Now, this sounds farfetched, but my new goal with my initiate grade 2 dwarven Earth elementalist is to lace my bones with Orichalcum. Our group is based in London, one year before YotC. I have medicore skills in alchemy and enchanting(4/3 respectively), and am thinking about enchanting my new skeleton as a focus of some sort, probably conjuring or power. Exactly how much orichalcum would i need, and would alchemy-produced be equivelant to the naturally occuring stuff in YotC? My GM is wary of the idea, but he's willing to let me try, knowing that it will be well-nigh impossible for me to get my hands on the much. These are my ideas for procuring it so far:

1: Sweat shop of alchemists, possibly starting a cult to ease production(pay them less and less likely to just kill me and steal the orichalcum)

2: Get it as reward from Dunkie's will. Unlikely.

3: Claim jump a site in YotC. IMO, this is my best bet, as tough as that would be.

Moving on, assuming i can procur it(ha!), how exactly would i got about enchanting it and implanting it? Which order would i do it in? My vague idea at the moment is to astrally project during the surgery(project before surgery, with no anasthesia-Sp?, as i recall, you can't feel pain in your meat body) and either enchant it from astral space, or do an astral quest of some sort to enchant it. Astral quest was also thought about for binding the resulting focus to me, considering the cost/karma rules for binding a focus doesn't really cover this.

Finally, in the unlikely possibility that i actually succeed in this venture, would i basicly turn into a dwarf-size ball of yeah-right-trying-to mask-this? I figure a focus that big inside my body coupled with whatever magical power i have innately at that point would make me a giant glowing beacon in astral space whenever the focus was activated, and possibly when its not as well. Would i have a Background count centered on me? maybe aspected to somelike earth magic or dwarves or something like that? one of the other players suggested that i would turn into a walking powersite, with every mage near me trying to tap into me.

Anyway, its alot to think about, just wanted some feedback, and any more ideas on how to go about this. Thanks in Advance.

That really depends. What is the Atomic weight of Orihalcum? Not knowing that, 1.5% body wieght sounds like a decent estimate considering the amount of calcium in the human body.

As for enchanting, that's difficult since it is paid for with essence. It would be like trying to enchant your natual bones.

Why would you need to do the whole skeleton? Why not just a part of it - something symbolic, like the bones in one of your hands, or glyphs inlaid in the bones of the skull around your eyes, or something?

Are you looking to simply have a functioning focus that's a part of you, or are you trying to get the whole skeleton done in order to get some sort of special and spectacular effect as a result?

Heavy Metal Poisoning.

That and it's explicitly stated the listed types of bone lacing are the only ones they could get to work.

There's no way to know if orichalcum would cause heavy metal poisoning. It's a completely new alloy. Alloys, like molecules, often have properties completely different from their base metals. Take that nasty combination of chlorine and sodium, two horrendously toxic substances, as an example.

any more than slightly unethical mage (And how many of them does you PC run into?) that sees and understands your aura is going to try to kill/kidnap you.

Bad enough sammys have to deal with cybersnatchers.

First, you don't need to do the entire body for a single focus. There is no rules as to the size required per force, as such. Therefore, I suggest a single bone for each focus you wish to enchant.

Secondly, I would reccomend cloning the bone you wish to enchant and enchanting the cloned bone prior to removing your own.

Thirdly, the amount of Orichalcum needed is wholey dependant on how much karma reduction you desire. As an asshat GM I would call a cloned bone highly proccessed material for the Enchanting test, though others my disagree since it is living material.

I honestly don't see the point. If you're going to go through all this effort just so you can have a focus that'll be really hard to lose and, apparently, you don't mind losing a bunch of Essence in the process... just go with a cyberlimb, a body compartment with your focus stored within, or hell, any piece of internal cyberware. I can totally see a cybereye enchanted as an Enhance Aim sustaining focus, for instance.

If you're just looking for a way to score a weapon focus for unarmed attacks, and you or your GM are open to house ruled items, just buy a unique focus at the exact same costs as a Weapon Focus and say it applies to your Unarmed Combat skill, but instead of being an actual weapon, it's just a focus geared towards your belief system that helps you focus your skill and ability.

Just wanted to point out, even if the mettle is now some magic mettle, it was made with murcury. This makes it very toxic. The person would go crazy for a week or two (murcury effects the brain) and then die a painful crazy death.

But don't let me stop you, sounds like fun.

Interresting post.

You got me thinking about other types of materials used for bone lacing.

What about some sort of very flexible, yet strong material that allows you to fold your body in ways a normal skeleton wouldnt allow, and then be able to flex right back to normal? Perhaps the in game effect would be equivalent to double jointed. And would be compatable with double jointed to stack bonuses.

It could serve very useful in reducing falling damage, if you know what I mean. And you might even get a jumping/running bonus from the leg bones flex.

Your bones are all still there, bone lacing just deposits stuff on top of them. Flexible bone lacing materials wouldn't help at all in that respect.

Gold is heavy...really heavy, any one know how much Orchilium weighs?

ummmmmm, does the magic stop there? So if an astronote (physical adept) went to mars, he would lose his powers?

This might become a problem with the prove wars and all. LOL.

Went to mars?? Yes he would lose his powers. As i understand it once you leave the mana (gaia's) Sphere it's best if you try not to use magic at all and and magically things die. Even filter is close to inifective.

There are conflicting theories about that. From what I have read there should be mana in space. Mana flows from the metaplanes into the entire physical universe. However, life aspects mana. Because there is no life in space, mana in space is not aspected to life. Using magic in space is like drinking hydocloric acid and trying to snort it out of your nose at enemies.

Basically, in space one subtracts 10 points from their magic attribute to determine their abilities. Normal humans and critters also takes damage from astral perception in space.

In other words...

I would note that FAB 3 creates mana warps by removing all mana from an area, so at least some warps are from no-mana zones.

No they don't. The only thing they do is feed off of Background Counts if there's nothing else to feed off of. Mana Warps are just potent Background Counts, though in all likelihood entering one would kill the FAB due to their dual-natured existance (meaning they would take between 6L and 14D damage per Combat Turn inside the warp).

I think they do create a mana warp, though it is likely aspected to FAB3 and that still doesn't prevent the use of magic there.

Or perhaps they just multiply to the point where their effect upon the astral is effectively the same as a mana warp?

(Analogue: mana warp = highly polluted area. Certain types of micro-organismis cannot cope with highly polluted areas...but if there are lots of them, the area might as well be considered highly polluted...)

Right, I'll stop talking out my a$$ now.