Yinganite

Wander for long enough in the deserts of Old Boparia, and if you're lucky, you might find a bit of glinting stone poking out of the ground. If you get on your hands and knees to give it a closer look, you might see through its amber-coloured interior, straight into the dust and sand underneath. You'd better get something to drag the rock back to Verambopar or wherever the nearest settlement is, as the Yinganite that you have discovered is worth its weight in gold.

If you find glass in the desert, give it to me! I know several buyers who'd pay top dollar for the stuff, as long as it isn't too piss-coloured.

— A Boparian merchant

Origin

No one is certain where the material comes from, but the leading hypothesis is that the stone was created by some kind of volcanic activity deep under the sand and scrubland of Old Boparia. As the years pass and the sand dunes move and shift, they can expose pieces of the material. Yinganite might even be a fused form of deep, more orange sand, forced up from deep within the planet by some unknown process. Other theories wonder if the material is divine or magical in nature due to its use for certain magical foci and items (see below). In any case, they appear to only appear in this region of the world, to the point that Yinganite is the national stone of the Theocracy of New Boparia. 

Uses

There are three common uses for Yinganite on Renath. The first one is as a dense building material. Many Boparian temples and important buildings in larger cities might use its ability to be easily polished to a shine and to be cleanly cut to shape it into blocks for particularly astonishing pieces of masonry. Its rarity and price makes it rather rare, and even then it's utilized rather sparingly so that the builder of the structure doesn't break the bank. 
Second, jewellers love to use polished pieces of Yinganite in their work. Seeing as golden jade is most often found in the mountains east of Zhoris on the other side of the world, many high-class people looking for a bright orange-yellow gemstone often turn to Yinganite. The Vebrathne most notably has a small collection of Yinganite jewelry that is often bestowed on travelling dignitaries acting on their behalf.
The last use for the material is to carve it into pieces that can be used for magical rituals and items. Yinganite has an attachment to the Illusion and Air Forms, so rituals that summon complex illusory landscapes or cause wind storms can make use of it. Magical foci can use the material as a focusing crystal, although its slight tendency towards the above-mentioned forms gives it a rather low appeal among most magical cultures.

Type

Stone

Value

Very expensive

Rarity

Very rare

Color

Translucent orange

Related Locations

• Boparia

A circular window made of Yinganite in Verambopar.

Purchasers

If one were to find some Yinganite in the deserts of the world, the best prices for it come from jewellers if the piece is small, or a mason or sculptor if the piece is much bigger. The phrase "worth its weight in gold" is often quite literal in this case; many would pay for a block of the stuff for the same price as a block of gold of similar size. Due to its rarity, anyone can make quite a nice profit from the stuff if they can get it in large enough quantities.