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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 90418" data-attributes="member: 2020">DISCOVERY!!!Many people and beings have now attempted the Blood Waste.  Most of them accidentally, like it or not, touched the strange substance that now covers much of the region - the vividly glowing red gooish stuff.  And when they did, they dissolved.  Those that pulled back quickly, still had a tiny amount of it on them, and they dissolved.    Attempts were made to pick up the stuff with metal containers.  The metal, dissolved.  However, it was finally discovered that mithril and adamantium containers could hold the substance, and would not dissolve.  Thus, with great care and more than a few fatalities, the stuff was brought out of the Blood Waste for examination.  Although it is a mixture of water poisoned by Shade, lava from Oerth's interior, and the blood of 53 million fallen living and undead, it is quite cool when taken out of the Blood Waste, and quietly sits in the containers, glowing it's bright vivid red.  Then, it hardens into a metal.  This metal, is harder than adamantium by far.  All initial attempts to smelt it, hammer it, or heat it, failed.  Not even the great modern forges of the Lortmil Technomancy could heat it or alter it.    Finally, in frustration, someone threw a fireball at it.  It melted at once.  With the discovery that magic will readily affect this metal, it became possible for it to be shaped and forged (touching it after it hardened into a metal had no apparent ill effects.)  The resulting items proved to be incredibly strong, literally unbreakable.  Needless to say, someone started forging swords out of it.  The swords proved horrifically sharp, unbreakable, and extremely light, although the luminence from the metal changed with the forging - the swords now glowed in all colors of the rainbow, the light coming from a seemingly deep, remote place within the metal.  Realizing that the era of swords was over, attempts were made to make bullets out of this substance, and they have succeeded.  These bullets, glowing with multicolored rainbow light, remote and deep within the metal, will penetrate anything (they are far better than depleted uranium bullets.)  The secret to building suits of plate armor that would stop bullets, or even enemy artillery and high explosives, has been discovered.  With magic, the metal can be readily heated, melted, forged, and shaped (but no non-magical heat known as of yet will affect it at all.)  The secret to bullets that will pierce enemy tanks, or even go through a large amount of earth or stone to reach a foe, has been discovered.  Now, they are discussing making everything out of this new substance, this blood steel, or rainbow steel, or star steel, or by the many names with which it is called.  Unfortunately, only limited amounts are available, because it is necessary to obtain the stuff from the Blood Waste - that is the ONLY place where it is found.  It must be collected in containers of mithril, adamantium, or blood steel itself.  Forays into the Blood Swamp are horrifically dangerous, and usually end with many fatalities, no matter how careful the gatherers are, or how hard they try to protect themselves.  As for the blood steel, it radiates strong magic, strong rainbow light from a seemingly remote and deep distance within the metal, and it radiates no alignment.  The long-term effects of using it (much less wearing it as armor) are currently unknown as of this time.  - - -  A final note.  If collected as goo, within a container that will hold it, the strange stuff from the Blood Waste can be used as a weapon.  It could be, say, catapulted at a foe with a catapult made out of mithril, adamantium, or red steel itself.  Tests show that not only do the foe (and all their equipment except for mithril and adamantium) dissolve when the stuff hits, but the ground itself melts, and a new pond of the strange goo is created.  These new small ponds of gooish stuff cannot be moved, changed, affected, or removed by any known means, including 10th level magic.  They CAN be used as a source for even more Red Steel, however.  Goo could be removed from these new pools of goo, then flung into the ground to create a second pool of goo, which could then be used to create a third pool of goo, etc.  Since it takes several days for the goo to harden into red steel, once removed from the Blood Waste or the experimental pools, it is quite easy to create new pools of the stuff, or create batches as weapons to throw at enemies.</blockquote>

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