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Goldstar Turquoise
Goldstar turquoise has been found in the Cathilcarn Mountains, the Wall of Knives, and, to a much lesser extent, the northern peaks of the Irontooths. Good-quality specimens are a deep, rich robin's-egg blue shot through with a sparkling web of pyrite (fools' gold). Poorer-quality stones are softer and more green than blue, but display the same radiant pyrite veining. The best goldstar turquoise fetches 50 to 100 ss for nuggets the size of a hen's egg, with inferior stones selling for perhaps a tenth of that price.
The primary value of the stone is for its striking beauty; its magical properties are secondary. Goldstar turquoise can be splintered into shards and worked into arrows and spears to improve their accuracy, but this destroys the gem and requires a skilled artisan to maintain the weapons' balance. Fine turquoise is typically worth more as a jewel, and poor-quality goldstar turquoise has a very minor effect.
The tribes of the Qaidam Nor are known to use goldstar turquoise in their weapons, especially the spears they carry into battle, but they disdain the use of this stone in the spears used for ritual combat. Such artificial enhancements are considered to lower the honor of the warrior relying on them. A superior combatant, in their view, should have no need of the gems' help.
The Bahaduir also have a venerable tradition of carrying spears enhanced with goldstar turquoise. The ceremonial weapons of the Desertguard are heavily adorned with the stone, and the lesser spears used in their actual duties are also ornamented with it, both for the practical effect of enhancing their accuracy and to display the wealth and grandeur of the Emperor they protect. These spears have been part of their legend for centuries.
Partly because of the awe in which the Bahaduir have historically been held, there is a long history of nobles and poseurs in Ardashir favoring weapons ornamented with the same stone. Even ordinary turquoise is often used to decorate scabbards and spear-hafts in Ardasi culture, simply as a fashionable echo of the Bahaduir weapons.
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