Heatstone

There are some individuals in Droden who many would consider to have little to no regard for personal safety around the volcanoes. I suspect that whoever it was that discovered heatstones was one of them. Capable of storing intense heat for days on end, these unassuming rocks would in any other country have remained undiscovered, and only since they were discovered while still hot did they come to be known. Still, the Droden seem to have few qualms about digging more out of fresh magma after each new eruption. Why they would even consider using them as ammunition in naval combat is beyond me.

Properties

Material Characteristics

A heatstone is a dull grey smooth stone when in a cool state, looking hardly different from any other rock. When heated, however, the stone develops stripes of orange across its surface. Application of more heat will cause it to glow faintly. At very high temperatures, the bands become paler, passing through yellow before becoming a bright white, and the brightness of the stone similarly intensifies.

Physical & Chemical Properties

The important property of heatstones is, as the name suggests, their retention of heat. Place a heatstone in a fire for an hour, leave it overnight, and the following morning it will still be hot enough to boil water. Although not an uncommon injury in Droden, more than a few people have suffered major burns from picking up a heatstone they expected to have cooled down.

Geology & Geography

The people of Droden mine heatstones out of recent lava flows from the volcanoes, using fluctuations in the heat of the lava to find them. Not all volcanoes, not even all the Droden volcanoes, produce heatstones, so they are suspected to be formed under specific conditions underground, then forced to the surface in eruptions. What those conditions may be is unknown, and not even the Droden are mad enough to dive into a volcano and find out.

History & Usage

History

Exactly when heatstones were discovered by the Droden is unknown, but it can be narrowed down to some point between the White Mountain War and the First Oderel War. At first, difficulty in handling and storing the stones meant that little progress with them was made, save that they were used with reasonable effect against Osmian ships in the war. After the peace negotiation, a quantity of heatstones was sent to Mistval, who fared much better in their research. By the advent of the Second Oderel War, numerous Mistval and Osmian ships were fitted with boiling water globes, giving them a much-needed edge in the early days of the conflict. The conclusion of the war saw the technology shared, and the subsequent rise in usage on both sides.

Everyday use

Though heatstones do emit light, the temperatures required for them to do so were, quite rightly, deemed unsafe. In Droden, some smiths use tools tipped with heatstone shards, allowing for finer detail in their works. Heatstones are also commonly used in both Droden and Mistval to boil water, for a variety of purposes. Droden's steamdragons and Mistval's deepvessels both use heatstones for propulsion, and the stones are also used in Droden for cooking, proving to be substantially more effective than a simple fire.

Distribution

Storage

Unsurprisingly, safely storing heatstones requires care. While Droden-produced heatproof gloves are sufficient for holding hot heatstones, they have been noted to burn through many other moderately heatproof materials. Early on, sealed jars made of the same stone used in Droden's roads were used, though this was highly inefficient in terms of space. Discharging the heat from the stones proved just as troublesome, as very few substances absorbed much of the heat output of the stone, and those that did rapidly gained heat to the point that they were useless as a coolant. The shipment to Mistval required six barrels of White Ocean ice to properly cool. Mistval also provided the solution to the issue: ash lizard frills had the necessary heat resistance to remain intact even when surrounding a boiling heatstone and could be obtained more easily and in larger quantities than the Salamander skin required for Droden gloves.

Type

Stone

Rarity

Found only in Droden. There are rumours that the Gnomes have a supply, but this is unconfirmed.

Related Technologies

• Boiling Water Globe