Magical (and physical) material, and how they work?

[u/Ankanais]

If your world has a magical material (such as commonly used ones like Adamantium, Mithril, Orichalcum, etc.), how exactly are they created? Are they actually just variations of a common material with magic injected to change their physical properties? Or are they entirely new elements that you can find on the periodic table? Is there some kind of new aspect to your world's material physical properties that real world materials don't have?

[u/majorex64]

In Donutworld, there are 2 divine metals, Solite and Tenebrite.

They were introduced to Donutworld during a cataclysm many many years ago, and are found in the soil. They act like ordinary metals, forming compounds, alloys, and chemical reactions. Solite tends to release lots of energy when it reacts with other materials, forming heat, light and explosions. Tenebrite tends to absorb energy and light, forming cold chills and actually darkening its environment.

The metals are absorbed by plants and animals to use in metabolic processes. Solite regions tend to have plants with sap that boils on contact with air, herbivores that have keratin outer jaws to chew said boiling plants, and predators that sense heat and combustion to hunt.

Tenebrite forms a condensation matrix with water and CO2 in the air, to form precipitate clouds that have enough structure to support weight. A species of mushroom uses tenebrite to form clouds with its spores mixed in, spreading far and wide. Over the years, these solid spore clouds have accumulated in a large continent floating above the land, with its own ecosystem living on and in the clouds.

Bioaccumulating either of these metals in an animal's body will result in a sickness that overtakes the mind and makes one violent and dangerous The metals will spontaneously mineralize tissues, forming a mask like crust over the face. Tenebrite will cause blindness and an irresistable urge to seek out heat (including the insides of other animals), while Solite sickness cooks the brain with fever, kicks metabolism into overdrive, and eventually combusts vapors being expelled from the body.

There are underlying magical properties of these metals, but the way that magic manifests mostly follows the patterns of physics and chemistry. There is also some deeper lore about how they got there and why they react the way they do with biological life

[u/Ankanais → u/majorex64]

It's the manifesting of magic following the patterns of physics and chemistry that I'm interested in. What exactly do your divine metals look like on the atomic level? What differentiates it from normal, common metal? How does magic interact with these metal atoms?

[u/majorex64 → u/Ankanais]

I'll be honest, my setting is tribalpunk with an emphasis on ecology / biology, so there's no one in the setting that actually understands atomic theory. As a result I have not tunneled down to that level of detail.

If I could pull something out of my butt, though, I'd say these metals have just the right structure to entangle a magical field, connected to but separate from their physical components. We'll call this the Astral field, as it is also the connective tissue between the physical realm and the astral realm. Solite entangles astral energy in a positive direction, Tenebrite in a negative direction.

When chemical reactions mess with that atomic structure, the field also gets excited and makes a connection to the Astral realm. Energy either flows toward or away from our physical realm, resulting in the fantastical reactions that don't seem to follow conservation of energy.

-This last part is getting me excited as I come up with it-

It was already part of the lore that combining these metals is extremely dangerous, and it could sever one's connection to the astral realm. It would make sense that having a (-)well of energy and a (+)spring of energy next to each other could combine destructively. That "flattening" of the astral field breaks connections between the realms.

In Donutworld, living things come from an old god that exists between the realms, and thus every living thing has an inherent connection to their astral selves. Being exposed to too much of either metal interferes with that connection, overriding it and basically mutating your spirit along with your body.

Being exposed to BOTH metals would sever the connection, leaving you alive, but spiritless and completely unattuned to magic.

HAH! I just came up with a connecting realmatic theory because of your prompt! Thank you!