Metal Lore - Iron/Steel

[ScoutTheWitch]

Iron/Steel

Witcher's Steel Sword by Vitalii Vatsko

“Ol’ reliable: steel. Stab, cut, slash, whatever. Make it into armor and it’ll keep you decently safe. It’s steel, what else you want? Are you buying or not?” - a Common Blacksmith

Rarity

Very Common

Type of Material

Metal

Potential Locations

Within rocks in tropical or subtropical environments

Properties

Hematite-Rich Iron Ore by James St. John

Iron ore, commonly found as haematite, is found as dull reddish deposits in the stone of areas which possess or once possessed a large amount of mineral activity, which include but are not limited to the areas around lake beds and natural springs.

There are a multitude of ways to refine iron ore into iron or steel which can be produced from it. Before anything can be done with the ore, however, one must meticulously clean it of dirt and other debris to make the process more feasible.

The common way to refine is to construct a furnace consisting of a series of heavy bellows leading into a properly ventilated space filled with coal or charcoal. Within this furnace, one heats the raw ore until red hot, before taking it to an anvil where smelters will hammer away and fold the material to remove slag. This process must be done numerous times to remove the impurities, before being sorted and formed into billets.

To perform the less common way, one must heat it in a crucible in a similar furnace by using heavy bellows to properly ventilate the burning of coal as well as coal coke. This allows it to reach a molten state where one skims slag off the top of the liquid metal to produce the intended metals. One may as well mix various metals together in this process to produce alloys.

- The identification and process of refining iron ore into iron and steel forms is common knowledge. Almost everyone would know what iron and steel are. It’s iron.
- One may not produce anything other than the irons and steels with properties listed on this page. Things such as damascus steel cannot be produced without an accompanying lore piece.
- Iron ore, iron, and steel are ferromagnetic.
- Alloys may only be produced if they have an accompanying lore piece. An example is Fulgrum, a type of steel alloy produced by introducing fulgurite in the crucible method.

Armored Elven Spellsword by Sam Kim

Iron and steel are dark silver to ash gray in appearance and bear a corresponding hardness to its level of carbon content, as well as differing uses. Items of them as well rust, especially when exposed to water and humid environments, requiring careful maintenance lest they become weaker and more brittle over time. Its weight and density are decently high, making carrying large quantities of it on one’s person impractical, especially for long distance travel, without the use of mounts.

Wrought and cast iron sit on opposite ends of the carbon content scale. Wrought iron is capable of being shaped at lower temperatures than most steels due to its exceedingly low carbon content, making for excellent fences, window linings, common folk silverware, and other softer domestic uses. Cast iron, called such as it is difficult to shape through anything but the crucible method, bears an exceedingly high carbon content, making it incredibly brittle though excellent at binding to oils, producing a non-stick effect that makes it great for cookware.

Steel is anything between wrought and cast iron and while it bears a multitude of uses besides such, it often serves best as tools for battle. Most armor, weapons, shield bosses, horseshoes, etc. are forged from steel and is the primary metal most’ll see used in combat for their entire lives. Though low carbon steel is softer and tends to deform and high carbon steel is harder and tends to chip, there is no significant difference between the two to need much differentiation and should simply just be referred to as ‘steel’.

Weapons of steel hold a sharp edge over extended periods of use, though slowly lose their sharpness over time, requiring maintenance with a whetstone and oils to prevent rusting. The heft of steel as well makes it useful for blunt implements such as maces or warhammers, though quickly becomes unwieldy, with things larger than the wielder’s wingspan losing a great amount of dexterity, making their parrying ability middling at best compared to the speed of smaller and lighter weapons.

Steel armor is cumbersome but is able to heavily mitigate lacerations and puncture wounds. That is not to say it makes someone immune, meaning that if a weapon catches the material in a way where it does not simply slide off, it will still transmit a significant amount of the kinetic force behind the strike. Mail is a lighter form of interlaced rings of steel and becomes more protective the more rings that are used while plate is solid sections of thin to thicker steel that cover specific parts of the body, both will always bear gaps however and will never provide more than 75% coverage.

The more protective steel armor is, the more it restricts one’s dextrous movement such as running, jumping, dodging, blocking, and especially standing up, with someone in a full suit of plate being able to only dodge or block heavier, slower, and telegraphed attacks, often struck by things such as feints or quick jabs; one’s strikes as well will be more predictable and rigid. Exhaustion comes quickly to the heavily armored, with one wearing more than light mail or scant plate bearing difficulty in running for a long period of time and traveling great distances without a horse.

- Steel serves as the baseline for most other metals and things made from them should there not be differentiation in their descriptions. Steel and similar metals may not exceed their capabilities here unless otherwise stated.
- Rusting, while not a hard mechanic, should be kept in mind with the maintenance of weapons and use in watery environments. For example, sea elves would be more likely to arm themselves with non-steel armor and weaponry.
- The weight of iron and steel should always be kept in mind. Carrying large quantities of iron and/or steel items on one’s person without a saddlebagged or carted mount would be impractical.
- Constructions of iron or steel are not impervious to damage, though bear a resistance. Great destructive force will simply cause them to fail and break.
- Wielding a heavy weapon with a lot of steel in it such as a greatsword must be properly emoted as slow, cumbersome, and exhausting. Wielders will run out of stamina far faster than one armed with a smaller weapon and possess difficulty in blocking or dodging attacks. This must be properly emoted.
- The guideline of “longer than the wielder’s wingspan” only applies to the portion of the weapon made of steel and may not be wormed around through thickening instead. This length grows smaller the longer a haft of a weapon is. Use common sense.
- Steel armor will never provide full coverage. While 75% coverage is vague, it serves as the cap that at least ¼ of strikes on a fully plate armored individual that are able to make it into weak spots, such as sword thrusts or arrow shots, will pierce through entirely.
- The closer steel armor reaches to full coverage, the more it restricts the wearer’s dexterity and stamina. One heavily armored would not be capable of great athletic feats or agile combative actions. It as well would make one’s attacks slower and more obvious. Such should be roleplayed properly. This applies to both mail and plate.