Chapter 9 — Focus Stones & Stone-Set Gear

“A stone remembers what you ask of it. Ask long enough, and it stops being a question.” — Attributed to the first Stonewright charter

Every serious practitioner carries a focus stone (Chapter 6). This chapter is about what the stones are to everyone else — because in Merretia, the stones are how magic belongs to the whole table, not just the casters.

Bonding: a stone takes its color from use

An unworked focus stone is clear — transparent crystal that flashes a channel’s color only while faith runs through it, then fades through a brief afterimage back to clarity.

But the afterimage is memory, and memory accumulates. A stone used again and again for the same discipline holds its color longer each time, until one day it does not clear at all:

Stage	How it gets there	What it looks like	What it does
Clear	fresh from the cutter	transparent	a lens for any channel (casters only)
Tinged	weeks of steady single-discipline use	a tint that lingers hours after use	as clear, and reads as “in training”
Bonded	years of devoted use — or one great Working at a life’s hinge	permanently colored, never clears	anyone can channel through it (below)
Ancestral	generations of bonded use in one line	deep, luminous, almost liquid color	a bonded stone of greater potency; heirloom-grade, catalogued in the vault (DMG-07)

Order-bonded stones (yellow, blue, cyan, orange) hold their light emissively — lit from within even at rest. Chaos-bonded stones (green, red, magenta, indigo) hold it as saturation — deep dye-in-glass, no glow. A ninth kind exists: a stone bonded not to a discipline but to Unshaped Faith itself takes a lustrous metallic gold, like leaf.

A caster seasons a stone simply by practicing through it. A non-caster cannot season a stone — but can inherit, buy, win, or be gifted a bonded one. This is why bonded stones are treasure, dowry, guild-honor, and heirloom: the color is proof of a life (or several) spent asking one thing of the world.

The Stone-Rite: magic for everyone

Anyone — caster or not — who has rebonded to a bonded stone (the same days-of-downtime rite from Chapter 6) can pour their Unshaped Faith through it. You supply the faith; the stone remembers the shape. This is the great equalizer of Sulamiri life: the soldier, the dock-hand, and the child of no talent all have a road to the disciplines, one stone wide.

Using a bonded stone (any character): as part of an attack, or as a bonus action, or as a reaction where noted — spend one Hit Die’s worth of effort (as when lending Unshaped Faith; the die is spent, not rolled, and returns on long rest) and choose the stone’s discipline effect below for where the stone is set. A character may do this a number of times per short rest equal to their proficiency bonus. Casters using a stone bonded to their own discipline instead treat it as a superior focus (ease noted in Chapter 6); casters may also use an off-discipline bonded stone exactly as a non-caster would — the stone’s memory does the shaping their Reaching cannot.

Using a bonded stone shows the tell: the stone flares, and your eyes flash the stone’s color for a heartbeat. Everyone nearby can read what you just did.

Stone-set gear

Any weapon, armor, or worn item can be set with a single focus stone by a stonewright (fitting: 50 seals + a day; the stone is the expensive part). Relics and masterworks may carry more than one setting. A set stone can still be sundered as a called shot (Chapter 6) — a set stone is power worn openly, and everyone knows where to aim.

The discipline effects (one stone, three homes)

Discipline	Set in a WEAPON (on hit)	Set in ARMOR (reaction unless noted)	WORN (utility, out of combat)
Binding (yellow)	Sealing blow: +1d4 force; the target cannot willingly move away from you until the end of its next turn	Brace: +2 AC against one attack you can see	seal a door, knot, or lid shut for an hour
Weight (blue)	Grave blow: +1d4 force; Str save or knocked prone	Anchor: you cannot be moved or knocked prone until your next turn	bear a double load; slow a fall to safe speed
Current (cyan)	Arc blow: +1d4 lightning; a second creature in contact with the target or its metal takes 1	Surge: +10 ft speed until end of turn (bonus action)	charge a cell one notch; power a small device
Unmaking (orange)	Searing blow: +1d4 fire; ignores object hardness	Flare: a melee attacker takes 1d4 fire	burn, cut, or unmake a small mundane object
Growing (green)	Barbed blow: +1d4; the wound bleeds 1 at the start of the target’s turns until tended	Knit: when you drop below half HP, regain 1d4	quicken a plant; purify a meal; close a shallow cut
Heart (red)	Daunting blow: +1d4 psychic; Wis save or frightened of you until end of its next turn	Steady: advantage on one save vs. fear or charm	calm a beast; read the room’s true temper
Knowing (magenta)	Revealing blow: +1d4; the next ally to attack the target before your next turn has advantage	Veil: the first attack against you each combat has disadvantage	read a cipher’s gist; catch one spoken lie
Dream (indigo)	Unmooring blow: +1d4 psychic; the target loses its reaction	Misdirect: force one attack against you to be rerolled	send a one-sentence message into a sleeper’s dream
Faith (gold)	—	—	your Lend Unshaped Faith (Chapter 6) heals or aids at advantage, at range of sight

A fighter with a Binding-bonded stone set in her blade strikes harder and pins what she strikes. That is the design in one line: the stones are how everyone touches the disciplines, each in their own way.

The market, the law, and the ledger

Bonded stones are the most honest luxury in Sulamir: their value cannot be faked, because the color is the proof of use. The Iron Coin prices them by stage, discipline, and provenance; the vault (DMG-07) catalogues the ancestral and the strange. Guild law treats prying a bonded stone from its setting as theft of the setting and the years — courts weigh a stone’s color-history like a bloodline. And the Stonewrights’ charter holds one hard rule, older than the guilds that enforce it: no stone may be bonded to the Hollow. A stone asked to remember an absence does not take a color. It goes dark, and dark stones are confiscated, sealed, and carried below by people who do not explain their work.