Crystal

 Game Stats

• +3 damage
• by armor

Description

Crystal Weapons

"Crystal" is a generic name given to steel blades with alchemically treated gemstone edges.  The actual crystal used may be diamond, sapphire, or ruby depending on local availability.

Many of the best steel blades in the Circle are subjected to differential heat treatment.  As steel becomes harder, it also becomes more brittle.  A differentially heat treated blade has an edge of very hard steel, the better to hold an edge, and a spine of softer, tougher steel, the better to withstand the stresses of combat.  Crystal-edged blades follow a similar principle, but rather than an edge of hard steel, use an edge of hard crystal.

Crystal to be used in an edged weapon must be cut with exacting precision, and then subjected to a battery of alchemical treatments.  Ordinary diamonds, sapphires, and rubies can be quite sharp and are among the hardest substances known, but they are far too brittle in their natural state to serve as a weapon.  Additionally, an alchemist's help is required to truly fuse the crystal edge to the steel spine of the blade.  A finished well-made crystal edge is sharper than steel and will bend and flex just like the steel that backs it.  Crystal edges can withstand even more abuse than steel ones and thus require sharpening very infrequently.  When they do, they must be sharpened by a specialized alchemist-jeweler.

Crystal edges are not applied to bludgeoning weapons.  While it is in theory possible to create an extra-hard striking face for a warhammer or club, the improvement in performance would be slight.

Crystal Armor

Crystal armor requires a great deal more raw material than do crystal blades.  For this reason crystal armor is usually crafted not of expensive gemstones but of more commonly available (and softer) crystals such as quartz or one of its variants.  The raw crystals are cut by a specialized alchemist-jeweler into many sheets which are then alchemically fused together into the desired shape and mated with any fixtures such as leather straps or buckles.

It is impractical to create crystal armor from very hard (and thus rarer) gems, but even alchemically treated quartz is harder than most steels.  It is also more brittle, however, and the alchemical fusing process leaves the armor riddled with microscopic fault lines.  For this reason crystal armor is generally considered inferior to steel armor against most attacks.  However, crystal is a better insulator than steel or any other metal used in armor, which makes it a superior armor against burning attacks.

Crystal armor is thus a specialist armor used against attacks such as those commonly employed by hostile mages or certain exotic engines of war.  Its insulating properties are inferior to those of glass armor, but crystal provides a better all-around defense against kinetic attacks than does glass.

Price

Crystal edges are inordinately expensive.  They can only be applied to the finest quality steel, which is expensive to begin with.  They require rare and valuable gems, which must be exactingly cut, and then subjected to many alchemical treatments to produced from multiple gems a single edge that is fused with itself and its blade.  The cost in materials and labor makes these blades prohibitively expensive for all but the extremely wealthy, and they are sure to be treasured heirlooms.

Crystal armor is similarly expensive, but can actually be cheaper than a crystal-edged blade, depending on the piece of armor being produced.  Nevertheless, crystal armor is just as valued as an heirloom piece.  Besides its expense, any suit of crystal armor was likely constructed for a very special sort of peril, an adventure that is sure to be passed on from generation to generation.