Paper is a mineral harvested from paper mines. In Djornt, paper mines are most often found around Brown Mountain, and to the south of The Great Elder Ridge. In Djornt, only one paper mine was ever built outside of this described region. The world's largest paper mine is the Paper Mine of Drest, located in Brown Mountain. The mine has been operating on and off for over 2,000 years, and still isn't fully expended.
One of the paper miners of Drest. He can be seen snacking on a piece of Nidsk Horse Candy.
Some of the tools of the paper mining trade include the back-mounted paper basket, candle helmet, goggles, and scissors. While an uncovered candle may seem like a danger in a mine full of paper, the presence of earth in the mine protects against large fires, and the sheaves of paper are usually not flammable for a period of a few hours after harvesting. Papers from the mine are brought up to the surface to undergo the curing procedure to get them ready for use in books, letters, newspapers and womplets.[1]
Pigmentite[]
Pigmentite is commonly a secondary resource mined from paper mines, since the two minerals are commonly found near each other. Since collecting paper and collecting pigmentite require rather different skills, paper miners usually specialise in mining one or the other.
Pigmentite is a type of rock which is used for making pencils, dyes and paints. It is a mineral compound made up of a metal, paper, and oxygen.
Which metals are in the compound determine what colour it is. Grey or black pigmentite mostly contains iron and carbon, white pigmentite generally contains tin or milk, blue pigmentite contains kobalt, pink or red pigmentite contains mainly strawberry. Green, yellow and orange pigmentites contain mostly copper, with amounts of secondary metals determining the hue. [2]
Wildlife[]
Pencil Spider[]
Pencil spiders are usually found in the shadows of paper caves. They usually feed on smaller insects such as flies or beetles. They chew up paper in the cavern into smaller pieces which they use to make shelter. These shelters look like golf ball sized paper wads and are usually found in the higher parts of the cave. The spider makes a long trail of web from the shelter to the ground which is for catching prey. When an insect gets stuck in the web, it makes the shelter shake which signals to the spider that prey has been captured. It will then crawl down the trail of web to retrieve the prey which it will take back to the paper wad to feed on.
Miners/Cave explorers have to be wary if they spot one of the paper wads or the spider itself. The spider's bite does contain lead which can poison a human who is bitten. Luckily, they are generally harmless but they will attack if they feel they are in danger. [3]
Lead Blitt[]
Blitts are little, rocky chunks of living rock. The lead variety can be found in the Paper Mines, scrunching around and scribbling. Despite being named "lead blitts", they actually contain no lead. The mineral part of their body is made from pigmentite.[4]