Basic Trope: Naturally occurring gems are plentiful, large and already cut and polished.
- Straight: Miner Bob found a cave full of polished gems sticking out of the walls.
- Exaggerated: Miner Bob found a flawless gem the size of a boulder sticking out of the ground.
- Downplayed: Miner Bob found pebble sized gemstones scattered across the cave floor.
- Justified: The gem mine that Miner Bob found was actually the ancient ruins of a crashed ship that used gemstones as computer components and power source.
- Inverted: Mined gems appear precut and polished. Jewelers "process" them to look uncut and they are bizzarely more valueable in that form.
- Subverted:
- Miner Bob is a protagonist of an RPG. All of the gem loots he gets needs to be refined first before it can be used.
- Miner Bob is the victim of a swindle. The previous owner salted the worthless mine with a few refined gems stuck onto the wall, and inexperienced Bob fell for it.
- Double Subverted: ...but it turns out that the actual refinement process merely involves cracking open the rocky shell, revealing the perfectly shaped shiny gemstone within.
- Parodied:
- It's an old tradition for the dwarves of the setting to mine out precious gems, refine them and then bury them back into the ground for adventurers to find.
- Every gemstone Miner Bob mines has the label "All Natural" engraved into them.
- Zig Zagged: Miner Bob finds a cave filled with rough gems as well as already polished gems sticking out of the walls.
- Averted: Gems are scattered everywhere in the cave but every single one of them are rough and randomly shaped.
- Enforced: "How will the viewers know Miner Bob's stumbled across a diamond mine if they don't look like diamonds?"
- Lampshaded: Alice the geologist says to Miner Bob, "How come all the gems you're mining are already cut and polished? That's geologically impossible!"
- Invoked: There are legends about an underground spot that contains a special geological condition that allows the formation of gems that already look cut and polished. Miner Bob embarks on an adventure to find said place.
- Exploited: Miner Bob sells the gems he mined himself directly to jewelers, knowing that he won't need a gem cutter to refine his haul.
- Defied: The dwarves think it's a bad omen to find large ready made gems from mines so it has become a tradition for them to either destroy them whenever they can either by crushing them to bits or throwing them into a volcano before adventurers find them.
- Discussed: "What would I need a gem cutter for? These babies are already perfect!"
- Conversed: "Hey, have you ever wondered why all those gemstone he mines are already polished and cut? I mean, what is up with that?"
- Implied: The townsfolk of the village where Miner Bob lives in are all adorned in various gem encrusted jewelry and outfits.
- Deconstructed: Miner Bob tries to sell his hard earned gems but is only paid in miniscule amounts due to the abundance of gemstone in the economy/market.
- Reconstructed: The gems are only found in Miner Bob's country, in an inverted case of Not Rare Over There. Anyone clever enough to exploit this can make a fortune.
- Played For Laughs: Miner Bob looked at a piece of rock and threw it away, not knowing that it was actually a geode. He thought all gems looked liked the ones he saw on TV and video games.
- Played For Drama: Miner Bob is a poor man who mines gems for a living to get through life. The gems in his world are nearly worthless due to its abundance.
Back to All-Natural Gem Polish
