you made a bit of a mistake when you talked about adamantium and included vibranium. Adamantium is an alloy of Vibranium and steel its not its own metal but an alloy
@@gdragonlord749 otherway around, to make Adamantium they need to combine Vibranium and Seel yes captain america's shield is a vibranium steel alloy labled proto Adamantium but the formula was refined and used on Wolverine's skeleton. its weaker than pure Vibranium but it was all to prevent Wakanda from retaliating and trying to to take it back. plus they were trying to remove its vibration conduction ability for the Weapon X program to ensure it wasn't uncomfortable for the recipients of the alloy
Fun fact: Adamantine is based off Adamantine, which meant the hardest metal. from Latin adamantinus "hard as steel, inflexible," from Greek adamantinos "hard as adamant," from adamas (genitive adamantos) "unbreakable, inflexible," as a noun, "hardest material" Fun Fact 2: Mithril composite weapons would be best because weight is an important part of weapons and techniques. Force = Mass*Acceleration, so the mass is especially important for crushing weapons. Think of a bowling ball vs a tennis ball being thrown with the same amount of strength.
Turns out copper is kind of magical even in our mundane world: Copper and copper alloys kill bacteria on touch, and even some viruses. We now know how this works, and copper/bronze door handles and bathroom fixtures are coming back with a vengeance, first in healthcare facilities but increasingly in other public spaces. The humble copper may yet turn out to be one of our most valuable metals! In a fantasy setting, we could turn this up to 11, having a metal that heals and maybe even slows the aging process of those who can afford to surround themselves with it. Expect some draconian legislation for theft. (Maybe we should have that for copper thieves - there is a lot of that nowadays.)
In mine it's the pure aspect of [Metal] which opposes [Wood] and smaller creatures are very susceptible to such things, further enhancing this property.
Copper is great though it can also be poisonous to people under certain conditions usually only once oxidized and long exposure to the body. In that fantasy setting you could also add negative secondary effects with the misuse of copper. Like if you heal to much with it, it builds up inside your body and causes problems. Maybe you live for a lot longer and healthier but your body’s ability to heal itself without copper gets worse and worse until you have to constantly consume copper to stay alive and well. A society rich with copper could develop in a way where the eldest and most powerful live for over two centuries and their armies are small but equipped with copper so every soldier can endure way more damage than a normal person could reasonably survive. Therefore that society could afford to train each soldier a lot more since they’re expected to survive most of the time
Every metal has some crazy property. Gold is highly conductive, soft and can be tapped out by hand into foil. Tantalum can not be blemished by any known acid. Cobalt resists super cold, tungsten resists super heat. Titanium is super light for it's tinsil strength. Lead, zinc, tin, copper, nickel, palladium, platinum, iron, molybdenum...on and on, everyone of them has strange and almost "magical" properties.
Something interesting to note is that in an era before modern chemistry, even perfectly mundane smithing might be seen as magical. Some cultures in real life were known to mix bones or other pieces of animals into their iron as sacrifices, accidentally making primitive steel and thus seeming to have worked to gain the gods’ favor. Honestly, most metallurgy seems pretty magical - turning brittle rocks into flexible and powerful weapons, simply by the application of exactly the right heat and rituals?
@@vhaelen326the Japanese had a specific type of one-use kilt that had the ore mixed with the charcoal. It resulted in different types of steel with different carbon concentrations. Worth noting, the results of this practice were kinda wack. But the ore they had access was absolutely garbage, so the process was still a notable achievement. It reached a half-decent result from utterly terrible ingredients.
@@marcospatricio8283 The folding thing, I remember that... And it's not just 'many layers', its about sifting all the layers of impurities to the outside, causing only the purest steel to remain.
From my place there's some weapon that needs to be bathed with flowers and incense in its sacred ritual. Though those weapons are more of a charm weapon rather than a battle weapon, they're usually in the shape of a dagger or other small bladed weapon. What interesting for me is, it is said that a true master blacksmith can mold the weapon with their bare hand without the need to use hammer or other tools
Make it with Spring Steal and Obsidian Glass. A magical Obsidian Steal Great Sword will lay waste to the enemies while cutting through metal alloys by destroying the molecular bonds. It also comes with Soul/Spirtual Magic as a bonus.
