Where do gems come from?


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion


As every adventure has lot of gems worth of thousands gp which are often used for spell ingredients, where they come from?

And when I think about it, typical npc would earn same amount money he could earn in rest of his live just by picking couple of stones. So why there aren't masses of hopeful prospectors digging open every hill and disturbing monsters everywhere?

Though Golafornia Gem Rush could make an intertesting adventure path.
Especially for gunslingers.

Scarab Sages

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I know at one point in time, the city where Gallowspire was built had an expansive gemstone mine (which was subsequently retooled as TB's labyrinth). Other than that, though, I haven't came upon any other noted gemstone mining locales.

Other than timber mining (Darkwood Vale), the raw materials gathering industry hasn't been really explored in Golarion. My gut tells me that's probably because mining and materials economics make for much poorer stories than Runelords and internation political relations.


Plane of Earth. Watch out for elementals.


Since component use of gems is tied to value, not size, it means you don't care how rare or how large the gems are.
Just what they cost you.


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Bunnyboy wrote:
As every adventure has lot of gems worth of thousands gp which are often used for spell ingredients, where they come from?

Mines somewhere, via trade.

Like the real world, for that matter.

The people who have enough money to buy gems will naturally buy gems, and they'll collect in piles in storage controlled by rich people. If you want gems, you either get them from miners, from traders, or from those storage piles.

Quote:


And when I think about it, typical npc would earn same amount money he could earn in rest of his live just by picking couple of stones. So why there aren't masses of hopeful prospectors digging open every hill and disturbing monsters everywhere?

Because you can starve waiting for those couple of stones.

That's basically what a gold rush is. Yes, there are times and places where you can literally pick up rocks and sell them for a lifetime's security. In 1866, a farmer picked up a rock worth several million of today's dollars in Kimberley, South Africa, and a few years later every laborer who could pick up a shovel was working a claim. A fifteen year old found a black opal in Coober Pedy, South Australia, and started an opal rush.

But I'm not going to find opals digging in my back garden -- and I can't afford to travel to Coober Pedy or to buy a mining claim there. That ship has sailed.

Liberty's Edge

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Bunnyboy wrote:
WHERE DO GEMS COME FROM?

Well, when a mommy gem and a daddy gem love each other very much ...

Dark Archive

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Marc Radle wrote:
Bunnyboy wrote:
WHERE DO GEMS COME FROM?
Well, when a mommy gem and a daddy gem love each other very much ...

Marc, that's probably the best answer I've ever seen on these boards... >:)


Marc Radle wrote:
Bunnyboy wrote:
WHERE DO GEMS COME FROM?
Well, when a mommy gem and a daddy gem love each other very much ...

With all the things alive that could be even true.


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Orfamay Quest wrote:
Bunnyboy wrote:
As every adventure has lot of gems worth of thousands gp which are often used for spell ingredients, where they come from?

Mines somewhere, via trade.

Like the real world, for that matter.

The people who have enough money to buy gems will naturally buy gems, and they'll collect in piles in storage controlled by rich people. If you want gems, you either get them from miners, from traders, or from those storage piles.

Around here we call those "dungeons".


Aren't major exports listed in the Inner Sea Primer for allot of countries? Druma in particular is listed in the 1st few paragraphs of its entry as a major source of precious gems and metals, for example. I have not done more than skim the book, so there might well be other such "gems" buried there.

Shadow Lodge

Yeah ... gems comes from basically everywhere, especially Druma.
That being said, judging the economy of the world by looking at the purse of adventurers is wrong.
Adventurers are by far amongst the biggest earners in the world.
The reason why common people don't mine for gems is pretty simple actually. every possible gem mine is owned or in some unexplored inhospitable very dangerous place.

Think about Klondike gold rush but fill the Klondike region with owlbears, manticores, dragons, ogres and trolls.


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Given the age of civilizations on Avistan -- 4000+ years for some areas. I would tend to think that most of the easily accessible ores and minerals would already be out of the ground.

Look at our own world and the amount of effort required to extract minerals today -- and this is only after 2-3K years of civilization engaged in mining. And we don't even have magic available to us!

Unless there is some sort of magical replenishment tied to someplace like the Elemental Plane of Earth -- most of Avistan is a mined out husk (hence all the old mines now serving as dungeons).

CJ

Sczarni RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

We aren't even considering the limited resource that is gem cutters and jewelers needed to turn a raw material into a marketable one. At one point in history the secrets of gem cutting were tightly guarded secrets.

Neither have we talked about how markets are controlled and manipulated by governments or corporations. The diamond industry, for instance, is tightly controlled and manipulated to keep diamond prices high, even though common diamonds are actually, well, common.


CalebTGordan wrote:

We aren't even considering the limited resource that is gem cutters and jewelers needed to turn a raw material into a marketable one. At one point in history the secrets of gem cutting were tightly guarded secrets.

Neither have we talked about how markets are controlled and manipulated by governments or corporations. The diamond industry, for instance, is tightly controlled and manipulated to keep diamond prices high, even though common diamonds are actually, well, common.

This is a very good point. When the new diamond finds in the Canadian north were finally able to begin profitable extraction, DeBeers rushed to buy out a majority of the claims to maintain their preeminent role controlling the diamond market. Just a real world example.


Bunnyboy wrote:
Marc Radle wrote:
Bunnyboy wrote:
WHERE DO GEMS COME FROM?
Well, when a mommy gem and a daddy gem love each other very much ...
With all the things alive that could be even true.

Some types of Earth Elementals, perhaps.

And, by virtue of what can only be described as human ingenuity, half-elementals. Or elven ingenuity, I suppose. Or dwarven ingenuity. Or whatever-race ingenuity.

There used to be crystal golems, too.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

To make matters worse, high level casters actually destroy gems. I wonder if the destruction of enough gems is what could eventually drain the world of magic? After all, it is not much of a leap to go from some spells being uncastable because of lack of gems above a certain size to all spells being uncastable because too many gems and other magical substances have been consumed.


"Have we reached Peak Gems?"

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