#pyraedic alchemy

[harseer]

How to make A fur stone.

Fur stones are very useful ingredients but if you've tried buying or being lended one you will have undoubtedly notice their poor accaprity. As such, it's often better to make them yourself. Here is the recipe i've traditionally instructed my disciples with. First, to make the stone itself you will need to select a metal and a rock. The rock can be any rock, but it must contain quartz and freethrough stones, such as kyestone and pure lime, are not allowed. The metal should ideally be copper or an alloy of copper, but if copper isn't stable you can resort to fire tin, then iron, though this will significantly affect the usability of the stone. Use a metal that correlates adequately to the animal. Now, attach the rock to the metal, such that when measuring the two points in stone representing its largest width and the two points in stone representing its smallest width, both passing through the metal's center of mass, the former is no more than two times wider than the latter. An amount of metal must be exposed to air; you cannot have a core of metal surrounded in all directions by rock. Welding the metal directly onto rock can be difficult, so i would much rather recommend using a heat-resistant glue instead. If you're using your fur stone for a purpose where the difference between glued and directly weld would genuinely matter and you're also reading this guide on how to make a fur stone in the first place, don't. Just don't. 

You might have noticed many people use fancy fur stones that are ornamented, perfectly spherical or have the metal extruding out of the stone in repeating patterns. This is done purely for stylistic reasons, and does not affect the purposes, although a spherical shape does make the width constraints easier to get right. The rock part of the stone has no ability, it's only there to make the fur believe it is trapped. Only the metal is the "actual" fur stone, any volume of it that isn't in between two parts of rock is useless and can be removed or stylized as you wish.

Next, we must make the crucible. You must prepare a dish of ketin salt and heat it under the fur stone so that the fume rises onto it and shape the crucible along its shape. There are a lot of possible substitutes here, but i'll only be covering ketin salt as it has the advantage of having generally the same process for all metals and being effective enough. The ketin and the stone must be heated by the same source, with the ketin below and the stone directly above. This can be a bit tricky so most people use specialized equipment, but i've heard some people have had success with just a regular two-grill oven, although caution should be exercised on account of the fumes. I've seen one miserable buffoon try this shit with a barbecue once. Poured the ketin right under the grid and tried holding a bag on top of it to keep the fumes in. He just looked at me, arms sprawled around the barbecue holding his stupid bag, eyes like a wet dog, as he realized he was gonna have to keep this pose the whole time. He's dead now. Of old age, surprisingly enough. But the point remains you should probably think about what decisions you want to take and how you want to be remembered when you're gone. Anyways, once the fumes start to meld into the metal it will turn it black, then red, then black again, then a pale bright yellow. That's bad, you don't want it to turn yellow, take it out when its the second black or in between red and black (but black is better). Depending on the alloy the red and yellow might be darker or veer towards orange, which can throw off your timing. A clear view to the stone is paramount to success. Fire tin works mostly the same except both the red and yellow phase are more orange in hue and the second black is browner, so the difference can be harder to see. Also, it's fire tin, all the normal rules for handling fire tin still apply. Prepare a freezer to take out the heat once you're done. Iron turns dark green to slate blue to red or gray depending on the temperature. Take it out at slate blue. The heating temperature doesn't matter, as long as the ketin salts fume then it's hot enough. Some people say that higher temperatures make the process faster or the colors brighter, but it doesn't really change anything. We also don't care about the accaprity of the heat or it's source either, so borrowing a specialized fur stone oven is A-Ok.

Finally, your fur stone is fully formed. You can reshape it however you want as long as you don't break the rules of shape, metal composition, quartz, etc. The black/slate meld from the heating process can also be removed (or kept) if it hasn't fallen off already, once the process is complete the physical material itself has no properties. Now, to fill the crucible. You need to place the fur stone on the ground and have a mammal willingly go to sleep in front of it at one twilight and wake up at the next. This sounds improbable, but the thing to remember here is that sleep is a cunt-ass bitch who never takes consent. As such, the requirement actually only specifies that the animal has to move there of their own will, not fall asleep of their own free will. Simply set a drugged bait in front of the stone and the animal will move there "of their own free will" and fall asleep. Domesticated animals can be kept back and released so that they eat the bait and fall asleep at just the right time. For wild animals you might need to rely on Luck more so. Moving the stone or animal yourself at any point during the sleep or intentionally waking up the animal prematurely risks breaking the crucible, so if the animal doesn't wake on time it's better to just wait for the next night than risk ruining the stone. Of course, there are a number of workarounds that have been found for this, but i will skip detailing them for the sake of brevity and simplicity. Some people like to kill and desoul the animal afterwards for the sake of artrionic stability. Personally, i think this is excessive most of the time as the death stress also puts pressure on the crucible and can leave it in a damaged state. If really you want that added stability, simply keeping the animal nearby for two or three days will get you most of the same benefits while posing much less danger to the stone.

If you've done everything right you should see fur appearing over the metal while under the light of twilight. Of course, you can fill your fur stone any number of times, but one night with one animal should be enough to fill it enough for basically any purpose. Unless you live in, like, the arctic or some shit, idk. Some particularly intelligent mammals like humans, elephants and a select few breeds of dogs are drastically more difficult to fill fur stone with to the point of almost impossibility. Although this judgement is far from resting on any sort of objective assessment, as pigs and chimpanzees both lack this property despite being very intelligent. It seems more as an arbitrary line is drawn somehow. Make sure to research your animal before starting the creation of your fur stone to know what metal to use and how you will fill it. Finally, during the filling process, leaving the stone to rest on a nest of twigs or shedding of a potent wood, such as yew or birch, can draw the outcome to a specific asset of the animal which might be helpful for some purposes. If you are interested in those, i invite you to continue your research around fur stone into deeper, more specialized resources, because this guide is already 1.4k words and i don't want it to double.

In conclusion, a great fur stone is a pain in the ass to make, which is why many people still buy them despite the accaprity loss. But! A decent fur stone might not be so difficult to make if you go about it intelligently. Use copper or simple copper alloys! Beasts are things of flesh and blood, after all. Use a rough shape and as much substitute material as you need! No shame in being practical. Fill it using domesticated animals! It's just a fur stone, it's no reason to get your face eaten by a tiger or something. And, of course, exercise caution with your equipment and every step of the operation.