History
Emelas is the special metal that appears in the Ys series.
Using the advanced technology of the Eldeen civilization, emelas is first created by a special mineral called emel. Emel is a green translucent mineral that is harder than steel. If it is put in the pot with clear water, various types of emelas get created. Red, blue, and gold emelas are the first to be produced, followed by black and white emelas. The first three emelas are relatively easy to make. However, black and white emelas are not only very difficult to make but also hard to control due to their immense power so the winged ones were reluctant to teach humans about black and white emelas.
While some humans attempted to make black and white emelas on their own, all they got in the end was ash emelas. With the continued failures, they began suspecting that the winged ones are withholding secrets from them and decided to steal the secrets of making black and white emelas. To this end, they stole the control key, Almarion, for the Ark of Napishtim and tried to gain knowledge and power from the Ark. This caused the Ark to go berserk and the sea level skyrocketed, flooding the Atlas Continent and the Canaan Islands. Alma managed to prevent the flooding of the entire world by sealing the Ark with her white emelas body, but the Eldeen civilization was effectively destroyed. After this disaster, the descendants of these humans, now calling themselves the Clan of Darkness, went over to the Eresia continent; some would try to make amends for their ancestors' actions while some would try to gain control of the remaining Eldeen artifacts in hopes of achieving what their ancestors could not.
Emelas can be used to build weapons and artifacts of great strength. The art of making emelas has been mostly lost to time with the Clan of Darkness and the Rehda retaining mere fragments of it.
Types of Emelas
Red Emelas
Red emelas can be used to create items that have fire magic.
Blue Emelas
Blue emelas can be used to create items that have wind magic. Mask of the Moon was made from this type of emelas.
Gold Emelas
Gold emelas can be used to create items that have lightning magic. Mask of the Sun was made from this type of emelas.
White Emelas
The emelas that possesses the power to control black emelas. By transferring souls to immortal bodies made of white emelas, the winged ones were created.
Black Emelas
The emelas that possesses the power of all colors. It can only be fully controlled by those with white emelas. Using black emelas items like the Black Pearl to generate magic without using white emelas to control them creates demons.
Ash Emelas
The emelas that came out of humans' cauldrons when they tried to make black and white emelas on their own. Even as failure, ash emelas contained some magical powers and was harder than steel so it was first used as a weapon. Nonetheless, it was weaker than even emel mineral. Eventually, humans found a way to create horrific weapons of mass destruction by infusing living beings with ash emelas. This gave birth to dragon soldiers, which were used in warfare. While these dragon soldiers made of ash emelas are difficult to control, very few things can kill them, for example weapons made from emelas. Most other attacks can stun them at best. Even after the fall of the Eldeen civilization, these dragon soldiers can still be found but most of them have become out-of-control monsters, as can be seen with Galbalan in Ys: The Oath in Felghana.