Orichalcum is made through an alchemical process, which is called a "circulation". A circulation always takes a lunar month to carry out.

Orichalcum is orange-gold in color, and ridiculous from a metallurgical standpoint. Magic is necessary to create it. To make orichalcum, a character must mix a circulation containing a radical each of gold, silver, copper, and mercury. A successful test at the end of the circulation produces one or more units of orichalcum: each unit is approximately 10g.

A radical is an alchemically prepared sample of its parent material. A unit of radical weighs one-tenth as much as a unit of raw material.

Orichalcum is useful when crafting foci, since each unit of orichalcum incorporated into the focus during its crafting stage reduces the difficulty of the enchanting test.

Parapharased from the FASA book Magic in the Shadows.