Metallic glasses, also known as amorphous metals, are real and have some almost magical properties. In theory any metal could be made into a metallic glass if you could freeze the molten metal fast enough, but without magic we cannot drop the temperature fast enough except for small quantities or thin film of complex alloys. The lack of grain boundaries means that metallic glasses have no faults along which to break or to be nucleation sites for corrosion. They are extremely tough and will not rust. They are technically brittle in that they will shatter before they bend permanently, but it takes a lot more force to bend them than to break crystalline metals and if they do bend (but not enough to shatter) they will spring right back to their proper shape much better than any spring steel.
One of my closest friends with a degree in aerospace engineering once opined that due to its rarity, the difficulty of working it, and its strength, Tolkien's "mithral" was a fantasy analog for titanium.
This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Tolkien was reading multiple scientific mediation journals form his time, and they all talked about a new discovery : the process to refine titanium oxyde into titanium metal. Ttitanium indeed being lighter than steel for a similar resistance, with a pale-silver color.
I've always liked the "metal from elsewhere" trope, whether it's from a strange meteor that fell to earth, or the concepts of extraplanar metals used in D&D, where the essence of the plane it came from imbues it.
I do like that trope as well at times, yes, because it comes with the disruption of an existing state/world :) This can be done with something primordial as well though. Basically a metal that is found aeons after the world is already defined and somehow shakes things up. What I like here is that it can have historical/mystical roots that are related to the world itself 🙂
I have a metal in my story called Valorium. A satin blue metal that is the result of iron being exposed to and soaked in the liquefied mana crystals that can be found in the roots of mana-rich trees. These crystals are created as a byproduct of photosynthesis, leaking out from the roots before crystalizing. The process turns iron into Valorium in the same way carbon turns iron into steel, but infused the iron with mana, allowing for potent channeling, elemental protection, and enchanting.
Orichalcum is a real metal, a naturally occurring copper-gold alloy found in the Andes. Look up tumbago for details. Of course, Plato’s orichalcum matching the composition and properties of tumbago is just a coincidence.
But it was also very recently that we determined it to be real. Of course it also has really good conductive properties. This material's rediscovery is largely a byproduct of the electronics industry.
The thing about Vibranium is that there's two variants: Wakandan Vibranium, which you described, and Antarctic Vibranium. Antarctic Vibranium is constantly emiting vibrations that cause other metals to warp, melt, and break when in contact with it, even Adamantium.
Adamantium is synthetic Vibranium. It's the same element, the same type of atoms, but because of the production process there is a different number/arrangement of bonds between them. Think kinda how many different materials can be made with carbon depending on the number and/or arrangement of bonds between the atoms. Adamantium is an artificial variety of Vibranium, a result of an attempt at a man-made Vibranium. The resulting different physical properties warrant giving it a distinctive name through the same way you give different names to different materials made with carbon, e.g. kevlar, graphene, etc. Adamantium is also poisonous to humans (kinda like led is) and Wolverine can live with it thanks to his healing superpowers. Moreover, his healing superpowers would have killed him eventually by giving him all sorts of cancers and other stuff, but the adamantine skeleton kills all the mutated stuff and then healing powers reconstruct the body in the proper way, so the skeleton ironically tames his powers in a way that they wont turn against him, effectively improving his health and lifespan.
@@robberyproductions1363 if we’re going by the books neither it’s made of Proto-Adamantium the best of the best of man-made metals never to be recreated again
A tiny historical tidbit here that might help with world building - there is a misconception that iron was better than bronze. In reality, it was the combination of the abundance of iron and scarcity of tin that made the use of iron tools/weapons become superior. During the Bronze Age collapse, the tin trade was one of the first things that broke down. Iron was initially harder to get, but once they figured out how, it was there and it was functional on its own.
Iron ore is very common but requires much hotter fires to refine or forge into useful tools or weapons. Getting it hot enough to liquify to produce a homogenous metal is even harder.
Once you get to the point where you can smelt iron into steel then nothing else truly compares. Tungsten and titanium can challenge its strength but not workability, bronze and brass can be more plastic and ductile but nowhere near as strong.
Once you get to the point where you can smelt iron into steel then nothing else truly compares. Tungsten and titanium can challenge its strength but not workability, bronze and brass can be more plastic and ductile but nowhere near as strong.
This is flat out wrong. Iron is much stronger than bronze. If your army has bronze weapons and armor and your enemy has iron, you're gonna have a bad time.
