Parthos Wiki: Selssarim

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Selssarim

It has been a thousand years or more since selssarim was seen in any quantity in Meditra. The Emperor of Ardashir is said to have a few small jewels of it, none larger than a baby's fingernail and each more precious than a diamond thrice its size. The elves may yet have a stone or two, and the dwarves perhaps a dozen scattered among all their halls. But by and large, selssarim has not been seen in the kingdoms of men since the Godslayer's War, when most of the gems still known to the world were consumed.

Its rarity and value do not lie in its appearance. Selssarim has been unflatteringly described as "milkglass that glows," and though few in this age have seen it, the writings of earlier eras say that this is not far from the truth. When first mined from the earth, selssarim appears as a spiky, irregularly shaped mass of translucent white stone, slightly clearer than alabaster, that gives off a soft white light in the presence of magic. As it is worn and worn down, the edges smooth off, so all remaining specimens of selssarim are as round as river pebbles.

The jewel is far too valuable to be cut or polished. Its true worth -- the reason that men have done murder for it and kings gone to war -- lies in its ability to amplify magic. An apprentice with a grain of selssarim, the legends claim, could cast a spell to rival an archmage's. That same apprentice, with a gem the size of a quail's egg, could level a mountain or summon an army of angels -- only once, and perhaps at the cost of his life or his sanity, but if the bards are to be believed, it could be done.

Selssarim, however, is consumed by use. Channelling magic through it melts the stone as surely as heat melts an icicle, and even more quickly. During the Godslayer's War, when every power of Meditra was forced to the battlefield and every resource thrown into the fight, the nations and temples of the continent exhausted their treasuries and their selssarim. Quantities of the stone had been in decline long before that, as it was never common and the last mines ran dry before the first Ardasi Emperor stepped onto his dais, but almost all that was left in the world was consumed in that war. Dragons guard their hoards less jealousy than the holders of the last selssarim guard their prizes.

Once called the Song of the Earth, or the Tears of the Gods, it now exists as a legend, and a half-remembered one at that. Were a new source, or even a new stone, to be discovered, it would likely lead to a war nearly as vicious as that which consumed the lost ones.

Parthos Wiki : Selssarim

Selssarim