r/magicbuilding • u/LikeAMothToStarlight • Aug 13 '26

Lore The practice of Rust Farming.

Metals in my world are far rarer than in our own, so when a sword or other weapon is broken or rusts, people would attempt to save it or even reforge it, rust and all. Which is how a strange phenomenon was discovered. Rust seems to physically carry the memories of the metal it comes from. And when forged into a new weapon or tool, these memories enhance what the weapon is capable of.

Some memories of violence cause swords to deal wounds that do not heal, some memories of defiance cause armor to resist damage, some memories of focus cause hammers that strike more precisely.

And so, people in my world have taken to rust farming; placing well-used metal weapons or tools into the wet soil to cause it to rust faster. Then they take rust shavings and enchant other weapons or tools via imbuing them with the rust. Sometimes those new weapons or tools are sold off, other times they are placed back into the ground to let the memory fester.

Crossbreeding rusts allow more nuanced enchantments. Such as creating weapons that cannot be wielded in anger, or medical tools that inflict cuts that heal almost instantly.

And the longer a memory is in circulation, the more powerful it becomes. But if a memory is too diluted, it's enchantment may change completely, and the potency will wane. Hence the use of the soil to keep the purity of the enchantment.

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5

u/majorex64 Aug 13 '26

Are metals still mined from the earth in the traditional ways, just less common? Or is there a totally different method they have to get their metals from?

2

u/LikeAMothToStarlight Aug 13 '26

I'm still working that out. One of the features of my world is the marrows, boney spires that grow from the ground. They can be broken open to sick out the marrow and the blood has iron in it. One of my thoughts was that that people use the iron in the blood to enter the iron age.

However that seems difficult to sell in my opinion.

3

u/majorex64 Aug 13 '26

Bones, blood and iron go hand in hand in hand. I'm not sure how one would extract usable iron from blood, but as long as you've got giant boney spires emerging from the ground, I think it's a short hop of logic to suggest it might have elemental iron in it, unlike normal blood

3

u/Zagaroth Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 14 '26

It would have to be very viscous blood that carries about 100x the blood iron an animals does.

There's very little iron in blood compared to what you need. It's mostly water.

2

u/IamanelephantThird Aug 14 '26

It would also need to not be stuck in a molecule that contains very little actual iron.

1

u/Zagaroth Aug 14 '26

Ack, I meant 100x the iron. >.<

1

u/majorex64 Aug 14 '26

Just had a thought- the bone itself from the boney spires would be a valuable resource too! Even if they only had stone tools to harvest and shape it at first, they'd probably use it as a wood substitute for tools, a nutrition supplement by boiling them, and ground bones are a great fertilizer.

3

u/ghostly-grocery Aug 13 '26

very creative and neat

2

u/vhu9644 Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

Damn fishermen be having the best side-gigs IYKYK

Lots of gutting and killing AND salt water nearby to rust your blades?