Some ... corrections and additions- since you pointed out that a realistic grounding can make for a more immersive tale : So... metals are not formed in the earth through pressure. Thats diamonds. Metallic elements are created through fusion in a sun. The presence or absence of certain elements tells us the general size and age of a star or planet for example. Copper does not usually occur as a pure metal- Its usually encountered as an Ore(Metal in Mineral). it is nicely reactive forming copper oxide - the nice green patina on roofs etc. Coppers tendency to form such a protective patina is what makes it preferable for ornaments and armors... not so much for tools and weapons. But a copper tool that dulled or broke could easily be molten down and forged out again. Compared to stone tools before - THAT WAS MAGICAL! 4:40 Iron. Historians have spent whole documentaries talking about nothing else but this. Having a baseline understanding of the fundamental differences between cast iron, crucible steel, alloyed steel, hardening, tempering and metalworking alone can transform your tale. The metallurgical properties of differently produced steels is vast - it encompasses primitive tools to the intricate patterns of wootz damascus or the pattern welded blades of Samurai swords. Unless you want to look like a pumpkin, having your tales smith casting swords and forging an edge onto them -> this fascinating metal is your starting point. Iron deserves its own video. Gold: Skipping the property that made Gold so sought after there... It's not just because Gold was rare that it was popular - it was because it is a noble metal. Chemicly noble that is. It is incredibly hard to get Gold to react - so it can not rust, tarnish or form patinas. Before chemistry, or to the layman - that was a quasi divine property any ruler worth their salt would like to be associated with: "Look, my rule won't change - just like my fancy gold crown!". Also quite the boon on cleaning, as polishing silverware or mirrors was constant hard work. 8 - Valyrian Steel A good opportunity to come back to "why you need to know about Iron". Swords from a lost civilisation, that are still pristine after centuries ? To some its magic - to others stainless steel properly wrapped in oilcloth. When they showed a sword of such steel being molten and recast in the series - you could hear the groans of dispair around the world. **Don't. Do. That.** It's incredibly stupid - on the line of "Drinking seawater to survive" stupid. 14:00 "How is your metal worked" The most important factor in real world applications. Think about it: We have used iron throughout most of humanities history and are still finding ways to improve how we work it. Considering fuelsources, availability of magic and knowledge of alloying can allow you to generate several "magical" effects from fewer base metals. Instead of coming up with more and more sources for magical metals - you can have just a few base metals, but make narrative differences in how these metals are processed. For exmample - One of the few ways to kill undead is "Valyrian Steel" - If you want your story to be an expedition to a far distant land, it might be a unique metal that hasn't been found wherever said undead are a problem. If the story should focus on that land, the knowledge to create it could have political implications down the road. Nation 1 disovered Valyrian Steel, so Nation 2 is sending spies to steal the secret or risk being militarily outclassed down the road..... etc. etc.
Great comment, and I would like to also stress the point of understanding how important alloying and heat treatment can be: Alloying is key to making the most use of metals. Often in the sense of getting stronger alloys, but it can bring about entirely new properties, like corrosion resistance in steel and shape-memory of Ni-Ti alloys. Steel can be both magnetic and non-magnetic depending on alloy, with some non-magnetic steels becomming magnetic upon deformation. On the flip side, some metals do not like mixing: Some just don't mix, like oil and water, others form brittle intermetallics which are rarely of use, and in some cases mere fractions of a percentage to much of the wrong impurity can make a batch of alloy useless for its intendet purpose. Alloys are also key in determining what heat treatments can be used, as pure metal cannot really be heat treated. Heat treatment can also have a variety off effects: - Depending on how quickly it is cooled, the samme steel alloy can be either hard and brittle, or softer but more ductile. - Wrong heat treatment can cause stainless steel to losse its stainlessness. - A few days at 600 -700 C will leave most simple steels alloys to soft for for weapon and armour usage. - Many steels can have their heat treatment redone by heating them to 800 to 1200 C for a while, depending on alloy, and then giving them the new desired treatment. - Other alloys, some alluminium alloys for examble, are first heatet to a high temperature for a while, cooled, and then kept at a specific temperature for a specified time, of hours to days, to harden. For such alloys, keeping them at too high a temperature can cause them to loose some of the gained strength, or reset the hardening entirely if heated to the temperature of step 1. From a story perspective, this can mean: - That a metal from a certain place is regardet as better than the same metals from other regions, if it has a more desireble blend of impurities. - Someone happened to form a great wearpon or piece of armour, but can't recreate its strength being a lucky alloying accident. - A once great sword has lost its strength if it was lost in a fire, or kept in a dragons lair. P.S. there is still a lot of reasearch going into finding new iron alloys that are: Stronger, more corrosion resistant, a cheaper alternative to an existing alloy, or has specific mix of properties, and so on.
