Jade

More common than any other magical material — though still far scarcer than mundane silver — jade appears throughout the lands of Creation. Unlike the others, jade is stone rather than metal, though powdered jade is usually alloyed with steel to craft weapons and armor. It’s smooth and glossy in either state, its colors rich and brilliant. The Realm covets jade, using it both for currency and for almost all of its artifacts, and the Empress dedicated much of her foreign policy to controlling Threshold jade mines. With her disappearance, the Great Houses and other Dynastic factions squabble to control this rare, precious resource.
Like the Dragon-Blooded who resonate with its elemental nature, jade comes in five hues. As stone, it comes in endless patterns and gradations of subtle shades, though jade-steel alloy loses those natural variations. Each of jade’s colors has its own characteristics, rooted in affinity for one of the five elements. This includes both direct elemental manifestations and more metaphorical expressions.
Black jade glitters black as the sea at midnight, though some is shot through with shadowy swirls and whorls. It’s most often found near rivers, along coastlines, and on the ocean floor. Its powers draw on the Essence of water — the subtle fluid motion of currents, the ebb and flow of tides, and the irresistible pull of the deeps. Its affinities include aquatic life, resilience, fluidity, elusiveness, deception, illusion, mystery, intuition, emotion, indirect forces, change, adaptation, corrosion, acid, dissolution, and spirits.
Blue jade glows blue as a cloudless sky, whether the pale azure of winter dawn or a summer evening’s rich cerulean. It feels lighter than other jades, and is cool to the touch. Veins appear atop snowcapped mountains and throughout the frozen North. Its magic is tied to air and winter, and its affinities include wind, cold, ice, precipitation, lightning, flying creatures, swiftness, precision, intellect, understanding, memory, language, philosophy, music, and silence.
Green jade appears in all the vibrant hues of fresh vegetation, sometimes mottled brown. Even when worked, it looks more grown than carved. It can be found within forest-cloaked hills, beneath the jungle soil, or caught in the roots of ancient trees. Its Evocations tap the Essence of life, giving it an affinity for plants, animals, wilderness, fertility, growth, vitality, interconnection, pleasure, nourishment, healing, narcotics, and poisons.
Red jade blazes scarlet, often shot through with fiery orange and yellow veins, occasionally streaked with smoky gray. Its colors shift as it catches the light; it feels warm to the touch. It’s found in places that have known great heat volcanic islands, lava tubes, or under burning desert sands. It has affinities for flame, smoke, heat, light, illumination, revelation, warmth, passion, zeal, unpredictability, flickering movement, violence, destruction, purification, and renewal.
White jade feels heavier and denser than other jades. Most often ivory-hued, it can be white as mutton fat, while Underworld veins tend to be ashen gray. Found inside mountains and deep within Creation’s bedrock, it’s associated with the roots of the earth: solid as a mountain, stable as a foundation, unstoppable as a landslide. White jade artifacts have affinities for earth, stone, solidity, stability, harmony, strength, momentum, gravity, resistance, inertia, magnetism, stubbornness, tradition, history, passivity, and sleep.