Orichalcum Mines, After the Comet Options

[Ancient History]

Fairly self-explanatory, methinks. When the comet dissapears for the last time, should all the orichalcum still in the ground vanish, or remain?

[Kagetenshi]

I think it should vanish if and only if a good explanation can be given why the stuff that was mined doesn't vanish along with it.

Edit: I don't, mind you, need for the explanation to actually appear in a book, but I want the FanPro Freelancers who deal with magic to know exactly what the reason was, and for it to be soundly reasonable and logical.

~J

[Zephania]

I think it all depends on how it got there in the first place. If it is naturally occuring and just needed the right mana levels to start appearing then yes it should remain. BUT if you think it was put there in a previous age of magic just in case and only immortal elves and dragons know where it is then as far as I'm concerned the jury is still out.

[hahnsoo]

I certainly think Glendower's mines in Snowdonia would still produce natural orichalcum (since hers seems to be "different", and the rumors of her orichalchum mining were around before the Comet). As for other sources, I think they all will dry up until the next magical "big event" occurs. Any other sources similar to Glendower's that people are aware of?

[Zephania]

Nothing springs to mind straight away but I noticed that the dragons are quite picky about where they roost so they might know somthing.

Hey what about King Solomons mines?

[Chibu]

IMO, it should go away. And, a possible explination as for why the mined stuff doesn't disappear: It's already been enchanted, therefore keeping it's magical properties, while that in the ground doean't have enough Mana (since the comet seems to have been more of a spike than a rise) to still be around. I do think, however, that it may be able to come back eventually. Or, that it can't come back and was a freak occurance, because, IIRC, i think there was mentioned somewhere that there was at least 1 mine around that was being mined. (possibly in Northern Cali, I can't remeber.

[Fortune]

[Kagetenshi]

There's another good idea: hers should be the only ones that vanish.

~J

[FlakJacket]

Any particular reason or do you just have something against free spirit nobles that own a third of a country, backed by their own combat team with SotA combat armour that surpases anything even the megas have and undergound money factory? :)

[Pthgar]

I think most of it should dissapear. The only stuff that remains should be a spike locations. I would suggest the bottoms of ancient dried up lakes and craters if I thought that any more ED stuff was going to be used in the 4th ed.

[Astelaron]

I think of all planetary bodies as being magical entities in that they have auras. In some places the mana flows strong (ley lines) and in some places the mana is gone (cyberware/Fovae). The nearness of another magical body coupled with the strong emotional response of the comet caused a global spike in mana. I look at this as being somewhat like the tidal pull of the moon only on magical energy. The spike in the mana caused more magical "awakenings" similiar to previous events like goblinization. The comet foreshadowed some of the things to come as the mana levels rise higher.

The earth is a magical entity and surged with the increase in mana revealing where natural orichalcum will be found in the future. So buy up mineral rights now! :rotate:

According to the Year of the Comet SURGE dropped to a "trickle" and all "known" natural orichalcum deposits dried up. This doesn't mean that the powers that be havn't found one that has not dried up or found some way to keep the orichalcum present. I recal that there was rumored oricalcum mining in the Tir long before the comet. It seems resonable that there could still be places of high mana level that would still manifest some natural oricalcum.

[fistandantilus4....]

I'm glad it's gone , because I think it would just be another long, drawn out resource war, and Orichalcum in general would become a lot more plentiful, cost would go down (some ) and foci would be more common.

On the flip side, did the people that became drakes go back to normal? no
Did the SURGE changelings change back? no....
So why would orichalcum, which I guess you could look at as being an awakened mineral go away? Kind of conflicts with all the other results of the comet's passing.

I'm not saying that it should stick around, just because I think it would skew the focus of the world too much. Orichalcum wars anyone? I just don't think that it makes sense when compared to everything else that stuck around.

[Rock-Steady]

They should stay. Got Orichalkummines even before the comet. They stole that idea from me. *g*

[nezumi]

Sure. Maybe it'll make the prices in MitS semi-reasonable.

[hermit]

It should remain, if for no other reason that it's ludicrous to say mined orichalcum remains, but orichalcum that human eyes haven't been laid upon vanishes for some mysterious reason. Humans aren't the center of the universe, and especially in SR, mana and magic have more than once made clear to humans that they could care less about whether what they do pleases them or not.

[Kagetenshi]

Actually, what would be really neat is if it all vanished, including the stuff that had been mined (and presumably used).

~J

[hermit]

Haha, okay, that'd be fun.

[hahnsoo]

[DragginSPADE]

[Ancient History]

Old school shadowtalk, son. A line from the London Sourcebook.

[DragginSPADE]

Oh and as far as the original topic of this post...

I think that if the natural orichalcum doesn't stay after the comet passes this time, it should definitely stick around after the next big magical event. I'll also add my name to those who'd like an explanation for why the stuff that's been mined stays while the stuff still in the ground vanishes.

[DragginSPADE]

[Kanada Ten]

I agree with Astelaron. There have been hints since the beginning that Orichalcum existed naturally, thought the hows and whys were even less.

To put it in pseudo Thaumaturlogical terms: Faint astral ripples were sent by the comet as it passed, these ripples became waves as they crashed into the Earth's manasphere. Where these waves intersected Earth's own astral waves, Orichalcum deposits or other oddities occurred. However, other events may cause similar deposits to form in a normal "astralogical" process (as it does for all telesma material), just a geological processes cause diamonds to form (as it does normal rock).

[Eyeless Blond]

Well what happenned after the Comet could have been a sort of "reverse SURGE" process or something, affecting only the specific areas that sprouted up the natural orichalcum deposits. So any stuff still in those areas (eg. still in the ground) gets reabsorbed, but the stuff that was mined, not being inthe same place anymore, wasn't affected.

[Kanada Ten]

I think you're putting too much stock in terms like "dried up". At the speed for 2060 mining, it could simply mean them mined all that was there and no new appeared as it had during the Comet's passing. I can look in the books again, but I don't recall anything that said "there was stuff that we hadn't mined and when we came back it had changed back to rock" or similar.