Angstone

Type: Material (Stone) • Rarity: Legendary/Occult
Also Called: Sorrow-stone, Weeprock, Black Quiet

Overview

Angstone begins as ordinary stone left for years in places of deliberate suffering—oubliettes, torture vaults, execution yards, war cells. It absorbs anguish the way rock takes on heat, until its lattice changes and the stone becomes unbreakable and unnaturally quiet.
It is not mined so much as harvested from rooms that have earned their silence.

“Most stones remember weight and water. This one remembers pain.” — Rihsaman mason’s proverb

Appearance

• Color: Usually matte black but can be found in flat grays or reds, often with striations visible only at an angle.
• Surface: Drinks light rather than reflecting it; edges look bloodless when cut.
• Aura: Rooms with Angstone fixtures feel acoustically “padded”—voices dull, footfalls soften, and echoes die early.

Formation

Angstone forms where three conditions persist for years:

1. Confinement: Thick masonry, little daylight.
2. Continuity: Repeated human suffering (anguish, not merely pain).
3. Witness: The stone must be exposed to the events (not sheathed or painted).

When uprooted from such a chamber, residual Angstone can continue to mature if kept in places of grief (crypts, prisons, siege hospitals).

Properties

• Indestructible: Once fully matured, Angstone cannot be sundered by mundane or magical force; it will not chip or ring.
• Sound-Damping: Objects fashioned from it carry a deadened acoustic field; sheaths don’t rattle, blades don’t sing, doors set with it close like soft breath.
• Emotionally Reactive: Within a few paces of intense despair or terror, Angstone can develop a faint, cold hum detectable to sensitive wielders.
• No Solace (Black Angstone): A creature that takes damage from a Black Angstone weapon can’t regain hit points by any means until the start of your next turn.
• Born of Battlefields (Red Angstone): A creature that takes damage from a Red Angstone weapon takes 1d8 ongoing bleeding damage at the start of its turn. Ends if the target receives any healing or uses an action to staunch (DC 10 Medicine)
• Despair Mark (Gray Angstone): A creature that takes damage from a Gray Angstone weapon suffers a –1d4 penalty to its next ad20 roll.
• Exploit Weakness (Relict Angstone): When a creature is struck by a Relict Angstone weapon, you must roll the damage twice and take the higher roll. This includes from any sources as part of the attack (smite, sneak attack, extra elemental damage.)

Ethical Note: Creating Angstone on purpose requires cruelty. Many cultures forbid new manufacture and only reclaim it from condemned sites.

Grades & Working

• Black Angstone (Rare): Mature; legendary durability and strong quieting effect.
• Red Angstone (Very Rare): Can form in places where there is an abnormally high amount of bloodshed such as battlefields.
• Gray Angstone (Very Rare): Can form in places where the suffering is mental and emotional without physical pain or bloodshed.
• Relict Angstone (Legendary): Pieces removed from infamous sites; some exhibit personal “tones” (wars, betrayals) that master smiths can read.

Working:

• Almost always shaped before conversion.
• Once rock is fully converted to Angstone, it can only be shaped by deific means.

Common Uses

• Blades: Rapiers, stilettos, garrotes’ anchors—anything that benefits from silence.
• Seals & Lintels: Prison doors, reliquary caps, necropolis valves; keeps noise from carrying and meddling from “taking hold.”
• Wards: Thin inlays around chambers to soften sound and discourage ritual attention.

Cultural Notes

• Dajjashi: Treat angstone as a state artifact—taken from fallen tyrannies and reworked under royal writ.
• Nezb (The Judge): Allows it only for funerary gates; any weapon use requires permission.
• Dravis /Arya: Black-market pieces circulate among spies and duelists; possession can draw inquisitors.

Known Sources

• The Salt Oubliettes beneath Dajjashi.
• The broken vaults of Setovia (after the vampire purges).
• Siege crypts outside Zarkova (contested; Dravis denies access).
• Whispered: a drowned choir hall on the Rishama coast where the stone “learned to stop listening.”

Notable Works

• Nadir, the Angstone rapier forged by The Beekeeper for Eztli Serukhai, Queen of Dajjashi—a blade so quiet that even victory refuses to echo.

Handling & Risks

• Psychic Echo: Prolonged contact can invite bleak dreams or a numbness of affect. Rotating carriers or lining grips with living materials (ray-skin, willow, waxed cord) mitigates this.
• Ritual Backwash: Loud rites performed inside an angstone ward often fail strangely; sound has nowhere to go.

Adventure Hooks

• A city debates whether to demolish a notorious prison or harvest its Angstone for civic monuments. Protesters say that builds a city out of screams.
• A smuggled Angstone stiletto refuses to cross a temple’s threshold; the stone “will not work for mercy.”
• Rumor of a collapsed tunnel where raw Angstone formed without cruelty—did the earth itself learn anguish there?