Quicksilver

Quicksilver is a strange metal, silvery and liquid as if a duller cousin to the Magical Material Moonsilver, though its occult potency is far less than that more noble cousin. It is sometimes called the 'Metal of Mercury' due to its liquid movements, which can be encouraged through use of Lodestone or heat.

Quicksilver has a number of uses: it is employed in Artifact Creation and the complex instruments required for Magitech, in the transformation of fur into felt, even as a decorative element in Dynastic Gardens. Once, in centuries past, it was also employed as a medicine, able to bolster the health and longevity of mortals significantly (and the Exalted slightly). However, it is said that the Quicksilver Queen who is mistress of the metal was once angered and her wrath transformed its nature: now it is poisonous, deforming unborn children and driving mortals to madness... hatters and furriers whose professions require its use often live short lives, but the demand for felt is rapacious and uncaring.

The 'Blessed Quicksilver' of centuries past was found in a natural state bubbling from springs found underground, particularly in the mountain caverns of the central Blessed Isle. Very rarely such a spring can still be discovered, the Realm's Great Houses squabbling viciously to secure and drain it. Far more commonly in the Age of Sorrows, alchemists produce the metal by extracting it from the gemstone Cinnabar. Scavenger Lords also retrieve vials from the ruins of the First Age to auction the Blessed Quicksilver therein at significant prices... some unscrupulous individuals might substitute the debased version for the Blessed to reap a quick reward, but such people rarely survive long, by tradition punished through drowning in the hatter's vats.