What kind of equipment do you use? How much does it cost in raw material per pound? And how much is it worth per pound? Does it cost karma to make?

As far as tools go, I think an enchanting Kit or Shop was required. Of course what the actual tools are is left very vague, so use your imagination. Orichalum is "a Metalurgical Nightmare of Gold, Silver, Copper, and Mercury" so you can reasonably figure some sort of furnace and crucible have to be part of the mix, but from there it's anyones guess what else needs to be mixed in, what rituals are required, what other tools might be needed. If you need some inspiration find a copy of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and look up the instructions for making a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster.

Yeah you should check out the section in MITS about making magic trinkets and stuff.

Anything on karma/material/time costs?

Yeah, in MitS

Oh, fuck it. I'll wait for Street Magic.

good call bro, and are you sure your not a Hot Elven hippie chick?

Actually, I'm a paranoid technomancer who's very vulnerable to environmental pollutants and spends his day in a life support box, AKA the Coffin. I drive around in cars using my "my head is a radio broadcasting device" powers.

On my off days, I'm a mystical ninja poser who's actually on very good terms with his boss.

Orichalcum does not cost karma to create. Including orichalcum in foci reduces the karma required for the First Bonding; the more orichalcum, the less karma.

IIRC, the weight of one 'unit' of created Orichalcum is 10KG, which is 1/2 a pound, if I'm remembering convertions right

10 kilograms is just a little over 22 pounds.

each unit of orichalcum is only a few grams...The 5 components that go into it each weigh 100g and the process refines the material even further.

F3--you may be thinking of the naturally forming stuff that arrived after Halley flew by, which of course had to be refined. My knowledge of those deposits is slightly more limited.

I'm confused... so the 44k of components and 28 days go into a few grams or five pounds of orihalcum?

Actually, the amount of orichalcum varies. You get 1 unit (10 grams) of orichalcum from 4 units of alchemical metal per success on an Enchanting (Alchemy) (10-your Magic) test.

Each unit is worth 88,000 :nuyen:, so you make a decent profit. Especially if you're a Grade 2+ Initiate (Magic 8).

So when your building a focus, the bigger you make it the less they cost in KArma.

And with Edge in SR4, it's even easier, since your karma pool replenishes.

You guys are going about it all wrong. here's the way to make Orichalcum;

Orichalcum

Recepie yield: 10 units.
Prep Time: 45 Minutes
Cook Time: 28 days
Servings: 10
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INGREDIENTS:
2 cups radical copper
2 cups radical silver
2 cups radical gold
2 cups radical mercury
2 tablespoons radical Cajun seasoning
2 tablespoons lemon pepper (gives it an extra astral zing)
garlic powder to taste
1 live chicken - offered up to the Gods in proper sacrifical fashion
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DIRECTIONS:
In a large shallow dish, mix the metals, Cajun seasoning, garlic powder, and lemon pepper. Cover, and refrigerate for 1/2 hour.
Place the chicken on the altar, and sacrifice properly.
Preheat the Bunson burner for high heat.
Lightly oil the enchanting equipment. Drain metal mixture, and discard marinade. Start alchemical process, let cook for 28 days or until golden brown.

You forgot to add "Stir counter-clockwise only."

And then you stuff it all in a camel!
Oh, shoot, wrong thread.
Um, to add something useful to the thread and appease the admins:
Did anyone else ever have trouble with PCs trying to make a profit making oricalcum?

Yes. Very much so. It got worse. He had his familiar watch over the process rather than him, and made a huge batch. What I ended up doing was setting it up so he sold a certain random number of units a month. He seems content with that, so I haven't had to have the telesma mafia break in and steal his product and break his equipment and drink all his milk and give him an atomic wedgie and leave him hanging on the door.

I'd just keep it and use it for telesma, never having to pay karma for anything. That would be so awesome.

Emo--The primary downside to the enchanting plan is that you would be spending all of your time in the Alchemy lab and never on runs. That's why we have Talismongers as contacts, so they make the stuff and we the shadow community buy it.

Of course the unscrupulous mages, simply convince their Street sam buddies to knock over the local talismonger and do a quick little money run. They pocket the orichalcum and sell off the foci which are worth a pretty penny in their own right.

Or, I could do the thing with the familiar. Hehehehehehehehhh....

But what if they never tell anyone about it and use all the orihalcum themselves to make the most badassed set of karma-free telesma in the universe?

First of all, it's not karma-free. There's still a minimum cost. Second, you need a *lot* of orichalcum to reduce the karma costs to near-nothing; each unit only reduces total bonding costs by one. Third, there's the wonderful focus addiction rules which will nail anyone running around with too many powerful foci, regardless of the karma they paid to bond them.

Oh... do they get less powerful if you get addicted, or do you pass out if they're neutralized or eaten by Strain-III?

Oh I agree that the old dual natured rule had some serious problems, some of the worst of which I think your "Foci Only" rule handles fairly well. I am still working through the SR4 magic rules to see how I like them.

You were serious then? You liked rolling the force of the spell rather than Sorcery skill?

OK then...

yes, I did. your sorcery skill was used as magic pool. worked fine for me.

Wow... so orihalcum is costly no matter what... How many places have it for stealing? Stealing it would be awesome.

But would having an ally spirit do this non-stop piss off your ally spirit?

YEEEEEAHHH!!! ORIHALCUM SWEATSHOP!!! But seriously, even having 2 force 1 ally spirits just making orihalcum will insure I will never have to pay karma for telesma EVER again.

My player did his own dirty work for 51% of the time, since, by canon, that's enough to use his magic rating, then had the elemental work for the other 49%.

What if the man sold it in other countries? Then again, he probably doesn't even HAVE contacts in other countries.