Color range: light to dark tones of red to orange-red

Value:  Extremely rare

Before Kezmon Isle vanished in 4873, its sunstone mines were legendary. As the decades pass, the story of Kezmon's wealth has become more of a legend than a true recounting, and now tales of the "Sunstone Cliffs of Kai Toka" are routinely told to children. In truth, while an outcropping of pure sunstone had been exposed along a northern cliff for a time, heavy mining obliterated it in very little time, transforming the Sunstone Cliff into a sunstone quarry.

Today, the most notable sunstone mines are on Teras Isle. Still, water-tumbled chunks of sunstone (some as large as a fist) have been known to wash ashore on other minor islands in the western ocean, encouraging stories that the wealth of Kai Toka still exists somewhere beneath the waves.

The stone-tenders of Aldora say that sunstone is good for healing deformities and removing scars -- they say that there is a purity about properly cut sunstone that can be used to remind the flesh of its proper shape. Sunstone’s power to enhance transformative spells, however, is slight in comparison to its power to enhance spiritual spells of all kinds. In spiritual matters, it is the one of the most efficacious jewels in Elanthia.

Human belief holds that sunstone will inspire hope and confidence in its wearer. It is also said that wearing sunstone will make a man more fertile -- and, for this reason, many human men refuse to wear it, saying they have no need of assistance in that matter! Those who do wear it for traditional causes tend to wear it discreetly, in a pendant slipped under the shirt or concealed on the underside of an armband. In contrast, human women are encouraged to wear sunstone, for it will enhance their fertility and bring Phoen’s blessings upon their children.

An elven tale of unknown age attributes the sunstones of the western ocean to a divine source. This legend claims that sunstone first came into existence near the end of the Ur-Daemon War. According to this story, a powerful Ur-Daemon called Orslathain sought to destroy the sun by wrapping it in wings of infinite darkness, a darkness that would destroy what it embraced. A wondrous orange-scaled drake (whose name has been lost in time) battled Orslathain at length, but even all the drake's power could not burn away the darkness of Orslathain's vast wings, and it became clear to the drake that he would be slain along with the sun. To preserve the sun, the drake caught it with his tail, took it from the sky and hurled it into the ocean. The sun flew through the water's depths and collided with the ocean floor, causing many fragments of its substance to break away. Steam rose from the ocean in such a great plume that mist cloaked Elanthia for a year and more, and the mists concealed the sun so that Orslathain would not find it. The drakes drove Orslathain back through the portal with the other surviving Ur-Daemons, but the orange-scaled drake, once a mentor to Phoen, was only a cooling corpse. In memory of his mentor, Phoen sought through the mists and took up the sun, raising it high into the sky so that the mists would burn away and Elanthia would have light once more, but he did not bother with the fragments that had broken away. Cooled by years beneath the ocean, the fragments of sun-stuff were transformed into stone, and thus sunstones were created.

No discussion of sunstone would really be complete without mentioning a rather curious saying of the Wendwillow gnomes, which is, "Easy as dropping sunstones on fish in a well." The origin of the saying has been lost in time.

Sunstone is also called aventurine feldspar.   Its golden spangled effect is due to the presence of tiny platelets of included minerals such as goethite or hematite.   At one angle, it appears to be a dull brown, white, or reddish rock.   A simple twist catches the sun's light & magically a glittering gem is shining in your hand.  

Since the sunstone was so rare, its use as a jewelry stone in our ancient past was limited.   However, the sunstone has a long history of association with the sun's powers.   Magicians would set the stone in gold to attract the sun's influence.   An ancient healing tradition used a circle of sunstones set out under the sun.   Individuals with rheumatism could then sit in the middle of the circle and be relieved of their symptoms.  

Sunstone is an ancient gem, in fact sunstones have been discovered in Viking burial mounds.  Among the Vikings it was thought to be an aid to navigation.  

Until the early 1800's, sunstone was very rare and quite expensive.   In 1831, it was discovered along the Selenga River in Siberia.   Prior to discovering the major vein, local merchants & residents would collect sunstone pebbles from the riverbed.   Some fairly sizable deposits of sunstone are found in Siberia, large enough to be carved into vases & bowls.