@@lordjotamort For reading resources I only really have my old uni book on material science. : Materials Science and Engineering, by William D. Callister, JR. and David G. Rethwisch. ISBN: 978-1-118-31922-2 The following two videos might help you decide if it is a rabbit hole you care to delve: - A primer on a few material properties: ruclips.net/video/BHZALtqAjeM/видео.html - A primer on metallurgy: ruclips.net/video/PaGJwOPg2kU/видео.html Though to understand how the concepts go together in order to worldbuild alloys and heat treatments, I can only point to the uni book. I am much less versed in the history, but have found the following videoes interesting: - Some on ancient copper mining: https: //ruclips.net/video/FL92iskCSZA/видео.html - This lecturecovers some of the reasons for the change from bronze to iron and their differing qualities. ruclips.net/video/qSOTZ1t4sFI/видео.html The latter also touches upon an importaint point I would like to emphasise, if one intents to use material science as a worldbuilding tool: What matters is often not [material property], but [materiable property]/price. i.e. no reason to use the fancy material, if more of a cheaper material can do the same job for cheaper. Thus, the greatest technological leaps are often not to be able to extract, make and/or make use of a material, but to do so cheaply and at scale. Hope this is of some help, even if it is not much af a reading list. P.S. I give my cheers to anyone who incorperates phase diagrams into their world building. Three horrays for cooling diagrams.
thank you I was going to point that out too about metal formation, and really the real thing is way more interesting as a note gold is also rare because suns fuse up to Iron, other meatal like gold, need a lot more energy and are only produced in supernovas, adapting something like that in fantasy or with a magic system seems way more interesting than some earth pressure
Do note that he wasn’t entirely wrong about the whole “tectonic processes are important to ore veins being things” without some of what was described instead there would just be a mess of salts instead of large clumps of say bauxite or taconite
I want to give an example of this from my setting. The metal in question is essentially a room temperature superconductor for magical energy. When paired with silicate, it can create a battery which can recharge simply from the ambient background magic. However, it is exceedingly difficult to work with. The ore contains only 15-30% of the metal, with the rest being a mix of silicate, titanium, iron, and a number of others. In order to refine it, you'll need coal which has been heated to 2000° C in an airless environment and then enchanted to burn hotter. The enhanced coal mist then be burned in an oven which magically purifies the air to further increase the heat in the oven. The final temperature must be roughly 3000° C to extract the metal, though it can be recycled in a furnace burning roughly 315° C. It also produces extensive waste and only shows up in dwarf settlements. I spent way too much time figuring out the implications of aluminum as a magic superconductor in a sword and sandal universe, but it's been fun.
If you burn most of the impurities of coal off you can turn it into a substance called coke,@@royalecrafts6252. With proper ventilation and large billows (which you can easily hook up to something like a water wheel for sufficient power and air volume), you can get the temperature at the center to over 2,200 celcius. This technology would have been available during the midieval ages.
I'd recommend to adjust the temperatures, as the ore's "other metals" being a mix of silicate, titanium and iron, means that it should suffice to heat it to 1725 C° (titanium's melting point) to separate your metal from the others. That, or make that the ores contain another unique metal with a melting point of around 3000 C° maybe?
Some corrections. Geological processes bring ORES to the surface, only a hand full of metalic elements occour in native aka pure form, such as copper and gold. Iron is NOT superior to Bronze. Pure Iron is very soft and Iron weapons are no better then good Bronze weapons, and it rusts badly, the only advantage it has is that it is common and requires no alloying. It was the creation of STEEL, an iron/carbon alloy which is superior to Bronze. Steel was made accidently for a long time before enough control of carbon content could be mastered. Mithril in the books is simply described as having HALF the weight of steel, having a silver shine and not rusting. Note also that only Dwarves could make it strong, in its raw form it was soft and the elves used it only in decorative manor. When hardened it had the strength of steel, not superior to steel. Subsequent lore and the movies vastly exagerate it's properties to nigh-indestrucatbility. It functionally looks to have been like annodized aluminum.
