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Crafting

Materials available in Athas differ from those in typical fantasy settings. Metal is scarce and highly valued, often reserved for tools and weapons used by the elite. Instead, materials like bone, obsidian, and chitin are commonly used for crafting everyday items. Artisans in Athas have developed unique techniques to work with these unconventional materials, creating durable and functional goods despite the limitations imposed by their environment. Not only are high-value materials rare and expensive, but the knowledge of their crafting techniques is often jealously guarded, and in many city-states, possession of metal items by commoners is strictly forbidden and harshly punished.

Materials

Rank 1: Natural Materials

These are the most basic materials available in Athas, easily sourced from the environment. They include:

  • Bone
  • Stone
  • Clay
  • Chitin

Animal-derived products can be difficult to source in desired size and quality, if said animal is particularly fierce, but these are still considered natural materials.

Rank 2: Common Materials and Refined Natural Materials

These materials are commonly available in city-states and larger settlements. They require some level of craftsmanship to work with. They include:

  • Leather from domesticated animals
  • Plant fibers
  • Wood

Refined natural materials are rank 1, plus some amount of know-how and tools to process them into usable forms, such as:

  • Boiled/Layered Chitin
  • Fire-hardened Bone
  • Obsidian

Rank 3: Metals and Advanced Natural Materials

These materials are more difficult to obtain and require specialized knowledge to work with. At this rank, the craftmanship required is approximately medieval. Thus:

  • Bronze and Copper (rare, typically scavenged from ancient ruins)
  • Iron (extremely rare, typically scavenged from ancient ruins)

Natural materials that require greater than medieval knowledge to process are included here, such as:

  • Glass, often made from sand
  • Ceramics, made from refined clay
  • Fused Silicates
  • Treated leather, hardened or reinforced for durability
  • Resin composites, bonding various materials together for enhanced strength

Rank 4: Metal Composites and Supernatural Alloys

Metal composites use metals more sparingly, requiring great skill and advanced techniques. They typically combine "common" metals (at least on Earth) with bonding agents and more common materials to achieve similar properties. The idea isn't that these are better than pure metals, but that they are more achievable in a setting where metal is rare, and in some cases not even illegal to forge or own.

Metal-likes are natural materials processed with advanced techniques to mimic some properties of metals. These include:

  • Glass-steel: glass mixed with heavier metals and forged into amorphous solids, less brittle than obsidian but just as sharp

Supernatural alloys are metals (and thus very rare), but superior to those on Earth, such as:

  • Mithral
  • Adamantium

Rank 5: Exotic and Magical Materials

These materials are extremely rare and often have magical properties. They require specialized knowledge and skills to work with. They include:

  • Dragonbone
  • Elementium
  • Celestial Iron