less than more common stones, trading at a peck to a fleck of salt.

Rockmilk

Rockmilk is a form of heavy, white liquid made from thaumic matter- matter suffused with a type of magically-resonant exotic particle called a "thaum". It is, in effect, simply calcium carbonate- limestone-, saturated with thaums in the nucleus, which causes it to appear brighter (reflecting light), become heavier, and become a fluid.
Exposing Rockmilk to a magical radiation causes the thaums to break down into further magical waves, enhancing the magical field: it is commonly used by wizards to increase the effectiveness and power of spells, and leaves behind simple chalk.
Other magically-infused minerals are also found, but Rockmilk, as rare as it is, is nonetheless by far the most common.
It is possible to make Rockmilk- some magicians make a living from it- but it's very much an awkward and hard enchantment process: throw around enough spellfire and some will stick, but most of it won't. Creating rockmilk thus requires several caster-level/days of work.

Worth: Rockmilk is approximately twice as expensive as platinum, but just as heavy. Thus, one ounce- 2.8 pecks- is worth 560 pecks of gold.
Use: It requires a cumulative one pound of Rockmilk per level to increase a spell's caster level- say, from level 6 to level 7, it requires six ounces; from level 7 to 8, it takes seven ounces. Thus, in total, it would require 13 ounces to raise from 6 to 8.

Amaranthite

Psucheskarn

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