What are the colored anvils about?

I was under the impression that you only need runic hammers to make runic weapons. How does the colored anvils play into it?

they look badass.

They're BOD rewards and purely cosmetic.

There only difference between regular anvils and colored anvils, is that regular anvils come as a deed, while the colored ones are regular items that can be dropped anywhere.

They also dont expire. Crafted anvils will destroy if axed after 24 hours of placement. These you can just release from a lockdown and move all willy nilly.

So if I craft a kryss using val ore, the only difference in the kryss will be the color? It will still only be a gn kryss, just made of val ore instead of iron? No different properties?

If you use a regular smith hammer, you will only make regular [Exceptional] weapons in the default hue regardless of what ingots you use.

Although at the start of the shard, weapons would inherit the color of the ore, which led to the server having a few valorite Halberds before the first valorite runic hammer.