Alchemical Cold Mithradamantine: Ever Use Special Material Alloys?

[Kerrick]

We have dozens of materials, and several alloys. For example, sunlight and gold can be combined to form solaurum (which is too soft for weapons/armor; it's usually used for holy symbols, and grants +4 to turn checks); moonlight and silver makes moonsilver (stronger than silver and great against lycanthropes); steel, titanium, and a little adamantine make adamantium (the poor man's adamantine - it doesn't bypass hardness, but it's harder and stronger than plain steel), and mithril and adamantine make molybidium (lightweight, bypasses some hardness, and partially bypasses DR /adamantine).

 

[Nightfall]

Kerrick,

Interesting...what does it do for weapon damage?

*always on the look out for new and interesting material*

 

[Trickstergod]

I wouldn't necessarily be adverse to folk making alloys.

Of course, it'd effectively render the metals worthless for their intended purpose. I'm not even particularly a fan of alchemical silver. The essence of the adamantine or silver, the magic of the substance (or lack thereof with iron) is what makes it do what it does. Just like steel doesn't penetrate Cold Iron damage reduction, neither will alloys as far as I'm concerned.

The one exception might be an alloy of mithral and silver, if simply because I already have them work in a similar fashion.

 

[Nightfall]

Mithril silver would be a nice combo, especially for say, a Silver Knight with ties to the Church of Mithril/Sword of Mithril.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I think it sounds reasonable, and I'd probably allow it, in general.

I don't think I'd allow anything mixed with alchemical silver to retain its properties against lycanthropes, as my understanding is that it's value is in the purity of the metal, though.

I wouldn't think alloys of any of the metals would be commonplace, as they are supposed to be rare enough in themselves that I really can't see anyone deciding to routinely "waste" the material in hopes of creating something better. And I would consider "lessening" the value of the metals in an alloy- such as a mithril/adamantine heavy shield giving a no Armor Check Penalty, a 10% chance of Spell Failure, with hardness 15, 24 hp, weighing 11 lbs. and costing 1,520 gp. Something like that, maybe. More expensive than a mithril shield, less expensive than an adamantine shield, but not sharing all the qualities of both.

 

[Kaodi]

Funny... molybidium comes from molybdenum, which is used predominantly in real world alloys (for hardening)... Funny though, that I didn't recognize the name from chemistry... I guess it's just one of the most obscure ones...

Anyway, from Wikipedia:

" An alloy is a combination, either in solution or compound, of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal, and where the resulting material has metallic properties. The resulting metallic substance has different properties (sometimes significantly different) from those of its components. "

So, if you really wanted to get complicated, alloys of fantasy metals do not necessarily have to be compromises between the properties of those two metals. I suppose if you were a metallurgist or chemist, and you theorized the properties of the mithral, adamantine and like elements, you could come up with some really interesting ideas...

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Hmm- that's really interesting Kaodi. I like the thought that alloys of these metals might have very different properties. Anyone have any ideas? *puts on thinking cap*

 

[Jon Potter]

I have given out a Longsword made from bonded Cold wrought iron and Silver {Mithril IMG]. Made by dwarves and elves the last time they worked together, the material takes a century to properly bond without ruining both properties and thus the price varies on what the market will bear.

I make metal vulnerable DR fairly common {Silver & Cold wrought iron] and dropped alchemic silver{a band-aid if i ever saw one], added in 3.0 silver weapons {dagger, spears, arrows and bolts] and made mithral count as silver.

I use something similar IMC. I lifted mine straight out of an old AD&D issue of Dragon. Silver-Iron Longswords were easily recognizable by their mottled black and silver blades

 

[Kaodi]

I'm not sure exactly what metals I would use, but initially I was thinking that if you alloyed mithral with some gold, you might get a metal that had its hardness apply normally vs. sonic and force damage.

If I did use those metals, I think I'd describe it as an extremely pale gold colour with a high lustre, and call it solaurium. Hardness 16, 14 hp/inch and 10% lighter than iron. Expensive.

( Oops, should of been paying more attention to what they called that sunlight alloy above, hehehe... )

Mispaurium? (m)ithral d(isp)erse (aur)um -ium ... Lame? Maybe.

 

[Umbran]

So, if you really wanted to get complicated, alloys of fantasy metals do not necessarily have to be compromises between the properties of those two metals. I suppose if you were a metallurgist or chemist, and you theorized the properties of the mithral, adamantine and like elements, you could come up with some really interesting ideas...

Surely, because simply melding their normal effects would be far too predictable. That's boring

I usually consider the stuff that actually gets made into weapons and armor to not be pure adamantine or mithral, but instead to be alloys of the magical metals with normal steel. I have somewhat different plans for adamantine-bronze, for example.