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Materia Research : The Great Equalizer - OttoVann - 04-28-2015
(I'm going to try journal-entry style writing. Please give feedback)
Second Umbral Moon / 27th Sun
Normally I wouldn't write a journal over this, but times have changed as they tend to do. I'm approaching thirty cycles in age, I have two wives, and I need to start considering documenting my important works and techniques so that my protégées have access to what I've come to master.
I've scoured the lands looking for scholars of all kinds that are knowledgeable about Aether. Deep academic knowledge was a requisite. I had to produce surprisingly large gil bounties to lure the actual professionals out and into my offices for my discussions on materia. I've known of materia, most people do, they're mystic little gems that have some form of aetherial-like properties. People have said they can enhance you, make you stronger, faster, things of that regard. Some thaumaturges have used them in magic making I learned, with various levels of success and dramatic failures.
My demand and willingness to spend any amount of money to gain all knowledge of materia yielded scant details for my specific dilemmas. I learned of reputable dealers thankfully, those that could secure something akin to high quality pieces of materia and could differentiate between its different manifestations and effects. I learned few to no specific details about materia usage though. It would seem next to no one in this world use it for anything other than quaint projects, or for those that are informed on the subject, they keep quiet. The only thing I learned of value, at the start, is that materia can be worn out and crack, but as to why or how, it remains a mystery for the most part. I intend to change this.
Some scholars mocked; others have shown a purely academic curiosity while most appeared bewildered that a man like me even cared. These future endeavors into my own materia research are more than just fashion statements; it is a form of self-defense. Fashion that works will be my slogan.
Before I go further, I should note it is theorized weaponization can occur with materia, the problem is that it would be cumbersome, slow to fire projectiles if used in such a manner, and extremely expensive. A gaudy little lalafell woman made a quip to me about using the fire spitting materia in those muskets the Limsan's use, and how she'd love to it explode. She may have been onto something, but firearm designs are not my expertise. I create fashion, jewelry and clothing, and have no time for trying to master the craft of tightly controlled exports like that. If anyone else reads this in the future though, and the technology hasn't come along, it would be worth a thought.
It has been left up to me to figure out how to incorporate materia into my designs of fashion. I see a product people would want, for those that could afford it, where simply wearing my clothes and rings and so on would give them on-demand increased stamina, power, or more. I have a need for this for personal usage after being confronted for the last time with perils and being unarmed and at the mercy and grace of others and their interventions. Ridley is my power, but she won't always be there for me. I need more; this isn't an opinion.
I like to consider myself well off, physique wise. Despite my after-hours hobbies, I have maintained a well groomed physicality and endurance, but that's it. Materia may be an answer to problems like that, especially for those who lack the time to master a martial skill or even lack the prowess for them. Some of us have money to spend and places to be; materia can help answer that dilemma, enabling us to dress to the occasion and not feel the naked anxiety of lacking armor and armaments. It could be a great equalizer between the sexes as well, giving women easy and readily available clothing to wear that would help enhance their strength to match that of a man's and even surpass him. Not everyone is aether-touched or blessed.
So here I am, in the beginning phases of creating prototypes. I should make it a matter of record my current ideas for materia-enhanced fashion are limited to jewelry: rings, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. For actual clothing, so far I am only focusing on belts and will begin roughly prototyping into shirts and jackets later. I feel sticking to accessories, for now, helps keep the form factors within reason for easier experimentation and helps in reducing the costs of failure. There is also the concern of keeping the matter of wearing materia in everyday clothing discreet, hiding in plain sight. It also serves the purpose of expanding my potential market, who doesn't wear a belt in this day and age? Who doesn't wear a necklace or jewelry of any kind for that matter. Not everyone appreciates my more...eccentric lines of clothing though. For now materia-enhanced clothing, as a product and principle, will not manifest as I focus on accessorizing materia instead.
So we begin with everything I have learned, and my documenting every step and detail as I go along. At times, this will read dry, make no mistake. I will gloss over some of the minutiae in regards to basics that any competent craftsman or tradesman should know, but even still this will be heavy read for which I render no apologies.
I wasn't sure if I should do this, and the thought had crossed my mind others had come before me and failed. Perhaps they did not want to document their failures out of shame or what I consider the foolish conventional wisdom of letting others fail alongside you, so no one comes out ahead. Either way, I long to see a time where men in finely cut suits, with no weapons or armor on or around them, have no in fear walking around so freely. I wonder what would happen in society if everyone assumes anyone could be walking around with the strength of three men, maybe it would become a more polite one. There is also the concern of people coming to suspect I am in the business of manufacturing weapons now, and they will be dealt with accordingly when and if those troubles arise.
RE: Materia Research : The Great Equalizer - OttoVann - 04-28-2015
Second Umbral Moon / 28th Sun
What exactly materia is is hard to explain. Where it is sourced is just as nebulous, with the best answer being “artifactsâ€. How it forms, precisely, is a technique even the Goblins don't understand fully and they developed the technique. Why it affects people is equally shrouded in mystery though I have developed theories on this matter with the help of those scholars who were intrigued enough in my work to lend a hand. Who it affects is limitless I have come to learn. Seemingly anyone can be affected by materia in some fashion, though the effects are not always positive.