Agree with all of the above. Worth noting that most early steels are also largely comparable to bronze, as while they kept their form better, they tended to crack rather than bend, meaning that they were more prone to catastrophic failures rather than smaller more manageable ones, to the point that most cannons up into the golden age of piracy were bronze, as iron and steel cannons had a tendency to explode while bronze cannons would just loosen (and steel couldn't be recycled at the same quality due to carbon inclusions, while bronze was readily recyclable, making them cheaper in the long run despite the high upfront cost). And yeah, Mithril sounds is definitely just aluminium with the dwarves mixing in something like scandium or copper plus a bunch of trace stuff like iron and manganese to bring its ultimate yield strength up into the 400+mpa range.
Just adding on, I think he's actually gotten the chemistry of metals very confused. Metals are elements or alloys (mixtures) of elements. The more inert metals are the ones that natural occur in their element form. Reactive metals such as iron and aluminium occur as ores because of their reactivity. There is no such thing as raw elements forming precious metals (unless you're talking about nuclear fusion) because precious metals are all elements themselves. They were naturally there and simply needed to be extracted and purified. New metals are created by alloying metals with other elements and compounds such as steel being created from a mixture of iron and carbon (and sometimes chromium and nickel). I'm very surprised he doesn't mention steel as an example on how one can use metals in writing. Infusing a metal with other (possibly magical) substances to alter its properties is a wonderful thing to add in your story. It makes you think about how your magic metals will react with other metals. Maybe they lose their magic when alloyed and needs to be pure to be functional. Maybe they can amplify an effect when coupled with another metal. That sounds cool. It also feels like it adds more depth than just calling a fantasy metal in "fantasy steel" because it uses the principles of steel and alloys to create something new.
If I remember correctly, elves inlaid mithril abd magic into their blades to make them glow in the presence of the enemy. Not just orcs. But only dwarves could make mithril armor. It was also stated that it took enormous amounts of mithril to make a small amount of this hardened mithril.
Nice vid. Worth noting, while Marvel popularized Adamantium, it wasn't the first to use the word to describe an incomprehensibly durable metal. Tolkien even had a similar metal, called Adamant or Adamantine, which was very very durable. Could have cited Marvel's usage as a proper way to adapt existing fantasy metals as inspiration for stories.
You are not wrong, but the reasons I phrased it like I did is mainly based on the actual name. To my knowledge 'Adamantium' was first used in the Marvel Universe. But it is named after 'Adamantine' from Greek mythology, yes, which was used elsewhere before too 🙂
I agree with you, would also like to mention that im non-native speaker when it comes to English, but whenever i came across "adamant" and is derviatives (or how you call it) i always assumed Tolkien used this word as an archaic form of "indestructible" or else, not its own metal. But to be fair i've read tolkiens legendarium in English only in parts, because as i said, it is not my first language, so correct me if i got it wrong
@@TheTaleTinkerer Adamantium verbatim was in other media before. It was in Astounding Stories, for example. Suze Kundu wrote about this exact topic, the coming together of real world chemistry and fiction in a paper in the journal Nature Chemistry. Further, the reason why "Adamantium" verbatim wasn't used as often is because technically the suffix "ium" in this instance is pseudo-latin, and "Adamantine" is the proper etymological term. The reason Marvel and science fiction in particular use "Ium" to describe fantastical metals like this isn't because it's proper, it's a direct influence from the usage of "ium" on the periodic table at the time to describe what were then newly discovered synthesized elements. Realistically, such metals would not use that suffix if they existed in a time before that suffix was used to describe metals, and far before it was used to describe new elements. Marvel's Adamantium not only isn't a pure element (it's an alloy), but it's also ancient. So there's quite a bit of evidence that they didn't come up with the name themselves but lifted it from a different setting and put their own spin on its history, as Marvel is wont to do. This is not at all a criticism or sleight against them, they are really good at what they do, hence why you can find "Adamantium" in fiction described in such a similar way decades before Marvel used it, but Marvel still gets the credit
@@TheTaleTinkerer "Adamantium" is the Latin genitive plural form of "Adamans" or "Adamas," which can either be the present participle for the verb "coveting" (ad+amans is literally "loving at" or "loving towards," but the prefix acts as an intensifier that tends to imply a very possessive form of love) or the word for "diamond" or "steel." It also seems like a natural way to form a Latin adjective meaning "made of Adamant," although I haven't personally come across it beign used that way in Latin sources. "Adamas" is a Greek term meaning "invincible" or "unconquered," which was used as the word for any very hard things. It most often meant diamond, but could be used for other hard stones like corundum (ruby or sapphire) and for very hard alloys of steel. Adamas is a Greek 3rd declension noun which became a Latin third declension noun when borrowed into Latin. That means it was spelled just like the native Latin word Adamans in every declined form except the nominative singular. (Well, some Latin writers might preserve the Greek accusative forms Adamanta/Adamantas instead of Adamantem/Adamantes, and some would change the nominative to be Adamans too, but most would use the unaltered nominative/vocative form with the standard 3rd declension Latin endings for all oblique cases. Adamantine is an Anglicized form which would not be found in Greek mythology unless translated into English.
