Few adventurers go about their adventures without the company of enchanted items, and fewer enchanted items go about their existence without the company of terisium. The modern understanding of enchantment on the worlds of Jaern and Cahyali would not be the same without terisium at its center.

Inquiry into terisium has existed since the era of Torandor, thousands of years ago. The first person to discover and harness the power of this material has been lost to time, but it is certain that terisium enchantment drove much of the development of civilization.

The acclaimed mage Jican Trion discovered that terisium did not entirely exist on the material plane, and began to experiment to see how he could harness this fact and exploit the planar connections of the material. Eventually, he discovered that enough life-force applied to terisium did not destroy it, as was previously thought, but energized it fully into a between-planes state such that it was no longer physical.

Tragically, his experiments would go wrong - destroying his place of study, the University of Raforge in Lojem, and consigning many of his papers and experimental notes to the mists of history.

Sages after Trion have discovered that the other plane terisium exists on is more full of magical energy than ours is, and it seems to direct magic through the physical plane and out to another plane - devoid of magic. Terisologists have dubbed these planes Jicania & Trion'kar, in honor of the man who discovered the concept. Jicania is a plane full of magic, and Trion'kar is the sink towards which all magic flows - terisium is a conduit for this flow, and an effective one at that.

Scholars theorize that terisium can take five distinct states, each with entirely different properties - they may not even resemble the same material. Energizing terisium from one state to another takes a hefty amount of magical energy, while decomposing it nearly immediately drags it down to the T-0 state and releases a large magical explosion which can have unpredictable effects.

Denoted in shorthand as T-0, this is a theoretical form of terisium that only exists in Jicania. It has no existence nor sway on the material world unless energized by some event in Jicania, which can catalyze it into material form where it can be found by people. This doesn't happen often, and when it does happen it occurs underground - after all, terisium doesn't fall out of the sky.

This is the most common form of terisium, and a mention of “terisium” without a numbered suffix almost always refers to Terisium-1. It is a dull gray metal, similar in appearance to lead - except for prismatic, shifting flecks in and below its surface that can only barely be seen under the right light or while it is draining magic.

Terisium-1 is most often used as an antimagic measure. When it is formed into a loop, active magical effects are weakened and canceled, and spellcasters have their magical units steadily drained away. The rate of this drain is proportional to the size of the loop and how much terisium is involved.

When used in antimagic manacles, cells, cages, etc. it is the norm for a small amount of terisium to be embedded in or plated on a more mundane material. This is due to terisium's relative volatility and its high price.

It is relatively easy to empower T-1 to T-2. In this state, the flecks in the metal become continuous, threadlike veins which are more easily seen. Terisium-2 is still capable of the antimagic effects Terisium-1 is, but also holds enough energy within itself to indefinitely power a Deferred spell.

Once the spell is cast, the energy dissipates - making Terisium-2 an effective conduit for one-time-use spells. It is often ground up and used in the ink for magical scrolls, or as a core in spell amulets.

It is much more difficult to energize T-2 to T-10, hence the jump in numbering. In this state, the terisium appears to vaporize and loses physical form. Instead, it effectively becomes a persistent energy field around a mundane item it was near when it entered T-10 state.

At this point, a spell can be deferred in and it will regenerate its energy over time - usually, the terisium can store enough energy to cast about once per 24 hours. Recharging magic items are a favorite amongst adventurers, and use of Terisium-10 is essential in its creation.

It takes an incredible amount of energy to catalyze terisium to this form. Here, it once again coalesces into physical form - this time, being a crystal of cubic shape that can be a multitude of colors. The shifting shimmer seen in lower forms is still present, winding slowly across the crystal's entire surface. Current magical study has yielded no way to create Terisium-1000; these crystals must be found from ruins, or one must convince a greater being such as a god to catalyze one.

In this form, terisium is capable of resonating with magic and the natural abilities of people who know how to tap into its power, bolstering power and skill just a little. Adventurers have taken to calling T-1000 by a simple, almost provincial name: Skill Gems.