A lovely article all together. As a chemist I do have a question though: Why do none of your materials absorb in the optical range? I'm assuming that optical absorbance for the tech level of this world is limited to the visible range, but still some materials surely absorb light in that range? Or am I thinking about it too scientifically and this world isn't too concerned with that kind of stuff?
Thanks! The optical absorption field being empty is not because there is no absorbing material but because I couldn't decide which one to put there XD By what I've seen - and correct me if I'm wrong - optical absorbance means that the material absorbs photons and convert them to another type of energy, and so those materials are often used as ROOS in chemical reactions. That's not something that would be useful for the magical artefacts my characters want to craft. So I was thinking of going into a more "magical" route and say that the photon are converted into magic or directly use photosensitive properties instead of absorbance. I'm not sure what materials to use as real base for that. You remind me I still need to go back to thinking about more about that.
This article was so fun to read — it took me back to material science studies when we had to take many of the properties mentioned here into account. And finding an alloy that will have all properties maxed out is super tough! Is there a pattern of dense, corrosion-resistant metals to be magic absorbers? I also wonder how intermetallic phases would be treated, e.g., Laves phases? Oh, and grain boundaries! Would a single crystal have better magical absorption compared with a polycrystalline material with high crystalline texture, lie a mosaic structure? Thanks for a good and memorable read! :D
Thanks for the comment :D Yes, material science is so fascinating! I love the puzzle of having to figure out the best combinations for each specific application, and yet it seems that we can cheat all the time by inventing new alloys, either in the real world or in fiction! For the magical properties, I went with radiation (though I forgot which kind exactly, I think I might have done a mix in the end): magic resistant material are all those used to make radiation shields (iron, ice, graphite, beryllium). And magic absorbant, I forgot where I got them, but it was probably with nuclear reactors or something like that. Grain boundaries/polycrystals is something I thought about but didn't have space to develop. Basically, magic is using the properties of one phase to spread quickly, but a change will have it stumble and slow down. So it's best to have one big single-phase crystal, but this is of course impossible. Although you wouldn't want to have a perfectly absorbing material for every application of course, and so people will have to play with the different raw material they find so as to adjust the absorption to the level they want. I'm guessing intermetallic phases would be similar. The best properties comes from the structure of the crystals, and as soon as you deviate from crystals the properties deteriorates. Thanks for mentioning those great points :D
I love this simple but very charming article. I particularly liked the use of the icons and the instructions for students. As a trainer for apprentices, I was able to put myself in their place very well. Would it perhaps be possible to explain the usage with an example, how to do it correctly as a student?
Thanks! And good suggestion, I might do something like that later in a separate article (to keep this one short) once I decide on what artefact I want to include in the book :D
Yesterday I got some inspiration to add a few brief examples of artefacts at the end, so thanks again for the suggestion!
Thanks for adding und you´re welcome.
I appreciate the concept here— having an in-world document to explain both to the reader and to in-universe characters how part of it works? Wonderful!
Thanks :D This will be useful for me to once I have to give some techno babble in the novel XD
Like the way to provide instructions that would be helpful for readers to understand the world rules :)
Thanks :D And it's also a great way for me to decide how things work and to use the article as a reference document when I need to design artefact or to use some techno babble in the novel XD
"so for magic's sake, remember that a chemical crystal is not a crystal rock or gemstone and stop defaulting to them!" got a laugh out of me. I like how you're continuing the theme with in world handouts, and how we can still get a good glimpse of what's going on politically through them ("avoid Illinie & Rénance")
Thanks! Illunie is basically just England and Rénance is going to be Prussia/Germany XD Little rivalries between countries are always fun :p Q is to blame for the crystal rock/gemstone comment XD He's right that we always have fun with them in fantasy settings and I wanted to twist that a bit here.