Mire-Iron is not merely a metal; it is a curse dragged from the muck of the Bog of Lies, a substance so steeped in tragedy and witchcraft that even the bravest smiths flinch at its mention. Where Pyrrhium gleams with star-born fire and Viridite hums with the pulse of magick, Mire-Iron sulks in silence, drinking in all it touches. To look upon it is to see iron that has drowned too long, blackened and slick as though it still remembers the bodies it sank with. Its strength is undeniable, its stability unmatched, yet it is never praised, only feared. For though enchantments slip from its surface like rain, curses seep into it as if the metal were thirsty for malice. Every blade, every nail, every chain forged of it becomes a conduit of ill omen, waiting to betray the hand that dares to wield it. It is said witches of the bog weave Mire-Iron into their rites not for its strength, but because the ore itself listens. Left in the dark too long, it hums faintly, like breath behind a closed door, and those who work it speak of whispers in the silence of their forges, promises or threats they cannot quite discern. Villages whisper that cursed tools fashioned from Mire-Iron do not break so much as they break owners, withered hands, fading memories, black bile in the lungs. To the exorcist, it is a last resort. To the alchemist, a volatile catalyst. To the witch, it is kin. Yet still, demand persists. Mire-Iron is licensed and taxed, guarded like toxin or gunpowder, and sold only to those with permits or with pockets deep enough to buy silence. It is too useful to be banished entirely, and too dangerous to be forgotten. Where it rests, it festers, and where it is used, ruin follows. Among dwarfs it is shunned as “dead metal,” but among the swamp-born, it is respected, even worshiped, proof that the bog remembers, and that the dead beneath it still have teeth.