white cloth
In preindustrial Earth, white clothing was considered a high status, not because white cloth was hard to make, but because white cloth was hard to keep clean. This applies to Scarterra as well.
Almost all things are hand made and waste is taboo., clothing is made to be worn as many times as possible. This is true even for rich people.
History & Usage
History
by Eron12 with Hero Forge"Alchemists try to make incremental improvements to make common processes easier to do. Once a process becomes easy enough, the processes stops being 'alchemy' and it starts becomes a normal person's chore. This happened with the creation and use of bleach. A thousand years ago, bleach was an alchemist's trade secret, now it's something every farmer's grandmother can do." -Bevan, Swynfaredian Alchemist
Cultural Significance and Usage
In Scarterra, the white cloth is associated with purity, but not moral or sexual purity, it is associated with literal purity. An absence of dirt or other contaminants. Note, brides don't normally wear white at Scarterran weddings.
Dirt, or a lack thereof is a sign of social status. So white clothes are often a sign of high rank.
Also, a priest or priestess that primarily works temple duty is not going to be exposed to dirt much. Which isn't to say that all priests are averse to getting their hands dirty. My sister, Ragani is a priestess, and she is never afraid to get her hands dirty, but I don't recall ever seeing her wear white."-Tanoa, gnome tailor's wifeby me with Hero Forge"Man or woman, a person white clothes is telling everyone 'my profession and social class is such that I don't have to dirty my hands with.....dirty things'. Either that or the wearer is a high ranking member of the clergy....or both. Purification theurgy makes owning and maintaining white clothes a lot easier and most Purificationists are affiliated with the clergy in some way, so the clergy can wear white clothes a lot easier than a commoner or even a lot of nobles.
Refinement
Blue cloth requires blue dye. Purple cloth requires purple dye, and so forth and so on.
But there is no such things as "white dye". White cloth is made by bleaching undyed cloth. Cloth made from Linen, cotton, hemp comes in different colors without dye, but is usually beige or off white.
Wool in Scarterra comes in a much wider variety of colors than wool in real world Earth. White sheep are relatively uncommon and even then, off-white wool is still the norm necessitating bleaching if Scarterrans want whiter whites.
Before the industrial revolution, the main source of bleach on Earth was aged urine.
To modern people, this is gross, but to medieval people, this was normal. The basic process is the same in Scarterra.
In ancient, medieval, and even modern times there is another trick used on white cloth: adding a tiny bit of blue dye. This is technically not white but it creates an optical illusion that tricks the brain into seeing something as whiter than white. Even artists know this. If you look at a photograph of fallen snow versus a painting of fallen snow, the painting is probably going to sneak a tiny of hint of blue in there.
Scarterrans have another trick to make white cloth look whiter, Purification theurgy. Purification magic cannot change a beige piece of cloth into a white piece of cloth, but exceptionally skilled Purification can magic a mostly white piece of cloth slightly whiter.
Even a novice Purificationist can at least remove the faint urine smell that clings to newly bleached cloth. A lot of Purificationist wear white clothes as a signifier that "Yes I am a Purificationist!", especially if he or she doesn't doesn't hesitate to go outside in the dirt.
by me with Midjourney
by Eron12 with Hero Forge"There is virtue in hard work, not in cheap short cuts. Using Purification theurgy to whiten clothes is an insult to the Nine. The Nine gave mortalkind Purification theurgy to mortalkind so that we could have a tool to battle poisons and diseases. Purification should be limited to living creatures or drinking water only." -Revered Mother Alexandra Frymar, leader of the Fumayan Guardians
Type
Biomaterial
Related Technologies
Comments