Enchant requirements

[Choinski, Burton]

||   Okay. If we get philosophical about it, what is the difference between
|| uncontaminated or 'virgin' material fit for permanent magics and
|| contaminated material that is not fit for permanent magics?
||
||  What contaminates an item or material?
||
||  What does it take to 'purify' a contaminated object or material to where
|| it is once again fit for enchanting?

It probably depends a lot on the material in question.  For gold, silver,
platinum and other like "noble" metals that don't tend to rust or react, I
would say a simple "cleansing" by melting down in an area/object sanctified
with the purification spell is fine.  For other metals one must really smelt
the crap out of it.  Iron, because it is so hated by the sun shy and elder
has to really be worked over in order to be assured of purity, that or
smelted from raw ore.

For wood or stone "Virgin" implies fresh cut or quarried.  If the material
must be stored for a while (i.e. wood, to be dried and seasoned), it would
have to remain in a purified area.

For les durable good you are stating to have to do real work.  Cloth can is
only assured virgin if woven in a purified area from assured clean
wool/flax/silk.  A divination may be required to determine if said material
is pure, or the enchanter can grow his own grop/flock in a purified area in
order to keep out stray influences.

I would say that the caster himself does not need to do the actual weaving,
but it must be done by someone in a purified area, using purified tools.
Since he would want to make sure it remains so, I assume he would have
apprentices or close-hired servants for these tasks, and since the stuff has
to be good he would likely be paying good wage for a decent tailor.

||   If an Enchanter scrounges a bunch of rusty iron and steel from the site
|| of an old battlefield, would the melting of that scrap purify it? Could
the
|| Enchanter then forge blades from the molten steel and enchant them?
|| I would think so. It would take a mighty spell to survive that treatment.

Stuff like this has to consider the orginal intent of the scavenged metal.
I would think that scrap weapons, forged with the original intent of being
weapons, could get away with a simple  reforging.  If, however, you wanted
to use that iron to make something "non-weaponish" (or even into armor,
which is the weapons' "natural enemy"), you will have to do more than just
reforge -- probably cast purify and dump a boatload of mana points into it
to boot.

This may well be a good case for a "third" use for enhancement -- to purify
material for use.  When used in this way you do not get the special
properties of the material, but you instead drive out impurities.  The
amount of MP that must be devoted is based on the weight of material times
some fudge factor.  An additional "reorientation" factor could also be
multiplied in (i.e. turning sword metal into metal armor, turning rusty
plowshares into swords, etc).

Depending on how the numbers work, it may be that it takes a wizard a day or
more to cleanse 1 pound of metal, with appropriate expense in inscense or
other spell materials as well as time.  Plus the fact that if he fails the
cleansing does not happen, and on an abysmal the material is permanently
"dirty".

----------------------------------------
Burton Choinski
Principal Software Engineer, Quality Engineering
email: burton.choinski at matrixone.com

phone: 978-589-4089
fax:      978-589-5903

MatrixOne, Inc.
210 Littleton Rd.
Westford, Ma 01886
www.matrixone.com

The First in Intelligent Collaborative Commerce
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