Pigment Mill

A colourman's workshop keeps one slate slab, one stone muller, and a stack of unpaid commissions. Pick up a slip, set the slab, and start grinding.

Every stroke of the muller sweeps the pressed cakes of pigment across the stone. Two cakes of the same pigment grind into the next one up the ladder: chalk becomes orpiment, orpiment becomes raw ochre, and the ladder climbs through vermilion and madder and verdigris to azurite, ultramarine, and finally gold leaf. The jar on the bench fills as the pigment on the slab gets richer, and the slip is filled the moment the ordered pigment appears under the stone.

Three commissions hang on the bench. Madder wants a modest sixty-four and can be filled in a short sitting. Azurite asks for five hundred and twelve. Gold leaf wants the full two thousand and forty-eight and will not be filled in a hurry. Each slip can be worked on a four by four slab or a roomier five by five, and the workshop keeps the richest pigment you have reached for every slip and slab pairing.

Grinding verdigris or better earns a regrind charge. A charge rewinds the last stroke of the muller, which is the difference between a slab that spoils and a slab that fills. Charges are scarce, so spend them on the stroke that actually cost you the run.

The recipe card is always a swipe away. It lists the ladder in order, what a stroke of the muller does, and how a slab spoils, so nothing about the workshop is hidden behind a guess.