Collection of Observations: Of Artificiery: On Tools

[Regalus]

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I've finally decided to experiment around with the various tools and equipment made available to the common artificiery: namely that of anvils, hammers, alongside the other tools made available to the common artificer. Five common anvils are often made in bulk for artificers to purchase, rarely ever an artificer would actually make their own. Instead, that task is offset for non-magi blacksmiths.

Magical items are items in which magical properties are imbued within, usually of weapons and armor but far from limited to just those two. These can differ from artificer to artificer but the most common constructs almost always rely on an anvil and its tools. As stated before, these tools are made in 5 different materials, those of Stone, Iron, Bronze, Silver, and Gold. These are in order of magical potency, Gold being the most potent of them all and stone the least.

However, the magical potency of the tools does not guarantee the magical potency of the item forged by them. Funnily enough, neither do an artificer's skill. Rather... it quite often than not, up to the whims of magic.

Put simply, the creation of a magical item when forged through common methods often meet its crux on the anvil. Magic is imbued upon the hammer and anvil by an artificer. As the item forged is struck by hammer and held by anvil, this magic is stimulated and impressed upon that item. This magic does whatever it needs to: imbuing magic, creating or changing properties, and whatever else.

The amount and complexity of magic, while dependent on the artificer's skill, also largely relies on the quality of the anvil and hammer. The higher quality it is, the more magic it can store and eventually pass on to the item. However, this is in the end up to chance (OOC: pun intended). Throughout the forging process, the magic can dissipate, go into erroneous directions, or more often than not, hindered by material impurities within either equipment or the material of the tools itself.


So it begs the question: Why not use higher quality materials for anvils?

The answer for that would be the conflict between the tools and of the item forged.

The item forged MUST be of a higher quality material than the tools used to forge it, lest the magic would simply stay within the tools themselves due to its higher aptitude rather than be imbued upon the lower weapon. It's the main reason why gold, which is far from the most magical of metals, are used as the highest material for forging tools. While still being able to hold an adequate amount of magic, it's low grade ensures most if not all of said mana are passed onto the item and not instead held.

However, with its still low grade of the tool, the problems of magical dissipation and entropy will remain, hence the inconsistency in traditional forging.

The only way to bypass this seems to be through the application of more unique styles of forging, a one of a kind effort and focus by the artificer.

----- 2091 AC

(Discord: regalus_ if i did something stupid.)