Orichalcum

Orichalcum is a magical metal that holds within its metaphysical structure the power of sun and light. It was considered a sacred metal by many early human tribes and became associated with nobility, leadership and many sun gods.

Not only is orichalcum a beautiful metal, and so often used in jewellery and ornamentation, it is also as easy to forge as copper, and when alloyed with zinc and tin--in a process similar to turn copper into bronze--it creates a reddish-gold alloy as strong as steel. The armour and many of mortal kings and champions were forced from this sunmetal.

Later scholars discovered even more useful properties. Orichalcum was a fantastic conductor of anima--or magical energy--and it could be used in artifice much like modern engineers use gold wiring in electronics. Orichalcum helped create much of the wondrous magical technologies of the Mythic Age. It became a symbol of magical wealth and power. Indeed, to show off their might as the most powerful nation on the planet, the Island-Kingdom of Atlantis even built a wall around their capital city that was plated in orichalcum!

Unfortunately, the Earth only had a limited amount of orichalcum, and when the empires of the Mythic Age were washed away beneath the Flood, they took much of the world's orichalcum with them. In the modern world, orichalcum can only be found in a few remote locations, or in realms such as Faerie or Chaos. While minute amounts are recovered every year through trade with dwarves and gnomes, or from exploration to Atlantean ruins that survived the Flood, but it is nowhere near enough to recreate the wonders of the Mythic Age--even if we knew how.

There was another side effect of the loss of much of the world's orichalcum. Each of the five supernal realms find their powers "ground out" by certain metals. For Faerie, it is iron, for Chaos it is brass, for the Underworld it is tin, for the Spirit World it is silver, and for the realm of Shadow it is orichalcum. While it is relatively easy to create a silver bullet to take down a werewolf, or a brass knife to be used against a jinn, only the most experienced hunters are able to get their hands on orichalcum weapons that can cut through the shadows of bogeymen as easily as it rends their flesh.

It's probably not a coincidence that the horrors only began their rise to power after the Flood and the loss of the sunmetal weapons that were their bane.