One thing I’ve looked into is applying real-world metalworking concepts to fantasy, and one intriguing thing stood out to me. In the Forgotten Realms setting of D&D, adamantine is allegedly made by mixing large proportions of adamant ore, silver, and electrum, and adamant ore is said to be ferrous, so there’s iron there too. Typically mixing that many metals in roughly equal measure makes a brittle intermetallic compound, but sometimes it makes something called a high entropy alloy, characterized by extreme corrosion resistance, maintained strength at high heat, and high hardness. And sure enough, those characterize adamantine. Materials science is fun!
I'd like to go further into material science and have an amorphous metal/metallic glass which can only be made by using magic to cool the molten metal too fast for it to crystallize. If it cools fast but still crystalizes it would be brittle and weak, but if it cools so fast that it has no grain boundaries then it is extremely tough (although technically still brittle, as it won't even start to bend unless under several times more force than would break any crystalline metal but cannot bend much before it shatters. )
@@magister343 ICE had a similar thing in Laen, a magic glass that needed cold forges to forge. When they wrote Middle Earth Role Playing they imported their supernatural materials into their version of Middle Earth, and later I think Laen was the inspiration for "glass weapons" in Daggerfall, Morrowind etc. Big difference is that Laen IIRC is supposed to be strong but extremely flexible and suffer from almost no permanent deformation: Turn a Laen sword into a circle with its tip touching its hilt and it will spring back to its original shape without any permanent damage or weakening.
I would like to make one small clarification, IRON WAS NOT STRONGER THAN BRONZE, by the time people could make use of iron, the casting and smithing technique for bronze made it far better, iron was considered a mass production low quality thing. Have this in mind too when making fantasy metals
Pure iron is soft but the accidental inclusion of carbon happens easily enough that people quickly were making low grade steel rather than pure iron. It's actually harder to make soft pure iron than it is to make low grade mild steel that has carbon inclusions.
@@thelaughinghyenas8465 I didn't mean it in that way, the iron tools they produced would be weaker than the bronze ones because they would be more proficient at extracting the metal from the ore, making the item and reinforcing it, per example, while bronze is often cast to a mold with the desired shape and hammered afterwards to "forge" it in cold, iron ore needs to go to the furnance twice, once at lower temperature and a second time hotter so it doesn't weaken, then you need to smash the ingot while hot into a decent shape to then temper it, generations upon generations would need to practice with a much costly-to-produce metal to realize the right steps to reach it's maximum potential while they already know what to do with bronze
@@joseluisbernalpavon448 , Once you get a clean billet of wrought iron beaten out, you can work and use it as is. If you do manage by the various ways to make a semi-decent quality of steel, don't you quench to harden it at the higher heat first and then temper it like overnight at a much lower heat? Yes, iron and steel melt at a higher temperature but once you get that idea of heat and beat then you don't need to mess with mess with making the mold, heating the mold, crucibles, pouring it, getting it to go to fill out the mold, getting the sprues off and finishing it.