As far as I can tell there is no need to assay materia. Its quality, or “grade†as some refer to it, is relatively simple to discern based off of how it looks. Materia rife with what I can only guess are impurities is seemingly weaker in application. It is also notably smaller in size compared to the larger, more gem-like appearing materia that are higher in purity. The impurities themselves also form into a crust-like scale on the outside of materia, marring it and making it resemble unrefined ore in a way. If someone did not have a discerning eye for what actual raw gems looked like, smaller impure materia could be confused as such. From what I have seen, materia grows in size as it's purity goes up. I suspect it is because the impurities are being more fully turned into the crystalline structure that materia is made out of leading to less waste and more expansion.
More on purity. I suspect materia impurities form on more than just the outside of the piece. I have handled many highly pure materia, some alleged to be perfectly pure. When held, they appear almost luminescent and are crystal clear. It doesn't even require polishing like traditional gems do. Lower forms of materia are brackish, even if you dare to scrape or cut the crust imperfections off, what remains is something you can not look through at all. For my needs, having access to higher purities is not a matter of pride, but practicality in application. No one will want to buy a ring adorned with an unsightly gem on it.
I have never heard of, nor seen materia that was not at least partially or wholly round-like in form. I've also taken extraordinary measures to find all of its variations. Most modern materia comes in predominantly these colors: red, white (something like a diamond), green, blue, yellow, and purple. Details are scarce, but before the Calamity, it existed in other colors though record is impossible to find, the most notable color that no longer exists is orange. In fact, pre-Calamity records on anything relating to materia are non-existent. I was able to have Integra locate, through pain-staking research, a small article from the Mythril Eye dated to years ago that talks about Goblins and materia. Apparently they brought the practice to Thanalan, and before them it wasn't something that existed in the regions. Ul'dah, at that time, was extremely apprehensive about materia and feared it was a weapon they couldn't contain, or could be turned into it, so this likely explains why little knowledge of it exists here.
This covers enough of the basic premises of materia for today. More to come in future entries that covers my delve into understanding the merits of the various colors materia can come in, and its potency as a whole. For those that care to learn more than just materia and its practical uses, I feel I have left enough starting points for research on other things like the history of materia. That is not my focus. I feel understanding how it actually functions will matter as knowing that will enable people like myself to come up with different designs for our materia-enhanced pieces while still retaining it's properties. I can't imagine only having one design of ring to sell with materia in it and maintaining my success. Innovation will need to continue if I want to stay relevant as a brand.
RE: Materia Research : The Great Equalizer - OttoVann - 05-02-2015
Third Umbral Moon / 2nd Sun
Trial and error have nearly killed me in my experimentations with materia so far. At first I was trying to use impure materia and just doing my best to have a flush seating with the bracelet. By the way my bracelet couldn't be any more plain and “impartial†to these trials, it is solid plain gold with a divot for the materia to sit in. A simple clasp, that's it. I haven't moved onto any sort of stylized designs, unsure whether different metals will affect the efficacy. I have been burning through hundreds of thousands of gil at a time to work towards a design that is manageable. Details to follow.
Materia can break. I can't rightfully place an academic backed theory as to why, but I have guesses. One is the simple idea that impure materia has a shelf-life, and wears out. Another idea is that due to impure materia being imperfectly round and rife with impurities and imperfections making it almost like an unprocessed and unsmoothed rock, it's not able to...well I'd guess do its job properly. The good news is that I have felt the effects of materia already, though it was short lived.
The materia I first started using to test was a sky-blue one, small and of the lowest purity you typically see. I was told through my dealer there are various materia that affect people differently, while even sharing the same color. He apparently can “feel†their difference, which of course I thought was complete shit so I told him I would take one meant for enhancing physical strength, and if I could prove he wasn't fooling me, he would secure millions in future trades no questions asked. He sent me on my way with two, didn't even bother charging me. He was that sure of his wares.
I started off small, yet thorough, in my initial testing and designs. Apparently, simply seating it properly like I would a ruby or any other gem is all it takes. Even more surprising is that the degree to how much it affects me is almost quantifiable. I had the idea to lift weights and see if I could challenge and surpass some of my maximums. Being honest with this journal, I can benchpress 425 ponze. That's far above average, but I've seen numbers much higher from my kind.
To my dealers credit, the little blue materia worked. I had some variations between 440 and 450 and will say about a 20 increase for simplicities sake. A single materia doing that much work. Hard to imagine, and it makes me yearn to wear 10 of the largest most pure I can find as I'm writing this. Fear stops me for now though. Who knows what would happen to the body if you did that.
To help ensure I am getting consistent results, I took my bracelet off and tried my newly found max. I could barely muster 420 ponze likely due to being tired. Wearing the bracelet again and giving myself one last push for the day to try and break 450 almost killed me. I had the bar set to 455 in all and I could only manage to unrack it before, terrifyingly, the materia cracked in its fitting, losing its internal coloring, fading to brown, and sending the bar crashing onto me. Fortunately for me, I had one of my office girls in the other room hear my screaming and she ran to help me barely get the bar off my chest.
