Secret metal in Loskalm:
Peter Metcalfe:
>The metal is iron. The actual secret is how the Loskalmi got
>hold of the iron despite the Ban. IMO it's some sort of dark
>satanic mill that uses some morally disturbing process to make
>the required iron.
and:
>I doubt any of them [3EB] knew the secret of making
>iron out of nothing. OTOH the Loskalmi might have questioned
>them intensely and their answers allowed them to discover the
>secret of making iron.
(Loskalm's hidden dark side....)
I used to believe the Secret of Iron was the secret of how to forge and enchant iron. But many war cults can do that, so it's not really a secret. But the secret would be how to _make_ iron, isn't it. It's far more interesting!
Iron didn't exist before the Mostali created it, and they _make_ it somehow, and the Loskalmi discovered the secret too? (and the 3EB may have known it in Godtime but they were fools trying to teach it to other people and thus drew the dwarfs' attention on them. [Most of] Those who knew the secret were killed).
This would also help explain why iron is so abundant in the Iron Mountains in Seshnela and not in other dwarf cities. The dwarfs there may have a huge iron industry underground or something like that. Or is it just one of the two existing mines of natural iron (the other one being in the hills of Von in Oraya). The existence of natural iron, especially in a place like Von which has never been a dwarf place afaik, would mean that iron existed indeed before the dwarfs learned of how to make it. But keeping to the idea that natural iron doesn't exist, maybe the hills of Von are an extinct 3EB settlement? (remains of a dwarf complex would be quite visible, unless the Orayans keep it secret from the Lunars, which seems difficult)
Anyway, most humans (99.99%) think that iron comes from mines like other metals because they don't know the secret. Maybe the 3EB still know it in their innermost rites, but have lost the way of its practical application. yet their knowledge may have been enough for the Loskalmi's sorcerer-smiths under the Ban.
Jerome
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