Gems

Gems are stones found as treasure, dug out of mines and cut from crystals grown in province mines. A stone is worth silver as it is, and more once it is cut. A cut stone set into smith-made armour or jewellery can also be woken, so that the piece gives a magical power to whoever wears it.

At a glance

1. Find a stone. Monsters drop them now and then, mines turn them up, and a polished crystal from a province mine can be cut into one.
2. Cut it on a grinder in a province cutting room. The cut leaves the cutter's mark on the stone.
3. Set it. A smith fixes the cut stone into a piece of armour or jewellery.
4. Wake it. A Gemcutter of the third rank or higher casts enchant gem at the piece. Either the stone wakes and the piece gains a power, or the stone shatters.

You can stop at any step. A well-cut stone is worth selling, and a set stone looks fine on a piece even if it is never woken.

Stones

Every stone has three things that matter:

• Kind — which stone it is: amber, zircon, opal and so on. The kind decides what power the stone holds and how rare it is. Until the stone is identified you see only its colour and look, such as "transparent pale blue stone".
• Quality — how fine the stone itself is. A better stone is worth more and holds a stronger power.
• Cut — how well it has been shaped. From worst to best: uncut, poorly cut, shoddily cut, plainly cut, fairly cut, neatly cut, well cut, finely cut, excellently cut and marvellously cut.

To learn a stone's kind, have it identified at a gem shop for 100 silver, or use use identify gem at <stone> yourself. A practised eye with identify gem also tells you what the stone could become once woken, and whether any cut could wake it at all. Read a stone before you spend a wheel on it.

Price. Rarity counts most: a rare kind is worth many times a common one of the same cut and quality. A finer cut and a better quality both raise the price. A stone cut from a crystal sells for much less than a mined one, about a fifth, though it looks exactly the same.

Storage. A gem case holds many stones. You can cut a stone straight out of a gem case you carry; it goes back into the case when the cut ends.

Where stones come from

• Treasure. Monsters drop stones rarely. Mutated monsters and humanoids have a small chance, and some monsters carry more.
• Mining. Digging in a mine now and then turns up a stone, and a quick use prise works it free at its best. Richer ore turns up rarer kinds. A glint while sorting ore (use glint) can also hold a small, common uncut stone.
• Crystals. Province mines also yield crystal fragments. The polishing workshop in a province smeltery reveals a crystal's nature with polish crystal. A polished crystal can then be cut, and the wheel's first touch shows which stone it holds. A psicrystal cannot be cut.
• Old stock. Stones from hoards, treasure maps and jewellers are often already cut, but they carry no cutter's mark. They must be re-cut before they can be woken (see Re-cutting).

Stone kinds and their powers

Each kind holds one power. Only some of those powers can be woken on armour and jewellery. A stone is woken as a faint, steady or strong power, depending on the caster's rank and the stone itself (see Waking a stone).

Power family	Kinds (what each holds)	Strongest waking now	One step of power
Stats	spectrolite (strength), charoite (dexterity), opal (constitution), tanzanite (intelligence), ammolite (wisdom), beryl (charisma)	steady	+1 to the stat
Pools	gaspeite (maximum hit points), hematite (maximum spell points), sugilite (maximum psionic points), amber (maximum endurance)	steady	+20 to the pool
Recovery	obsidian (hit point regeneration), variscite (spell point regeneration), amethyst (psionic point regeneration), malachite (endurance regeneration)	steady	+2 regeneration
Resistances	sardonyx (fire), zircon (cold), pearl (acid), jasper (poison), aquamarine (lightning), moss agate (sonic), peridot (psionic), rhodochrosite (asphyxiation)	strong	+3 resistance
Light	citrine	strong	+15 light

A faint power is one step, steady is two and strong is three. These are modest on purpose: good dropped armour and lucky shards can give as much or more. What a woken stone offers is a power you chose, added beside whatever magic the piece already has.

Stones that never wake:

• Weapon stones — jet, olivine, onyx, ruby, spinel, sunstone and turquoise. Weapons cannot be woken.
• Skill stones — azurite, bloodstone and carnelian.
• Elemental stones that strike rather than ward — diamond, sapphire, emerald, jade, guradon, larimar, garnet and topaz. They carry their element as a blow, and a blow does nothing on armour, so they do not wake however fine they are.
• Lapis lazuli (protection) and moonglow.

