[New Frontier] The Promise of Eternal Life

Amrits are the central McGuffins of the New Frontier setting. Sure, these strange pearls are incredibly valuable to the people living in the setting because they can stop the aging process of people for a time. But that's not the ultimate reason for their existence - they simply exist so that there is a reason why lots of people would suddenly uproot their existence and move to a hostile and alien world to get a chance to fame and fortune - with the PCs being among that number. The PCs themselves are unlikely to get much use out of Amrits themselves (after all, how many adventurers die of old age even without them?), but because they are so incredibly valuable, their mere existence has created a situation that makes the gold rushes of the Old West seem tame.

But so far, details have been vague on them. We know that they wash up on the beaches of Lorsul from time to time, and that some people dive into the ocean to get to them. But through which processes are they actually created? Are they the results of some natural geological processes, or are they the byproducts of the life-cycle of some strange local animal or plant? Or (like in the Blue Planet setting are they the product of some long-forgotten intelligent species?

You decide - I haven't been able to put much thought into this issue yet, since I was more interested in the effects of this McGuffin than its causes. So discuss this issue on the discussion thread over on the forums, and if you come up with an interesting explanation, don't hesitate to alter the wiki entry to suit your ideas.