Gharat-Stone

The Gharat-Stone is a multi-purpose survival and grinding tool for the desert tribes of Mirateia.   It can best be described as a flat, palm-sized stone disc that is made from basalt or sun-tempered quartzite. One side of the Gharat-Stone is slightly concave, with the other side typically being engraved with personal or tribal markings special to the tribe the holder belongs to. People tend to wear it around the waist or in a small backpack, when not in use, its generally covered in woven leather.   The Gharat-Stone have many uses; it can be used to grind dried roots or seeds into paste or powder for medicine or food. Likewise, it can also be used to strike fire by hitting it with a piece of steel, although this is rarely done as its only very lucky tribes that have acress to steel for this purpose. Some tribes also use it to boil water by heating it in a fire and then drop it into water that can then be used for medicine.   Some families have a tradition of passing the stones down through the family, but the most common tradition seems to be to bury the stone with the holder as some tribes believe that the tool will also be useful for the deceased in the afterlife.   If one have been gifted a personal Gharat-Stone by a member of a desert tribe then they are being held in high regard among the tribe and will always be welcome as they are now being seen as part of the tribe. its a rare gift and those outsiders that have such a stone tends to settle down with the tribe later on, other use their connection with the tribe to settle down on the outskirts of the desert and acting as a middleman between the tribe and those that inhabit the lands outside the sand.