No one had told me up until that point that materia can even break, and when I went back to my trusted supplier with all hells fury behind me he gave off an air of genuine surprise. We went over everything I had been doing and he asked me the queerest thing “What did you do to meld it to your wristlet?†I wasn't sure what melding was at the time, and he told me he wasn't sure either. He only knows that properly melded materia looks like it has been forge-welded into the pieces and that Mutamix the Goblin teaches others who know how to use aether the proper technique, for a price. Unfortunately I can't use aether, so that option was and is no good for me.
My dealer was intrigued that I had managed to feel the effects of materia by simply seating it like a jewel. He's the first one that gave me the idea that because the lower grade of materia was used, it didn't perfectly set. He would be correct, it didn't seat flawlessly. I was treating it like any other gem and clasped it down into its seating. If I were to try and have a flawless seating, I would need a pure materia. I consider myself a true Master of smithing with precious metals, matched by next to none. There is no way to have a perfect and flush joining of impure materia to a bracelet without I would imagine a forge-weld, and how is that even possible with materia when it can break with a simple hammer blow to its face. More importantly, how is that ever a viable option when it would defeat the purpose of designing something I can wear fashionably.
True to my word, his initial sampling did work, so I went through with my promise. He shipped me 12 of his flawless and allegedly pure materia that would affect physical strength. In all the order cost me over 6 million gil. The order was brought to me by an armed carriage, elaborate. After tasting what simple little ones could do , it was time to put to work new ways to test my designs and the effects of materia on myself.
At this point its essential to point out, that 6 million gil is a lot of money. Even to me. As of this writing I'm only worth 246.3 million gil, and that's how much I'm worth, not how much liquidity I hold. I barely have 30 million gil in the bank ready to spend at a moments notice. Moving 6 million gil from a bank all at once gets a lot of attention real fast and its dangerous considering how much I've leveraged my businesses. I had to tell them I was buying a new house for one of my wives to hopefully shake any suspicion, my research into materia and becoming more than I am is of utmost importance now that I've seen it work with seemingly little in the way of magic and mysticism.
RE: Materia Research : The Great Equalizer - OttoVann - 05-19-2015
Ideas for infusing aether into fabric and metals. Precious metals focused.
An idea was given to me about enhancing jewelry at the basic level. As everyone reading this likely knows, materia is crystallized aether which contains the energy therein. It can be described as being 'aspected' and this to me is largely mysterious. It is mostly known that to 'create' down, artifacts: swords, knives, armors, gear in general, is deconstructed at the basic level and condensed into materia. During this process, if say, a gladiators sword was used often, 'broken in', you generally get materia aspected for enhancing physical traits of the body. However, to me the thought that aether has a personality and will only affect certain parts of certain people based off its source...is frankly queer.
Anyways, I have new ideas for harnessing materia. Ways to work around my seemingly muted aether capabilities and still get what I want.
Normally, if you crack a materia, or break it, shatter it, etc – it's trapped crystallized aether dissipates. It loses color and becomes brown regardless of the previous color it held. I was given the thought of trying to pulverize a materia under a press while it would be in a container of some sort holding metallic sands, say gold, and carbonized plus dark matters. The basic idea is that as the aether is 'escaping' its crystallized prison, the reagents and sand will attract the loose aethers and force it to 'meld' or cling to the metal sand. I have some initial concerns with trying to form proper, workable and forgable metals working materials from this. I can foresee the crystalline shards from the materia causing problems in the molten gold and other metals, disrupting the alloying process, due to the inherent differences in the basic crystal structure that crystalized aether does not share with metals. It will likely form a brittle intermetallic alloy that will more prone to shattering than molding with hammer blows.
That alone is a...rather difficult task likely littered with failures to come. Should this process ever work, I would then melt these sands down into alloys and further refine them from ingots into working material to make jewelry from.
However, merely making rings and trinkets is no longer all that will be getting produced. More is needed. It's awkward, and ineffective to try and sew a materia onto a shirt and expect results. A belt is fine for actual garmets, shoes perhaps, pants maybe, overall the process is awkward. Therefore I will be undertaking the extremely old, and almost entirely forgotten process of lamé to weave ribbons of gold and other aether-infused ingots I will have produced. Most weaver don't know of the process, and none of us practice it for a reason. Weaving in ribbons or wires of gold into a garmet lends it to being not ideal for continued and repeated wear.
I have recruited others to help me understand this process. I suspect my forray into lamé wont work fully, but I intend to see it through to get an understanding of fusing goldsmithing and weaving. I have heard, but never seen reference materials to another process of precious fabrics, called samite. The rough idea of samite is it leans on gold leaf and silk, and weaving it to produce patterns you can apply to, say a jacket, to gain the effects of the aethered metallic fabrics. We shall see, I have sent Ridley and Integra to Ossuary to pour over texts regarding both samite and lamé.
RE: Materia Research : The Great Equalizer - IntegraCoiter - 01-21-2016
whoops
cant delete this post fug
RE: Materia Research : The Great Equalizer - IntegraCoiter - 01-21-2016
christ almight i cant delete my posts and i keep hitting quote by accident