D&D 5E (2014) D&D Metal

[Queer Venger]

What is the color of adamantine weapons/armor? What is the color of mithral? Ive looked in the DMG but these are not described.

 

[Mecheon]

Going off where I think they've been displayed, which is rarely, Adamantine is a dark metal, almost black. The Adamantine Dragon from 4E has that particular colour scheme going

Mithril I'd assume is silver given its history

 

[Minigiant]

Mithral seems to be a high luster silvery white.

Adamantine is the total opposite in color, jet black, with a bit of luster as a smith might have to put any other metal in it (while wearing copse paint and shrieking).

 

[graves3141]

Yeah, I always thought of mithral as being like silver but, unlike silver, it never tarnishes. We had a silver tea set in our family that I was responsible for polishing as a kid... it looked great after it had been buffed to a high shine but it never lasted very long. Would have made my life easier if it had been made of mithral.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I always pictured adamantine as a deep purple almost black metal, and Mithril (I know it sounds funny) I always pictured as a titanium alloy...

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Adamantine in D&D is traditionally portrayed as black, but IIRC, this is because it was originally the "drow metal", the dark elf equivalent of mithral. Etymologically, "adamantine" is related to "diamond" (you can see the same Greek root in both), but it didn't specifically mean "diamond", just "hardest possible thing" -- Perseus had an "adamantine" sword. Or maybe Minecraft is right and you can make arms and armor out of diamond!

Oh, and in case you're interested, orichalc is coppery red. (Because it was probably just copper.)

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I don't want to link images because I can't find any that aren't weird sizes, but I use iridium as the color of mithril, and osmium as the color for adamantine.

 

[Prism]

In Dwarves Deep (2e), Ed Greenwood describes mithril as pure silvery, blue shinning metal which is smelted from a silvery black ore. Its very resistant to corrosion and rust

Adamantine is described as a hard jet-black ferrous ore. It is occasionally found naturally but the dwarves have perfected a way of combining mithril, carbon and iron to create it.

Its worth noting that the 5e entry for adamantine armour is steel armour reinforced with adamantine, so I would imagine this looks like metal armour with adamantine edging.

We treat both of these metals types as non magical in our game and therefore available for purchase from the right place, although very expensive.

 

[Sacrosanct]

 

[Queer Venger]

Thanks for the responses, the pics are particularly helpful, thanks Sacrosanct.