Black Powder

Boom! Another blast rang from the depths of mountain, shaking the ground as it echoed from their halls. Erin found herself curious as to what could be making such a sound and shake the earth itself. She knew how secretive the dwarves were and how unfriendly to outsiders they could be, but that sound had intrigued her like so many other things along her journey. BOOM! an even louder blast rang out as Erin headed into the dwarven city, determined to see what was happening.

Utility

Used primarily as a means of blasting mountain tunnels to be cut and carved into living halls, it is also used as ammunition in firearms and in high concentration for small bombs.

Manufacturing

Any base metal is heated and then imbued with elemental fire, causing it to gain a blacked color and if handled crumbles much like a dirt clod. they then grind it fine and its ready for use.

Inventor(s)

Gorn Blastbeard

Access & Availability

Only the dwarves have access to black powder. While they have shown it to a few trust allies, they have never revealed the process to outsiders as the penalty for such is not death but full excommunication for the entire dwarven line. Parents, Grandparents, Kids, Cousins, Inlaws etc would all be cast out to fend for themselves if they gave away the dwarves most guarded secret.

Complexity

The dwarves have simplified production of black powder to just a metallurgy by-product. They use the metallic slag from processing ore as a base and enchant it using a very weak fire magic allowing them to make the mythical black substance.

Discovery

Gorn Earthshatter, Later Gorn Blastbeard, was the first Dwarf to ever discover black powder. Working in his shop trying to find a new way to speed up the mining effort as the dwarves were at that time rapidly outgrowing their home. While messing with some basic fire magic and a process of embuing metal with the ability to melt stone, he instead created a brittle substance that crumbled to just and when lit on fire burned incredibly fast and violent. Though more experimentation he found that packing it into tight spaces improved the blast and the first mining explosives were made. Through this the dwarves rapidly expanded their tunnels and Gorn was written into history.