Science and Koeleth butt heads. A lot. Case in point, the Oathkeeper, Tom’s iconic stone longsword. The fact of the matter is stone swords just don’t work, sans crazy magic mumbo jumbo. And the Oathkeeper isn’t magical. It’s just a sword, made of stone. In fact, gemstones don’t work either, so the Earthstar has to go, too. Honestly, metal is the only suitable material for sword making known to man. Steel, in particular, is well suited for the task of sword making. Why, you might ask, is steel so much better than minerals? It’s very simple really: steel is flexible, durable and relatively easy to repair, while stone is rigid, brittle and near impossible to repair (especially by medieval standards). Gemstone is less brittle than stone, but not enough to compensate for the advantages that steel has. The most important quality that steel has over other materials (at least as far as I can deduce) is its flexibility. A rigid sword breaks because its brittle and can’t sustain repeated impacts. Stone doesn’t have that flex. All this said, I’m not completely trashing the Oathkeeper; it’s too intertwined into the story. Not, like, fate of the world rests on this blade crucial, but simply a constant presence in Tom’s arsenal. So, my alternative is as follows: I plan to rework the story of Earthgift such that instead of cutting their weapons from stone, they forge them using the heat of volcanic magma. This slightly alters the geography of Darwin’s Expanse, but whatevs. If you’re wondering how such a smith might endure the scalding heat of subterranean molten rock, the answer is simple: talcum based protective gear. See, I’ve decided that while no more sophisticated than most other societies of their time, the Urdvayne, who worship the Stone, have a particularly advanced understanding of geology, mineralogy, and metallurgy. In other words, they know how to make good swords and they have the materials needed to make them. So, the Oathkeeper still exists, just in a different form. This, of course, also means the Royal Oathkeeper, the Oathbreaker, and all other variations of the design must also change. But I’ll get more into that when they come up in the story. Anyways, that’s all for now, so keep your eyes peeled for new updates.