WTF is "cold iron", and why's it so special?

[Haiku Elvis]

Thats a bit reductive. Iron is not automatically better than bronze. In fact for a long time iron and bronze working coexisted with iron being used for cheap, mass produced items while everything that needed to be of high quality like weapons were made out of bronze when possible, simply because bronze working was better understood.
Only when steel making became more advanced did iron surpass bronze also in quality.

Also meteors was not the only source of "ready made" iron. Much more common and already used in pre roman times was bog iron which naturally accumulated in swamps when the condition was right.

No you got me on some good points. it's not automatically better and they did coexist for a good time and I did gloss over the how and why iron helped people go a conquering a bit.
In terms of its really steel that's better. I was in part using Iron in a broad poetic sense (like Iron age itself as it was in large part the steel age). Although by the time you figure out how to make wrought iron properly you are already using charcoal or coal in the mix so your already taking your first steps to steel city, the purely iron age was pretty short.

But having said all that, there are reasons the Pharos were hitting up the Hittites for iron and that we had an Iron age at all and not just Another Bronze Age with Iron Added on Age.

One of the main issues with Bronze is it's made of copper and tin which stubbornly refuse to hang out anywhere near each other in their ore forms.
Again theory time, it's been suggested the need to source copper and tin pushed the bronze age civilisations into becoming broad trading peoples which underpinned the rise of the Mediterranean empires.

But back to late Bronze Age collapse, when Iron technology is spreading across the post apocalypse wastelands of the Mideast and Europe and those cosmopolitan trade empires have all collapsed or retreated into themselves, Unless you have a reliable international supply of tin, you don't have bronze weapons you have some copper and a desperate hope those guys riding over the hill are friendly.
With Iron/steel work the rarest ingredient is the knowledge how to make it, as @Mannahnin said above the materials are abundant so when iron working was only known by some it was a huge advantage in the age they were in regardless of like for like quality.
Finally I think it got lost but one point I wanted to make was that iron was mythologised and held as special from the start which may well have contributed to its supposed mystical properties that worked its way into folklore.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Observation 1: It seems to me that in a few of the recent posts there's been some casual swapping between the words "iron" (pure Fe) and "steel" (iron with a tiny bit...but just the right amount...of carbon). Unintentionally, I assume, because otherwise people seem to know what they're talking about. Steel with enough carbon can be heat treated, iron can not. But even 0% carbon iron would, I think, be a wonder material to early people.

Observation 2: Although we now understand the "why" of hardened carbon steel...why the carbon matters, why quenching and tempering do what they do, etc...the processes are still the same as they have been for thousands of years. I think it's cool that the ancient smiths figured it out by trial and error, and passed the knowledge down, without having any idea why it works, and that when we do it today, especially if we're judging heat by color rather than using a computer controlled heat treat oven, we're doing it almost exactly the same way.

Observation 3: Although I'm pretty into this topic, from a game standpoint it doesn't matter to me that "cold iron" is a meaningless poetic phrase in the real world. In a world of dragons and elves and magic, why can't there be a difficult (secret?) technique of smelting and forging iron without heating it?

 

[Ixal]

There are actually quite some differences in how steel is made because old furnances weren't hot enought (which is something the fantasy aspect of the game can help with. Which could mean that cold iron would be steel made in the traditional way without magical help and normal steel would be the one from magical, hot, furnances).
A very good series about iron and steel production. Its multi part, see links in the first sentence of the article

Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It? Part I, Mining

This week we are starting a four-part look (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) at pre-modern iron and steel production. As with our series on farming, we are going to follow the train of iron producti…

acoup.blog

 

[Bill Zebub]

There are actually quite some differences in how steel is made because old furnances weren't hot enought (which is something the fantasy aspect of the game can help with. Which could mean that cold iron would be steel made in the traditional way without magical help and normal steel would be the one from magical, hot, furnances).
A very good series about iron and steel production. Its multi part, see links in the first sentence of the article

Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It? Part I, Mining

This week we are starting a four-part look (I, II, III, IVa, IVb, addendum) at pre-modern iron and steel production. As with our series on farming, we are going to follow the train of iron producti…

acoup.blog

That's an excellent point. When I said that we still do things the same way I was thinking of working the steel into a blade. But how we get the steel has changed dramatically. I buy mine from a guy in New Jersey, for example.

