Shaftbuilder Devices
Built by the prospectors using the magical art of imprinting, the shaftbuilders left behind many devices that still remain useable, if one knows how to activate them. At their core, shaftbuilder devices are simply an amount of imprinted green stone, often placed in a machinery of some sort. Generally apparently inert and indeed unable to move at all, once activated the imprinted magic of the green stone presents the true purpose of the strange machines. Preserved housings of shaftbuilder devices are made of stone or metal, and the most common devices found are things like shaft elevators.
Most shaftbuilder artifacts require a user sufficiently versed in shaftbuilder lore to converse with green stone, but some react to their environment. While some such individuals exist, mainly among the Thaner, few have access to genuine shaftbuilder artifacts. To activate one of these items, the user must reach out with their mind to access the imprinted magic of the stone, and thus call upon it to be activated. This may succeed even if the user does not know the purpose of the item, as imprinted magic can generally only work in one or just a few ways.
It appears that even shaftbuilder wizards frequently relied on previous imprinted stones and existing machines, and from their writings can be gleaned that imprinting was generally less wasteful of the stone's power than attempting to use raw stones, even if the prospector was capable of such.
Utility
Most shaftbuilder devices were made to enable life in the shafts in various ways, and to enable those who were not wizards to benefit from shaftbuilder technology and magic. A typical shaft had green stone enabled transportation up and down the shaft, climate control in the deeper parts of the shaft, and magically enhanced underground farms. Other uses included doors that would only open to shaftbuilders, and other devices were simply the imprinted green stone with no particular mechanism for the stone to act upon. Such stones might do things such as summon flame, or even create matter.
Comments