Air Crystals

Air Crystals

Air crystals are a category of crystal used in airship technology, most notably as the component that makes it possible for airships to fly. They are described as geometric and shining, exploding outward from a center point, and are translucent in appearance, displaying a soft clear and blue coloration. Despite this coloring, the light emitted by an air crystal is white.

Description

Air crystals are geometric in form, appearing to radiate or "explode" from a central point. They are translucent, described as "a soft clear and blue color, though the light coming from it was white." Their distinctive shape and luminous quality make them recognizable even when encountered outside their usual context.

In A History of Rislandia

According to A History of Rislandia, air crystals have a mythological origin, a complex history spanning the age of the Giants through the founding of Rislandia, and a range of applications far broader than their role in airship technology alone.

Origin: Fragments of Aerithos

According to A History of Rislandia, air crystals are not merely a natural mineral but fragments of a divine being. The sourcebook states that "Aerithos became the Air Crystals, granting the power of flight and wind," identifying them as the physical remnant of Aerithos the Wind-Walker, who gave up his existence during the Great Sacrifice. This origin makes them one of the divine crystals born from the creation of the world. The sourcebook also refers to them by the name Aerithos, treating the crystal type and the deity as etymologically and literally the same entity.

Uses in the Age of Giants

According to A History of Rislandia, air crystals were employed by the Giants on a monumental scale during the Age of Giants. The Giants used them to hold entire cities aloft in the sky, and the Floating Gardens platforms of Oretha Eternal were suspended by air crystals. The Windcallers' Brotherhood also made use of them. Beyond levitation, the sourcebook states that air crystals grant power over flight, levitation, and wind control, and that they were used for personal flight (described as rare) and for creating windstorms, in addition to airship propulsion.

Survival of the Great Sundering

According to A History of Rislandia, the Great Sundering severed humanity's connection to crystal magic and rendered most worked crystals inert. A deposit of air crystals survived, however, discovered in natural caverns beneath a prominent hill in the central plains of what would become Rislandia—described as lying within the Iberanth Peninsula. The sourcebook offers three scholarly theories for why these crystals remained functional: that the deposit's distance from the empire's heartland weakened the Sundering's effect upon them; that naturally occurring, unworked crystals were inherently more stable; and that the cavern system itself provided protection or insulation. The sourcebook notes that these crystals were still glowing faintly and still functional at the time of their discovery, embedded in the cave walls and pulsing with residual magic, and characterises their preservation as a gift of the Great One to the refugees.

Crystal Integration and the Crystal Spire (Year 39)

According to A History of Rislandia, in Year 39 of the Rislandian calendar the elders of the early settlement extracted air crystals from the caverns and embedded them in the upper levels of the Crystal Spire during what the sourcebook calls the Crystal Integration. This process created crystal-powered lights throughout the tower—described as weak but functional. The strongest crystals were installed in a dedicated Crystal Chamber at the tower's heart. Some chambers were sealed after integration. The sourcebook notes that the elders knew how to attune air crystals for specific purposes, but that this attunement faded as the elders aged, and that the crystals were limited in number and power.

The Crystal Chamber and the Voices

According to A History of Rislandia, visitors to the Crystal Chamber of the Crystal Spire sometimes hear voices among the glowing air crystals. The sourcebook records two competing scholarly explanations: that the crystals may record and replay sounds from the distant past, and that skeptics believe the crystals emit a low-frequency hum that the human brain interprets as speech.

First Use for Flight and Later Rediscovery

According to A History of Rislandia, the Knights of the Crystal Spire achieved flight using air crystals in Year 376, though the sourcebook describes this early application as primitive and dangerous. Around Year 485, scholars at the Crystal Spire re-attuned the crystals, and after more than five hundred years functional crystal magic returned to Rislandia—weak compared to the old empire but sufficient to enable new technologies, including airships. The sourcebook states that air crystals generate an anti-gravity field that counteracts the weight of a vessel, and that they must be "charged" through means that remain uncertain, possibly by drawing ambient energy from the Spire itself. It further notes that their effective range is limited: distant flights require careful management, as the crystals are most potent in proximity to a charged source such as the Spire. Other deposits exist in Giant ruins, and Wyranth mined volcanic regions for crystals of its own.

Color and Light

According to A History of Rislandia, air crystals are described as clear blue and translucent in color, emitting white light.