purple dye and cloth
Purple dye is the rarest and most expensive clothing dye in Fumaya. Purple cloth is so expensive that it is traditionally associated with royalty.
There are many different shades of purple but purple dye is graded as either "royal purple" (bright purple) or "viceroy purple" (dull purple).
History & Usage
History
Purple dye and by extension purple cloth is hard to make. It was even harder to come by during the Red Era, so much so that only rich kings could afford it.
Over the centuries, techniques in making purple dye improved making purple cloth somewhat less expensive, but the tradition that purple was a color associated with royalty was set. This is universal across the length and breadth of Scarterra.
Everyday use
Purple clothing is often associated with royalty. In the case of the Fumayan royal family, purple capes are a formal badge of rank.
Purple cloth is not limited solely to royalty, especially the lower quality viceroy purple cloth. You don't normally have to be a royal, just able to have discretionary income.
It's rare to see non-royals wear large purple garments but it's relatively common for lesser nobles, wealthy guild masters, or high priests and priestesses to sport a purple accessory. For instance, members of the Keepers prestigious Eclipse Order wear purple sashes.
by Eron12 with Hero Forge
Carcelli, Parchment Background by Zeta Gardner
Mages are especially fond of wearing purple clothing as a signifier o their status. Arcane illusion magic has a purple aura when viewed with Divination magic, so illusionists are especially fond of displaying purple clothes. Also, they don't have to buy purple dye, since they can cast magical glamours on their clothes.
Greymoria's priests and priestesses, the Children, are also very fond of wearing purple clothing when they can afford to.
The Children's culture and mage culture is so intertwined that it is a chicken or the egg question which group popularized purple garments first. If one of Greymoria's clergy is within earshot, it's safer to say that the Children did it first.
Refinement
When my husband is commissioned to make a purple garment he usually takes blue wool and skillfully applies a high quality red dye. Blue wool is not common, so this is still expensive and a lesser skilled tailor could misapply the red dye and accidentally ruin the expensive wool. Alchemists can create almost any color, but from the alchemists I've spoken to, it's not easy.. Viceroy purple dye can be created in an alchemist's lab but it's more complicated and resource intensive than any other color almost like the Nine decreed that purple cloth must always be expensive."Tanoa, gnome tailor's wifeby me with Hero Forge"I'm not sure on the specifics, but I hear that royal purple dye is derived from the shells of a sea snail which is crushed and refined. It takes a lot of snails and a lot of labor to make a small amount of purple dye, and the snails in question are only found near the equator, so royal purple dye is very expensive. Viceroy purple is a little bit easier. Clothing dyes are not like paints, you can't just mix red and blue dye to get purple dye but you can take blue cloth and dye it red or take red cloth and dye it blue and this can produce viceroy purple by dying blue cloth red.
Distribution
Trade & Market
Royal purple dye can only be derived from a sea snail in Scarterra's tropical zone. Most of these islands are in the sphere of influence of the Elven Empire, so this is a huge money maker for the grey elves.
Viceroy purple dye can come from a wider variety of places, but the Elven Empire also holds a disproportionately high share of the means of making this dye as well. Dye trade in general is a cornerstone of their mercantile empire.
Law & Regulation
Some regions of Scarterra limit the waering of purple cloth by social class, but frequently these laws are unnecessary, the sheer cost of purple cloth is enough to prevent commoners from wearing purple.
Purple Creatures
I'm really enjoying your writing, nicely formatted and broken up for easy reading, no walls of text you have a good eye for how to phase your work, well done.
Still standing. Still scribbling. Still here.
The Last Home