(No, it didn't "fall off the truck".)

 

[glass]

Observation 1: It seems to me that in a few of the recent posts there's been some casual swapping between the words "iron" (pure Fe) and "steel" (iron with a tiny bit...but just the right amount...of carbon). Unintentionally, I assume, because otherwise people seem to know what they're talking about. Steel with enough carbon can be heat treated, iron can not. But even 0% carbon iron would, I think, be a wonder material to early people.

I believe that is because the difference between "iron" and "steel" in this context is not how much carbon there is, but how closely the amount of carbon is controlled. "Iron" as made in the iron age was certainly not 100% pure Fe (I am pretty sure they could not have made such a thing even if they'd wanted to), and neither are "cast iron" or "wrought iron" as the terms are used today.

 

[Irlo]

I've enjoyed following the metallurgical discussion. My thanks to those contributing.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

It's folklore. Britons used to believe fairies had a weakness against cold iron.

Yes, it's folklore. But by the time it reached gaming, "cold iron" had developed a number of different origin-stories.

My preferred origin-story is that gold, silver, copper, and lead can be hammered into shapes while "cold" (room temperature) but iron was a "new metal" that had to heated up to hammer into shape (and then, often, for more arcane points, the iron was quenched). It couldn't be shaped when cold, unlike the other metals. That made iron a special, magical - or rather anti-magical - metal, a new metal that hurt the old spirits.

Most GMs have "cold iron" be a special form of iron in one way or another, usually as a sacrifice to the Gods of Game Balance. Others have any ordinary mundane iron or steel count as "cold iron." So they house-rule in (e.g.) d&d 3.5e that any ordinary 15gp sword is "cold iron" and therefore effective against monsters with vulnerability to cold iron or DR X/cold iron, rather than having cold iron be something on the special materials list.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I believe that is because the difference between "iron" and "steel" in this context is not how much carbon there is, but how closely the amount of carbon is controlled. "Iron" as made in the iron age was certainly not 100% pure Fe (I am pretty sure they could not have made such a thing even if they'd wanted to), and neither are "cast iron" or "wrought iron" as the terms are used today.

Yeah, that's all true. I'm sure iron age iron was full of all kinds of impurities, including the wrong amount of carbon.

Maybe 'cold iron' could just be 'not steel'. Can't be heat treated, doesn't hold an edge, prone to break.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Yeah, that's all true. I'm sure iron age iron was full of all kinds of impurities, including the wrong amount of carbon.

Maybe 'cold iron' could just be 'not steel'. Can't be heat treated, doesn't hold an edge, prone to break.

And sometimes the impurities were useful, such as the iron pillar of Delhi.

That can be part of the fun, where you can have steel from the local foundry, which is adequate for your needs. Then there's steel from Foreignburg which you wouldn't use for pots or tools, but is great for weapons, armor and other things that need to take a beating. And, then, if your are lucky, you can buy some bars of steel from Exoticstan which doesn't even rust! Any quality thing you can make will last forever!

 

[gatorized]

I thought it was clear from context. Outside of nature itself. And both of those questions are a yes. Ant tunnels do not occur by themselves. They are constructed. Same with bird nests.

No they aren't. Or if they are, both the word and concept of unnatural don't exist. Nuclear bombs are natural!

Holy hell you just went way out into left field, decided that left field wasn't far enough and tripled it, then decided to go even further into something that just plain wasn't said or implied. Don't assign crap like that to me again.

Nothing occurs by itself. Every effect has a cause. You haven't explained why some of these events are natural and others aren't.