Wardstone
Material Characteristics
Despite the name 'stone', wardstones more accurately seem to be closer related to ice in composition, though they do not melt underneath the heat of the sun or nearby fires. In fact, they perpetually remains cool to the touch.Wardstones are primarily a dark semi-translucent amber color, with thread-fine veins of pale blue coiled through it in a vast network. These lines converge in the core, which pulses with soft light, like the beating of a heart, in the dark of night. During the day, this light is expanded, causing the whole pillar to glow under the light of the suns.
The wardstone is smooth to the touch, polished over centuries by attentive priests. They seem to have a certain degree of awareness, greeting the touch of the faithful with a pleasantly cool surface, while heretics and demonic entities are burned by the shock of cold. A number of scholars have tried to discover if this awareness is a form of proper intelligence, or merely a reaction to something within such beings.
Its scent is cold and clean, like undisturbed snow, but with mild hints of various citrus fruits. Amongst the arid savannah and blackened desert beyond, this scent is unique. No inhabitant of the Midnight Expanse has known ice or snow in living memory, though some have claimed to have known it while life trancing without direction.
Utility
Wardstones serve a vital role in civilization within the Midnight Expanse.
The nights bring a constant danger of demonic attack, a threat most efficiently dealt with using light. While torches are effective to an extent, they are fragile and particularly stubborn beasts can snuff them out to create an opening for the hordes to pour in through. The magic-users of cities built around these wardstones have developed a network of crystals and lines of magic that go through the city streets, lighting them up brightly in the night, using the reserves of magical energy within the wardstones as a power source, which in turn gets renewed over the course of the day by the suns. These are called brightroads, and are proven very effective at keeping the hordes at bay.
These brightroads, however, do not have the strength to ward off demons who are called through the Veil with blood magic, making such casters increasingly dangerous.
Manufacturing
Wardstones are not mined, grown, or even built in the current era; indeed they can only be found. Many believe that they are crafted by the gods and intentionally placed where the divines wish a city to grow. Scholars have a different theory; believing perhaps the wardstones pre-date the Era of Darkness, and perhaps molded by the last vestiges of the great Azlaryn Empire. The raw material they are carved from are perhaps from the unknown parts of the world, beyond the Vi'Rok mountains. Attempts to locate a natural uncut deposit within the boundaries of the Expanse have proven fruitless, and attempts to travel beyond the mountains have not returned.
Social Impact
The wardstones, and the connecting brightroads, are the reason that people were able to settle in one spot long enough to build permanent homes, walls, cities. They allow the shelter and protection required to set down roots and agriculture, craft more advanced equipment or extravagant artworks.
Outside the protection of the brightroads, villages are only big enough for a handful of people, and quickly put together for shelter. Demons often tear through these villages when there is no one to relight the torch perimeter, forcing them to be rebuilt.
Outside the protection of the brightroads, villages are only big enough for a handful of people, and quickly put together for shelter. Demons often tear through these villages when there is no one to relight the torch perimeter, forcing them to be rebuilt.
Access & Availability
Legendary
Wardstones are found fully crafted, and the process or materials needed to make a new one are long since lost to time.
Wardstones are found fully crafted, and the process or materials needed to make a new one are long since lost to time.
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