Rock Salt

"Never forget to have a bit of salt with you, for luck."

— Common Imperial Proverb

  Of all the spices used to flavor food, one of the more common is simple salt. While alchemists have made strides in providing something which functions as salt, the most common form is in rock crystals mined from various places around Erisdaire. These crystals are ground to produce a coarse powdered form of the salt, which is the form it is primarily used in. Most households in Imperial cities keep a quantity on hand for meals, be they common folk or nobility. Villages tend to buy larger quantities for use in preserving meat, pairing it with other spices to flavor the meat as it dries. Alchemists find many other uses for salt as a reactive agent, though they are always quite reclusive on exactly what is done. Arcanists find a similarly strange use for it, as a ritual component for many conjuration or warding spells. Regardless of who is being discussed, almost everyone across Erisdaire finds a use for salt. The utility of it has made rock salt in its more raw state a commodity worth trading for other goods which can be harder to find. The fact it cannot spoil, rot, or otherwise decay makes it a fantastic good to trade for things which do.

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Fine-Ground Salt

When used by alchemists and arcanists, salt must be ground down to a finer powder which resembles sand more than the tiny crystals used for meals. This salt is still useful for cooking, especially when it must be incorporated into liquids or dough. It is also valuable to those intending to pickle vegetables or prepare meat for preservation, due to being already broken-down into a suitably fine powder before application. The grinders which do this are often constructed by alchemists themselves, and are quite expensive in comparison to more common table grinders. (It should be noted these 'fine grinders' are exceptionally useful for other spices, though they wear out faster if they're used for more than salt.) Alchemists need the fine-ground salt to dissolve in liquids, as it happens faster and with little effort. Arcanists use it for warding circles, laying lines down which will become the boundaries of the wards themselves. It is said any fine powder will do, but salt is said to possess some innate qualities of "purification" which render the wards much more effective. How true this is remains under investigation by Sages, as whether or not there is another viable alternative makes a difference.

 

Rose Salt

Mined from underneath Firos and Gilvonnaie, there is a particular type of salt which is a light pink in coloration. This type of salt has been given additional value by nobility, though it does not seem to possess any unusual qualities of its own. Ever since misfortune fell Firos, this is one of the few commodities they can still rely on to bring in trade. Rose salt is sometimes sold in a raw state, carved into large blocks which can be chipped or scraped with metal tools. Other times it is sold in the usual "small crystal" form which fits most commonly-sold grinders. But for nobility, there are special crystals which are artistically shaped to resemble rose blossoms and are treated as the centerpiece of a banquet table. The pieces carved from these blossoms are often what are gathered and sold otherwise, While salt has been of use to arcanists and alchemists, they seem less interested in using rose salt for their efforts.

 

Black Salt

Far more rare is a type of salt found on the Fireshard Islands, an active volcanic region. Due to the large quantities of ash in the air and soil, the salt crystals are a smoky grey, though this color is lost when ground down to the commonly-used powder. According to many chefs cooking for nobility, this type of salt retains a smoky flavoring which is added to the meal. A few attempts have been made to "counterfeit" black salt by mixing the more common salts with wood ash. The results are far from useful, but it hasn't stopped crooked traders from trying to make a swift pile of coin from places they intend never to return to. As with rose salt, alchemists refuse to touch it out of fear of contaminants. Arcanists, however, have found the salt is useful when applied in place of other spell components associated with fire. Spells worked with black salt as a component produce bright light and dark smoke as part of the effects, and a specially cut crystal of black salt has been useful as a focus for conjuring elementals associated with either fire or earth. Currently the Sebile Trade Partnership is the only known source of black salt, through their mining camps on the Fireshard Islands.

 

Alchemical Salts

Alchemists make their own salts, but these are often not the same thing as rock salt. These are often called "salts" since they resemble the same powdery compound rock salt is ground into, but the materials used are not something which should be ingested casually. Be exceedingly careful when asking alchemists to provide salt, as a miscommunication could bring deadly results. These alchemical salts are often temporary creations, the middle step in complex transformations before being used up for a final product. Since there are a significant number of "salts", there is no simple way to express how they are used. More importantly, alchemists have been able to make edible salt from processing seawater through varied processes. In order to differentiate this from rock salt, many alchemists add a coloring agent to make it green. Scholars have determined it is not any different than rock salt, for the questions of safe consumption, but marketing it to citizens has not gone well so far.