The notoriously vain alchemist Grunwald used to spend a long time on personal grooming, only to have his hours of preparation ruined by close encounters with dragons, orcish tribes, murky swamps and grasping branches in haunted glades.

Eventually he decided that his elaborate coif had been parted by a displacer beast's tentacular whip for the last time, and employed his alchemical arts to mix the potion known as Grunwald's Impervious Pomade. Although flowing smoothly within its bottle, once exposed to air the pomade settles in about fifteen seconds into a thin translucent rubbery skin that glistens slightly.

This skin cannot be pierced by normal or low magical weapons and disperses normal heat, acid and cold around itself without allowing any to pass through. It's useless as armour since the skin does stretch, an axe blow will do the usual damage, but it snaps back into its original settled shape almost immediately. For this reason it's also of limited use as ship caulking, but since it spreads quickly after pouring it has been used to cross small rivers with caution.

It also makes superb rainwater proofing and has found popularity as a bag liner and book cover material. Some say that Grunwald floated a ship whose sails were made entirely of his pomade, entitled the GS Fabulous, but that it sank along with the secrets of its making when the oil ballooned out, sank, and filled with water.