Zardazil

This rare, durable, amber-to-red ferromagnetic metal is (thus far, at least) found only in mountains and delves around the Lake of Steam and in certain sand-scoured fissures in the heart of Raurin. It is a very soft metal, and because of this is never used in pure form, but rather alloyed or used to sheath other metals. It can be added to other metals in perfect bondings, apparently vanishing into them in alloys that have all the proper-ties of the other metal —plus the one benefit of zardazil: the ability of any item partially or wholly composed of it to body phase with the first being whose blood it spills. When a zardazil blade wounds its first creature, it inexorably begins a spell-like internal alteration that takes a full turn (though it can be used normally during that time and does not look or feel any different). At the end of that turn, the zardazil weapon behaves as it has always done for and to all other beings in Faerfin, but it cannot ever harm the being it first wounded again. Instead, the weapon passes through the body of that being harmlessly, as though the body is not present, in a manner similar to, but not exactly like, an ironguard spell.53 Such woundings are often done deliberately to enable a being to carry a concealed weapon: The weapon is simply slid into the body and carried internally until needed, whereupon—without bloodshed or internal damage —it is plucked forth for use. At least three Waterdhavian noble ladies have drawn forth daggers tied to throat jewelry from their bodies in recent years to defend themselves against attackers, and it is suspected that Ardrethra Laurindar, a professional slayer who has posed as an evening escort in Calimport and Westgate to gain access to her targets, also employs such a weapon. No matter how small the amount of zardazil used in the making of a weapon, the entire weapon enters a state of body phase: It is able to coexist with the body it is linked to, and out of the reach of all magics such as heat metal, enlarge, or other spells that spell casters may attempt to apply to do harm to the weapon carrier. This causes it to fall right through the body of the carrier unless a nonmetal part of the weapon is present. Usually a leather hilt grip or a loop of cord strung through a hole in the pommel is used to prevent this. The weapon hangs, swinging freely inside the body, from this nonmetal part, so the part is usually fastened to an anchor on body armor or a harness in the shoulder area. The presence of a body-phased zardazil blade does not affect the body containing it in any way—weight, bodily processes, spells cast on the person, and so on are all unchanged. The blade moves with the body if magic or physical actions cause the body to teleport, change planes, and the like, but is itself (both metal and pro¬truding nonmetal portions) unaffected by magic —even when this causes it to part company with the body it is linked to. Blood, poisons, and other contaminants a blade might have acquired while in use are not communicated to the body when the blade is slid back home; it is in body phase rather than being in direct contact with organs, bones, and flesh. Note that a zardazil blade does not pass through clothing without doing damage. A blade's sheath can also be in body phase if it is all-metal and contains zardazil, so a swordpoint that might happen to protrude from a twisting or bending body need not be uncovered and dangerous. Except by such an emergence, a zardazil blade in body phase does not betray its presence in any way, including to magical scrying or metal detection. Multiple nonmetal anchors, such as leather thongs tied to fine chains affixed to the top and bottom of a sheath and incorporated into external garments could well prevent unintended exposures of zardazil weapons. Some anchors have been cleverly woven into long hair or otherwise concealed so that seemingly defenseless prisoners have surprised their captors by producing weapons. Except where the special property of zardazil comes into play, items containing zardazil make all saving throws as the metal the zardazil is bonded with.