Geographical Features and Maps

Obscidex
This rock-like material is commonly found across the world. It is often used in sculptures, but its primary importance falls in the realms of religion. It is widely believed (across most, if not all cultures), that this mineral is a conduit for souls, and that veins of this material run like great causeways to the very core of the earth, where all souls are reforged in the crucible for their next life. As a result, figurines, art objects, trinkets, jewelry, and otherwise simple shards or cut gemstones of obscidex are found everywhere in burial sites, tombs, and temples. It is also considered to be of the highest blasphemy to take such objects from these locations.

However, it is very common and regularly traded. It is commonly and informally known as Dragonseye. It appears similar to marble, but predominantly slate grey and black in colour, interspersed with blood red glass-like veins. On occasion, magical properties are housed within the red glass material, and it becomes luminescent. Attempts have been made in recent years to refine the red glass components of obscidex, but it is difficult to separate and refine. When separated and purified however, it can have potent magical properties, the most common of which is an unfortunately illegal application - a direct replacement for material components required for spells in the school of necromancy.

Many temples, government buildings, palaces, sculptures, and even some weapons and armour are made directly from or adorned with obscidex (often in the form of grand pillars). It is uncommon for buildings of commerce, residence or industry to feature components (whether decorative or structural) made of obscidex, simply due to its association with holiness. It is more common in buildings that represent the arts, including schools.

For the common people, homes often have at least one figurine or object made of obscidex that is used as a focus of prayer for any household deity. For the nobility, it is often found around hearths, and many more figurines and art objects are also common. Regardless of social status, it is most commonly used as a tombstone or grave marker, most commonly in the form of an obelisk. However, the higher in social status and wealth one is, the more ornate or large the grave marker or tombstone becomes. Sometimes, entire sarcophagi are made of obscidex, and sometimes a large family obelisk is constructed, and family members are buried in a circular pattern around it (the most elaborate of which are ancestral tombs which descend in a spiral pattern along a single column of obscidex, with the family crypts located on the outer sides of the descending staircase and connected to the central pillar by an obscidex arch).