Rare stones wake less readily. A rare kind needs a finer stone and a cleaner cut to hold as much power as a common one. A costly stone is seldom the best one to wake, and a failed waking then destroys a cheap stone rather than a treasure. The cut matters most of all.

Cutting a stone

The skill is gem cutting, taught by the Gemcutters.

Command	What it does
use gem cutting at <stone>	Read the stone and start cutting. Works on an uncut gem or a polished crystal.
stop	Lift the stone off the wheel and keep the cut it has now.
use facet	Catch a bright facet while it shows.
use ease	Ease the stone off a hairline before it runs.
use gem cutting at recut <stone>	Re-cut an old stone that has no cutter's mark.

Where to cut

Real cutting needs a cutting room built onto a province smeltery, with a gem grinder fitted. The wheel asks no local standing, so you can cut in any settlement that has one. The council builds and fits the room with install (see below).

The Gemcutters' hall in Vaerlon has a practice bench for members. It never cuts a stone past plainly cut, and a stone cut there is too plain for any power ever to wake in it. It is for learning the wheel, not for real work.

How a cut works

1. Reading the stone. As you start, you judge how far the stone can safely go. A sure eye under good lamps names one grade. A novice in poor light can only name a range: the stone will stand the low end, perhaps more. Gemmology and better lamps narrow the range.
2. Working the wheel. The wheel works the stone one pass at a time. Each pass takes endurance and makes the cut one grade finer. When the stone shows the cut your reading promised, type stop.
3. Pressing on past the promised grade is a gamble. The stone may hold. If it gives way, it is flawed, loses some of its worth, and the cut ends at the grade you had already reached.
4. The cut also ends when the grinder can take the stone no finer, or when you fight, leave the room or run out of endurance.

While the wheel turns, a pass may bring one of two short moments:

• A bright facet. use facet in time and the stone keeps a little more of its worth. Miss it and nothing is lost.
• A hairline. use ease in time (or stop) and it does not run. Left alone it always runs: the stone loses some of its worth and slips back a grade, and a fine stone in unskilled hands can shatter.

A skilled cutter sees more bright facets and gets longer warning of hairlines. A finer grinder turns up more facets, and good lamps give longer warning.

Careful cutting pays best. Pressing past the safe grade gains a little on average but can cost a lot of value, and ignoring hairlines always costs. A poor cutter working a mined or looted stone can also ruin it on the first facet.

The cutting room

A council fits out its smeltery's cutting room piece by piece with install. The silver comes from the treasury and timber, stone, clay and coal from the stockpile. Planks, metal bars and cut gems must be brought along: in your pack, on the floor or in a cart beside you. Every fitting is permanent and never needs repair. Each new level of a fitting replaces the one before.

Fitting	Finest cut	Smeltery	Silver	Materials
Cutting room (the room itself)	—	Improved	100,000	800 stone, 400 wood, 200 clay, 100 planks
Treadle grinder	neatly cut	Improved	50,000	300 stone, 100 iron bars
Flywheel grinder	well cut	Improved	150,000	150 iron bars, 50 copper bars, 100 coal
Geared grinder	finely cut	Advanced	300,000	200 steel bars, 100 copper bars, 200 coal
Faceting head	excellently cut	Advanced	600,000	300 steel bars, 50 silver bars, 300 coal
Master's lap	marvellously cut	Advanced	1,000,000	300 steel bars, 50 gold bars, 20 cut gems

A finer grinder also turns up more bright facets, and lets a crystal come out as a finer stone.

Fitting	What it does	Smeltery	Silver	Materials
Oil lamps	Clearer reading of the stone	Improved	25,000	50 tin bars, 100 clay, 100 coal
Lens lamps	Longer warning of a hairline	Improved	75,000	50 copper bars, 50 tin bars
Mirrored array	Clearer reading still	Advanced	200,000	100 copper bars, 50 silver bars
Daylight shaft	The clearest reading and the longest warning	Advanced	400,000	400 stone, 100 steel bars, 50 silver bars
Drip trough (water feed)	A flaw costs the stone less; a fine stone shatters less often	Improved	50,000	200 stone, 100 clay, 50 iron bars
Piped cooling (water feed)	The same, more so	Advanced	250,000	300 stone, 150 iron bars, 50 copper bars

The master's lap takes 20 cut gems as grit. Stones you have marked with keep are left alone. A derelict smeltery's cutting room does not cut until the smeltery is repaired.

