New Substances

I will like seeing some new materials conceived of being shown for fantasy worlds, which roleplayers can come across, or be commonly involved with. I do this in my own writing, I mean materials like different metals, or unique gemstones, or various plants being uniquely different. After all, these are worlds that will have different creatures. In my writing I even include different solar gases, with different properties from any we are familiar with in our worlds. Very different materials could have explanation of being from a different world or different realm, or perhaps from meteors that fall somewhere in the general area. Some of my inspiration for this is from Lovecraft. But this approach could be used in any fantasy.

In my Runes RP I created runestones - little pebbles with strange marks etched on them that, when touched, instantly give a person the knowledge and ability to cast a particular magical spell. Unfortunately the human body isn’t designed to channel magic, so using it over time burns out the central nervous system. This problem scales with the potency of the runes used.

No-one knows where the runestones came from, but they have been found in riverbeds and in underground ore seams - a small cluster was once discovered in a crashed meteorite, but the person who touched them went insane. A whole religion has sprung up around the mysterious runestones, from calling them pieces of shattered gods that retain fragments of divine memory, to revering water snakes based on the legend that the first runestones was found by someone following a snake down into a river.

My favorite examples of weird plot materials are Tiberium from Command and Conquer and Element Zero from Mass Effect. Both exist to allow for the setting in their own way, but they also make internal sense in their universes and both have serious downsides or drawbacks to their use. Of the two, I think Tib is probably my favourite, because its so delightfully cynical about human nature. "Oh, the replicating green rock consumes people by turning them into more of itself, and is destroying the planets ecosystem and possibly tiberiumforming the planet for an alien invasion? Suck it up and harvest 20 thousand units more, we need to build a dozen tanks the size of houses to kill those religious terrorists"

something I thunk is neat, in this came I'm playing is called 'meta-alloys'

'Meta-alloys have a complex lattice structure with large internal voids. They are cellular in nature, and formed organically. They are incredibly strong - much stronger than foamed aluminium for example. Many elements form the structure so technically they are alloys, but the composition is different in different parts of the cell walls for strength. They are good thermal insulators, and have a high melting point, but if they are melted they lose all their special properties and become a conventional alloy. They are easily machined, but as yet cannot be manufactured, only found in space. They are associated with recently discovered alien entities nicknamed 'Large Barnacles' by interstellar explorers. These appear to be common in certain parts of space, although no-one is certain why. This material has been heralded as the next step in materials technology. It is ultra-light and stronger and more versatile than most commercially available alloys.'