GURPS Magic - Creating gemstones

[Anders]

Earth to Stone transforms one cubic yard of soil to one cubic yard of stone or metal. Given how much work went into making metal historically, if Earth to Stone is available there are really two options.

1) society is radically different due to the ubiquity of metal

2) let's just ignore the realistic consequences of the spell

[Whitewings]

Originally Posted by Anders

1) society is radically different due to the ubiquity of metal

This would depend entirely on the commonality of mages with the Create Earth spell, and how much they charge compared the regular producers, and how much they’re willing to produce. Produce a few cubic yards of iron and the local blacksmith will love you forever. Even five or ten pounds of silver or gold and you’re every jeweller’s best friend. Frankly, most mages wouldn’t feel the need to make mines obsolete and depending on the metal, might not even be able to.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

Produce a few cubic yards of iron and the local blacksmith will love you forever. to.

Preset a tL3 blacksmith a 3 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot cube of iron and rather than "I luv you forever!" his most likely exclamtion would be "What do you expect me to do with that?".

It weighs 13,500 lbs. It would be extremely difficult for a TL3 society to move it or even break it into conveniently sized pieces without more magic. They might ignore it. They might declare it sacred and start planning to make money off of pilgrims who'll come to see it but get rich off it directly is not very likely.

For one thing it isn't worth 13,500 x the value of 1 lb of iron before it was created. As you break off 1 lb chunks (somehow) and sell those the price per lb will fall every time you do until you can't sell any more.

Not that 1 lb chunks of unworked kiron are all that valuable anyway. Most of the alue copmes from what e blacksmith does with it and by itself this won't create more ironworkers.

Again, like preventing abuse of Powerstones this is not something you need to work that hard at preventing. Is "self-futilizing" a word?

[(E)]

I've taken a middle path in my primary fantasy world.
Shape earth works on gems, with that and seek earth the (rare) mages in the setting can often make a fairly high income which ofsets the added expenses the profession has in the setting.

[Whitewings]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Preset a tL3 blacksmith a 3 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot cube of iron and rather than "I luv you forever!" his most likely exclamtion would be "What do you expect me to do with that?".

IRL, stony iron meteors of greater size have been mined for iron by relatively low-tech societies. As for moving it, make it in his shop so nobody has to move it.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Not that 1 lb chunks of unworked kiron are all that valuable anyway. Most of the alue copmes from what e blacksmith does with it and by itself this won't create more ironworkers.

Well, I mean... you need Shape Earth for Earth to Stone. So you can shape the stone before you transform it.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

And precious metals? Why not? The worst that’s likely to happen, in terms of legal problems, is agents of the Royal Mint either taking it and giving you a percentage, or asking (or insisting) that you stop. Honestly, by the time you’ve made enough to be asked to stop, you already more than enough for any reasonable purpose. Now, illegal problems are another matter entirely.

If any apprentice wizard can make it by the ton every hour, its not a precious metal any more.

The difference between quartz and opal is that everyone knows quartz crystals are cheap and everywhere. So if any apprentice wizard can create it by the ton, its not a gem any more.

[awesomenessofme1]

Maybe this is why every soldier and guardsman is running around in full plate armor in fantasy settings. And why dragons are able to have piles of millions of gold coins lying around.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Maybe this is why every soldier and guardsman is running around in full plate armor in fantasy settings. And why dragons are able to have piles of millions of gold coins lying around.

The problem with creation abilities of any kind is that once they are a significant part of the supply chain, everything they can make is basically the same cost - whatever the wage you need to pay the conjurer is. When gold coins aren't worth anything more than iron ones, or random rocks for that matter, why does the dragon even want a million of them.

Mind you the fact creation spells mean "hard" currencies are basically worthless and there is an upper cap on the price of anything physical no matter what it is doesn't mean there can't be an economy - you still need to ration stuff like services and space, and we've been running the global economy on fiat currencies for a century, but it does mean the economy is hard to predict and looks nothing like a conventional fantasy one.

One unexpected consequence that comes to mind is there is a sharp *fall* in the variety of goods available - if everything above a certain price is basically the same cost, or the same cost per pound, there's no reason for anyone to settle for less than the best, so yeah, maybe everybody does drink from solid diamond decanters, but it's not because it's a luxury, it's because you literally cannot buy any other kind - they'd cost the same amount or more, and be inferior in terms of durability, so nobody makes them.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Whitewings

IRL, stony iron meteors of greater size have been mined for iron by relatively low-tech societies. As for moving it, make it in his shop so nobody has to move it.

"Stony iron" sounds like something you could handle by building a TL2 foundry around. This would give you bloomery iron which is rather easier to handle than pure iron.

You don't melt pure iron until TL 5.