Crystals

A polished crystal becomes a stone at the start of the cut. Its nature and the cutter's skill decide the kind, and its clarity sets the quality, up to what the room's grinder allows. About half of the stones crystals can become are able to wake, and on most crystals the finest possible stone is not one of them. Stones cut from crystals sell for about a fifth of a mined stone's price.

Re-cutting an old stone

A stone that is already cut but has no cutter's mark, such as hoard treasure or old jeweller's stock, can go back on a province wheel once with use gem cutting at recut <stone>. The wheel grinds the old facets away first, and the stone always loses some of its worth. The cut then runs like any other and the stone takes your mark. A marked stone, or one that has already been re-cut, cannot be re-cut.

Twin-hearted stones

Very rarely a stone comes off the wheel with a second heart of light. It needs a clean first cut (no hairline run, no gamble lost) on a fine stone, taken to finely cut or better on a master's lap, and it favours a cutter who has shaped many stones. Identify gem sees the second light, and at the height of the skill reads what it holds. When the stone is woken, the second heart wakes too, as a faint power of its own.

Setting a stone

A smith sets a cut stone with use metalworking at attach <gem> onto <item> (see Smiths). The smith must have identified the stone first. Only smith-made pieces take a stone:

Gear	Can hold a stone to wake?
Forged metal armour and jewellery	Yes
Leather with a smith's metal reinforcement	Yes
Plain leather and fur	No
Dragonscale	No
Weapons	They can hold stones, but a weapon cannot be woken

To be woken, a piece must hold exactly one stone. Two stones drown each other out.

Waking a stone

The spell is enchant gem, cast as cast enchant gem at <item>. It is taught by the Gemcutters from the third rank.

Who. The third rank wakes a faint power, the fourth a steady one and the fifth (master gemcutter) a strong one. The stone's family sets its own ceiling: today only resistance and light stones reach strong.

Where. In a province cutting room with a working grinder, in a smeltery that is not derelict. The guild's practice bench will not do. The piece must be taken off and lie on the floor in front of you.

What you need.

• A smith-made piece of armour or jewellery with a single stone set in it. It must never have had a waking before.
• The stone must carry a cutter's mark and be fairly cut or better, and its kind must hold a power that can wake.
• The piece must not already have that power, from a shard or anything else. "Resist cold" and a bare "cold" count as the same power.
• One shard of crystallized magic in your inventory or in a shard pouch you carry. Its type does not matter, only its size: a stronger waking needs a bigger shard, and the spell always spends the smallest one that is big enough. Shards of skill or spell essence do not serve, darkness shards never serve, and a shard you have marked with keep is never spent.
• The guild's fee in coins on hand. The bank is not used.

Stone	Faint	Steady	Strong
Stat and pool stones	25,000	100,000	not yet possible
Recovery stones	12,500	50,000	not yet possible
Resistance and light stones	12,500	50,000	600,000

If anything is missing, the spell refuses and nothing is spent. Before the casting starts you are told what will wake, the fee and which shard will burn.

What happens. When the words land, the fee, the shard and the piece's one chance are spent. Then:

• Success: the piece gains the stone's power. A twin-hearted stone also wakes its second power, as a faint one.
• Failure: the stone shatters into dark specks. The piece keeps all its other magic and is never harmed, but no stone can ever be set in it again.

A stronger waking fails more often. Skill in the spell, gemmology and long practice with stones make a surer hand.

Wearing woken stones

• You get the benefit of at most three woken powers at once, and never two of the same power. Light stones do not count toward the three.
• If you wear more, the strongest stay lit and the rest go dark. A dark stone says so when you look at the piece. Take something off and the stones sort themselves again.
• A woken stone and shard magic share a piece. enchant gem will not wake a power the piece already has, and imbue will not add a shard power the woken stone already gives. Otherwise they do not get in each other's way, and the order you do them in makes no difference.
• A void or removal shard that strips a woken power removes it for good. The stone stays spent and cannot be woken again.

In-game help

help gemcutting, help skill gem cutting, help skill gemmology, help skill identify gem, help spell enchant gem, help install, help shards, help imbue.

See also: Gemcutters, Smiths, Provinces, Shards.