Black powder

Black powder is a chemical explosive, often used as a propellant for firearms, for which it is often called gunpowder. Black powder when used as an explosive is also often called blasting powder.

Invention and early use
The first confirmed invention and use of black powder came with the invention of the firearm. Around the year 807 PD, two years after the Briarwoods invaded Whitestone and killed Percy's family, he had a dream in which a shadowy creature, a demon named Orthax, offered him a means to enact revenge. Percy, believing the dream to be nothing more than that, accepted the bargain. When he awoke, he set about creating his first gun, as well as the black powder necessary to fire its bullets.

In the city of Vasselheim, an eccentric man named Victor independently invented black powder by 810 PD. Victor would acquire and sort mining byproducts and in doing so and stumbled onto black powder. He had discovered that the substance had explosive results and was using it for the purposes of blast mining. He was overjoyed to learn that Percy had another use for black powder and was looking to purchase some from him.

In Anna Ripley's attempts to recreate Percy's firearm technology, she would also recreate black powder, though doing so would cost her an arm.

Later use
After Ripley produced and sold her firearm schematics, creation and use of black powder spread worldwide, and the process was particularly refined by alchemists and tinkerers of Port Zoon in the Clovis Concord. By 836 PD, black powder is produced in the Dwendalian Empire within the city of Hupperdook, notably at the Firemark Facility.

Trivia
The spell Fireball uses bat guano (a source of niter) and sulfur as its material components. Because Fireball was a common spell as far back as the Age of Arcanum, it can be surmised that while black powder may not have been invented then, its components were nonetheless used for magical explosives.