Orichalcum

Magically imbued copper, aligned with Blood. Marginally tougher and harder than bronze, with a significantly higher plastic deformation limit (more flexible). Orichalcum appears a light-ish gold color with shimmers of reddish hues. This red tint grows deeper as the material is more charged; most semi-charged states of orichalcum are a pale red, while orichalcum under high load tends to turn bright red.   Regenerates similarly to dilith at a rate proportional to charge, diffusing charge relatively slowly if no repairs are needed.   Not that useful for standard mechanical purposes unless a civilization lacks advanced metallurgy (or simply access to metals other than copper). Conventional use is completely invalidated with dilith-steel alloys, and even ordinary steel is tough enough to outweigh the lack of self-healing properties (and for 99% of the population, steel's strength is far more useful than Phantom Adamantine).   Orichalcum's best use in technology after a civilization can create steel is as a magical capacitor. Its diffusion rate is negligible within typical timescales, while the material is inherently easier to charge than 'higher' noble metals. All the other noble metals have flaws which make them unsuited to this purpose:

• -moonsilver leeches ambient energy, potentially disrupting neighboring circuitry, and also has a higher magical resistance (harder to charge)

• -embergilt rapidly diffuses energy when not being actively charged

• -overdrawing mithril reverts it back to liquid mercury, losing its shape and potentially damaging nearby components, meaning that additional draw limiters have to be added to the circuit

• -slade is ludicrously expensive (being made from platinum), along with having very high magical resistance (more difficult to charge)

• -phasegleam is magically invisible

 

Medical

While all noble metals are capable of being subsumed by souls, orichalcum is generally the most suited metal for medical implants (bones and other structures) for similar reasons that it is an effective magical capacitor. Low energy bleed minimizes flow disruption from oscillating imbuement levels. Self-healing is useful for counteracting cumulative damage. It's far cheaper than gold, silver's leeching properties can have a negative impact on gut flora etc., and mercury disimbues quite destructively. Additionally, its natural alignment to Blood makes it more suited to adapting energy diffused from within a human body.  

Production

Note that of the noble metal infusions (that aren't slade), orichalcum has, by far, the highest imbuement threshold- several times that of embergilt, which is orders of magnitude more than the other infusions. As a result, no non-Blood cultures could even hope to create it pre-enchanting boom.   Orichalcum has been historically associated with Eidel and the Wastelands as a result, both known for their export of orichalcum goods (mostly weaponry). Eideli doctors also had a reputation for their use of orichalcum in prosthetics.