Color range: orange, pink, black, blue, lavender, mauve, greenish blue, and vivid red

Value:  Infrequently found.

Spinel is mined all over Elanthia, though no true "spinel mines" exist -- the miners are almost always in search of something more valuable.

Early in their days of mining, humans were unaware of the difference between ruby and red spinel or sapphire and blue spinel. Observing human ignorance, unscrupulous Dwarven traders cheated humans for a very long time before Overking Gerfroth Khazar declared the trickery to be unworthy of his people. Today, elves and humans alike use a number of simple magical tricks to distinguish between high-quality spinels and more valuable gems, but dwarves can almost always recognize the difference on sight.

Magically, spinels are fairly bland, but they do have some use in empathic arts (not merely the stone-tending practiced in Aldora, but healing arts practiced throughout the continent of Elanthia.) Empaths use red spinel to reduce inflammation and blue to bring peace and rest to suffering patients. Pink spinel is a less effective form of red, and purple spinel is considered efficacious in both tasks.

Spinel is a favorite of gem dealers and gem collectors due to its brilliance, hardness, and wide range of spectacular colors.   Vivid traffic-light red and cobalt blue are the most expensive colors for spinel and nice stones over 3-carets in size are always a rarity.   Top quality red spinels display superb bright and saturated red colors that actually fluoresce, or glow, in natural light.   Pure colorless natural spinel is extremely rare and natural white spinels always show a trace of pink.   Star spinels are found occasionally and they may display either four or six rays depending on their orientation. 

Spinel is the great imposter of gemstone history: many famous rubies in crown jewels around the world are actually spinel. The most famous is the "Black Prince's Ruby", a magnificent 170-carat red spinel that currently adorns the Imperial State Crown in the British Crown Jewels after a long history: Henry V even wore it on his battle helmet!  The "Timor Ruby", a 352-carat red spinel now owned by Queen Elizabeth, has the names of some of the Mughal emperors who previously owned it engraved on its face, an undeniable pedigree.

In Burma, where some of the most beautiful colors are mined, spinel was recognized as a separate gem species since 1600 but in other countries, the masquerade continued for hundreds of years.   Historically, fine red spinels were esteemed as much as ruby, and sometimes even more.   Next to ruby and the rare red diamond, spinel is the most expensive of all red gems.