Soap

Soap is a material that usualy comes in the form of a solid cube. Its colour can range from light beige to dark brown and is usualy homogenous.

Soap has the unique ability to remove dirt and grime from both clothing, and on skin by prducing foam that can be easily rinced away with clean water. Scented soaps can also perfume clothing and skin.

Soap is primarily made with two ingredients: Oils/fats, and Lye. Lye is extracted from wood ash using a process called lye leeching, which involves draining the lye out of wood ash with water, forming lye-rich water. In many more luxurious soaps, especialy those made for cleaning the skin, scented oils and perfumes are added into the mixture.

The first soaps were created and used by the people of the Kingdom of Darnia during the First Age. However, its main purpose was to clean various textiles. Later in that same period, it was used as a medicine for the skin in the Khartian Empire. These soaps were made with animal fat, and more rarely with vegetable fats, combined with wood ash or trona purified into lye.   This process would remain largely unchanged during the Second Age, with the notable exception of herbs and later perfumes, which began to be added to some soaps used as medicines. However, this practice would evolve in the Third age, as it was discovered by Naurcian alchemists how to mass-produce lye and soda ash, leading to an explosion of soap manufacturing and consumption on the continent over the next few centuries.   Perfumed oils are frequently added to more luxurious soaps, which are then marketed as being healthy. Indeed, many people believe that nice smells repulses all kinds of illnesses, and so by using the soap on themselves, they become and are able to stay healthy.   Soap usage has become a status symbol in some countries like the Kingdom of Naurcia and the Kavasian Empire, as the nobles there are able to afford the most expensive (and thus healtier in their mind) options, while the merchants and peasants must contend themselves to ones with herbs in them, said to have a similar, albeit less potent, health benefit.

In Arros and Enaskia, most people do not have regular access to soap, as it remains expensive and not always available outside of big and medium cities. Of the people using soap, most do not use it on themselves, but for their clothes, although some do. In large cities, especialy those once under the Esnian Empire's influence, public baths are widespread, and most offer soaps to people for free, or at very low prices. Richer folks have acess to all the soap they want, and most use scented soap to wash themselves and their clothes.

Much like perfumes, soaps and their usage are seen as a status symbol, and richer people and nobles living in medium to large cities are known to use them all the time. Notably, Shapeshifters are well known to absolutely hate scented soaps, usualy because the smell is too strong for them, and it gives them headaches and dizziness.

Soap is also used to clean wobbler engines and their components. Soap can easily remove the sout and grime that sometimes clog the engines and reduces their performance. Linen, which is used for both normal ships and Winged ships is also whitened by using soap, or lye directly.

Soap production and trade remains relatively small-scale and local. While some merchants have started establishing what could be considered soap factories in some cities, most prominently the City of Valcor, in the Kingdom of Saramen, and the city of Hurys, in the Kingdom of Darnia. Other cities in Arros, like Vrahlis, Usenqa, and Tilesi also have large soap-making industries, but most soap in Arros and Enaskia is produced localy and is not exported outside of its own market.