Soulsteel (Eberron Nights Supplement)
Soulsteel is a fictional material referenced mainly in the White Wolf, Inc. role-playing games Wraith: The Oblivion and Exalted. It is a dark metal that becomes dark grey when polished, having hardness and tensile strength far superior to steel.
Soulsteel is crafted in the Underworld, from the ectoplasm of ghosts alloyed with a dark mineral harvested from the walls of the Labyrinth. Slave ghosts, ghost criminals, or simply ghosts who displeased the local or regional ruler, are sent to special forges, where their corpus is smelted and hammered into a translucent white-ish or very light blue-ish material: ghost jade or white jade. Ghost Jade is used to build almost anything, from clothing to palaces.
The forging of a ghost into jade is a gruesome thing: the victim will scream and thrash and try to fight, as the process is extremely painful. Even after it is complete, it is said that the ghost retains a measure of consciousness and awareness: ghost-jade objects are known for groaning and moaning softly, from time to time.
Skilled artificers use pyre flame forges to combine ghost jade with the labyrinth ore. The final product is the dark metal known as soulsteel. Soulsteel is cold to the touch, seeming to drain body heat. If one gazes at the surface of the metal, images of the faces of the ghosts who were destroyed to provide the ghost-jade of the alloy surface and vanish, and the material also makes the same groans and moans and screams ghost-jade does.
Autochthon also contains the original version of Soulsteel, which predates humanity. Autochthonian Soulsteel is a fusion of the souls from a forgotten race that rebelled against him, with the metal of the Maker's own body. The Neverborn possibly used Autochthon's blueprints to make their own version of Soulsteel from human souls.
See also[edit]
- Orichalcum - The golden metal of the Unconquered Sun and the Solar Exalted.
- Moonsilver - The mercurial substance of Luna and her Lunar Exalted.
- Starmetal - The shining white metal of the Five Maidens and the Sidereal Exalted.
- Jade - The stony resource of the Terrestrial Exalted.
External links[edit]
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Campaign Settings → Eberron Nights → Magic