Glittrial (GLIT-ree-ahl)

A magical fuel source roughly resembling if you took tar and made it super glittery, it is the main fuel for most of the known world. With a high viscosity, high evaporation temperature, and low freezing temperature, it works during most times of the year. It is used in steam engines, mostly.

Properties

Material Characteristics

Gloopy with a sparkly or shiny appearance, otherwise a rather plain gray color.

Physical & Chemical Properties

You can heat it up to make steam engines work OR (and this is more experimental and only used in cities at present) heat it up and use IT as the liquid that runs through pipes and makes mechanical and electrical currents go.

Geology & Geography

Typically found in or near swamps, bogs, and fens.

Origin & Source

decaying material mixed with magical elements and compounds.

History & Usage

History

Found sometime around the 4200s ETKM, it was initially used in mills for grain harvests and then in mills for grain manufacturing.

Everyday use

fuel in manufacturing plants

Industrial Use

Used in mills that require steam power, such as cloth manufacturing, lumber mills, refineries, and some food mills, as well as in homes to keep the pipes warm for showers and stoves.

Hazards

Perhaps this is obvious, but one should not drown in this stuff. It has somewhat of a sucking tendency if you try to pull stuff out of it, so if used wrong, it can have the same properties as quicksand.

Reusability & Recycling

If you at least keep the material at "room temperature," the goo can be used semi-infinitely. Newer, or wealthier, factories and mill owners tend to give their Glittrial from the past year to peasants/less wealthy people for their use for mechanical mills, water heating, and stoves, though.

Distribution

Trade & Market

Of the three kinds of glittrial one can find - acidic, basic, and neutral - basic is the most desired, so as not to wear down the pipes so easily. Neutral tends to have the same consistency as water and so while it is passed to the lowest classes, it is not as desirable for any large-scale project.

Storage

room temperature, not in the sun.

Law & Regulation

Zewhal has a law against anyone lower than aristocracy using glittrial. No other country or empire has such a law.

Type

Biomaterial

Rarity

common

Odor

like the swamp exhibit at the zoo

Taste

mud

Color

grayish with a shine

Common State

liquid