Iotum

Iotum are special components that can be used to fashion unique objects, repair broken artifacts and cyphers, and craft installations, artifacts, vehicles, and more. 

Iotum comes in a wide variety of forms, including slivers of scrap, tiny motes trapped in force, silvery canisters filled with colorless goo, or bubbling fluid contained within etched stronglass canisters the size of small houses. Regardless of form, iotum can be salvaged from oddities, cyphers, artifacts, and other ancient devices that characters find. Working devices and installations are more likely to be good sources of salvage, but characters may also salvage iotum from scrap that was once part of such machinery. 

Iotum can also sometimes be purchased or at least traded for iotum of equal or greater value. Many crafters view iotum as an ingredient so special that each one is essentially a piece of magic. Thus, iotum is held as a class apart from everyday components like iron screws, synth casements, wood struts, glass panes, and so on.