Emperor's Alloy
Utility
The Emperor's Alloy remains to the present day the hardest and least brittle metal in the natural world, rivalled only the nameless materials used to create the implements of the gods. In addition, it took better than any other metal to enchantment, but resisted absolutely the effects of spells cast upon it. A single blade or piece of armor forged from it demands a price higher than most nations could bear.
Manufacturing
All that remains of the manufacturing process is the knowledge that it was feasible for a single dwarf to do so, though a group of at least two was preferred.
Social Impact
Such a valuable metal invariably has an effect on the cultures around it, but most importantly, only dwarves made from the alloy are eligible to become emperor. When it was lost, it sealed the doom of the Great Dwarven Empire, seemingly forever more.
Access & Availability
Even in its relative heyday, fewer than a dozen dwarves of the highest caste knew the secret to creating the Emperor's Alloy. When the last fastness of the Fortress Adamant was breached, the very last dwarf who knew the secret was killed. Unless someone can independently rediscover it, the greatest metal in the world can only be reforged but never created again.
Complexity
The secrecy and importance of the metal and therefore its creation to the Great Dwarven Empire ensured that little is truly known about the process, but they were a practical people who would have made maximum use of such a resource, so it can be inferred by the few who knew how to produce it and the infrequency with which they did so means that it was extremely complex, difficult, and/or expensive.
Discovery
Though the First Ancestor generated an enormous quantity of writing over the course of his life, indeed legend has it that the elves had to build the second largest library on Khthon at that time to house his works after they filled every single shelf of the first, but almost all of it is comprised of poetry, songs, plays, novels, and descriptions of the natural world. Of his many contributions to science, engineering, and magic almost nothing was ever written and even less has survived to the present era. The process for smelting the Emperor's Alloy is one such loss, and the one felt most keenly by far among his younger children. Those few who were once entrusted with his knowledge were taught directly first by their patriarch and then passed down from master smith to master smith until the line was broken entirely with the fall of the Fortress Adamant.
Related Species
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