Orichalc

Orichalc is an alloy composed of gold and an unknown second metal. It was used extensively during the highest period of the Quirinal Empire .

Orichalc is pale yellow in colour, does not tarnish and is extremely dense. It was used for a wide range of purposes by Quirinal artisans – in armour, in domestic furnishings, in cutlery and in structural features to name but a few examples.

Because of its durability, wrought pieces are still often found today but the secret of its manufacture has been lost. Working the metal probably involved a fast, controlled, high-temperature metallurgical process which cannot now be replicated. Attempts to refashion orichalc artefacts uniformly result in the destruction of the artefact  – o nce the metal is heated enough to become malleable, the gold separates, leaving the other matter blackened and, upon cooling, pockmarked and brittle. This is sometimes used to obtain gold from orichalc but the orichalc artefact is usually worth more intact than the resulting amount of gold.

There is some speculation among scholars that the second metal was indeed silver but it was actually a third element (poetically referred to as the “tears of the moon”) that was essential in creating the alloy. Alternatively, the alloy may have been gold and the “tears of the moon” with no silver at all. Finally, there is an argument that the Quirinal Empire learned the secret of manufacturing orichalc from the First Folk but this is generally dismissed since the First Folk are often credited with being responsible for mysteries of the past.