@@thelaughinghyenas8465 I think we have a missunderstanding here. Yes, once you get to make half decent iron weapons and armor they will surpass bronze's in quality, quantity and ease of manufactoring, but for that you need to advance your technology in the specific area of iron smithing, and in the prehistoric times you don't often have the opportunity to spend resources, time and effort when you don't know how to or even if it can be improved, you know it because we live in an information based society thousands of years in the future where experimentation, discovery and advancement is our motto, but a dude in the middle of the iron age won't know where to start, specially because the discoveries that one tribe makes may not spread to another one or may even be forgotten (and it happened a lot) Another thing is that just because you learned to use iron it doesn't make you able of making the same recipes plus quality bonus for harder metal, the greeks already had bronze breasplates, but until the late middle ages iron/steel ones wouldn't appear, why? because it is far harder to work with, so when making armor one would make chainmail, scalemail and brigandine from small pieces of metal, wich was easier, yes they would often be better than the bronze armor in most cases, but how much time would pass untill someone thought on a design, the armor, smithing techniques and specific tools for it when they already have something 100% usefull, yeah eventually they will make it better, but until it is done and said tech is spreaded widly enough bronze items are used and are better than the iron ones and that span of time is the one I was referring to in my first comment (because it wasnt a small ammount of time) so people could use the same concept of a new metal with great potential been the underdog for a time until the correct manufactoring method is created for it and everyone uses it
Surprised there was no mention of Brandon Sanderson's book series Mistborn. The entire magic system of Mistborn (one of the best magic systems ever created imo) is based on different metals and powers associated with those metals, and even includes its own legendary fantasy metals on top of the mundane real-world metals, called Atium and Larasium. Technically Mistborn has 3 different magic systems that all focus on metals, called Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy.
True, but he's talking about how metal is special in and of itself, which doesn't really apply to Mistorn as it's the people and how they use it more than the metal itself.
In ancient legends, before there was adamantium, there was Adamant. In history, there was oricalcum. In my fantasy story, there aren't any inherently different metals than reality, but there are a series of runes you can carve into metal and other substances to make it indestructible, called the Adamant Enchantment. Anything given that enchantment is called Adamant.
but "adamant" was a clear gemstone, not a metal. It might even have just meant the color, as in an "adamant stone" meant a clear one without exactly distinguishing what kind it was.
A thing to make note of regarding mithril is that while it is magnificent for armor, it would be absolute crap for weapons, as it would be far too light to deliver an impact. Weapons need mass to deal damage, and mithril is just too light. As for orichalcum, that's brass. Which would've been a terrifyingly advanced material in the copper age. :D
@@ghostdreamer7272 You sure that's not something cooked up in fanfiction or one of the games/movies? I'm pretty sure that's not mentioned in Tolkien's writings - and an axe is an absolute crap choice for a super-light weapon, an axe absolutely depends on mass to work effectively.
Speed x mass = the kinetic energy contained in an object. Swing anything fast enough and it will cut. A bullet only weighs a few grams but does a heck of a lot of damage due to the speed it travels.
I think mithril would make for great rapiers, as a long thin light blade can move fast enough near the tip to more than make up for its low mass and be a very effective cutter. It would be a poor choice for an axe though.
One thing I want to add is that we can show a lot about the different cultures of the world with how they treat metals and blacksmithing and jobs related to it. Let take an Example. You are an adventurer, who just gotten his hand on some Grand Sliver. A metal which is helpful to adventurers who lack magic training as the metal collects mana in itself slowly. You wanted to make a dagger with the metal and enchant the said dagger with the spell "Extreme posion". You can go to the Dwarf City, Bwirt, the City of Blacksmithes but the city only allow low tier enchant and mid level mining enchantment. You could then go to the other dwarf city, Felius, where enchantment of mid tier are allowed. The human, city, Sivis, allow both blacksmithing and mid tier enchantment, but they take more money. Or an elf blacksmith is an option too. They do both for pretty cheap but your weapon will be hard locked to be only upgraded or repaired by an elf blacksmith. You could add a lot of more details like dwarf don't allow mid tier combat enchament in the Briwt as combat enchament have higher failure rate and exploding rate or something. So much can be told about each race without having to go on monologue on it.
Some great insights, yes - appreciate the comment. This is one of the reasons I decided to make a video about such a specific topic. There is so much depth in it exactly because it ripples through society, geography, etc 🙂
So, fantasy metals you talked about: -super hard and super light one -super durable one -super strong and magical one -super hard, super light and magical one -absorbing and reflecting energy - ok, this one is really unique -super durable and magical -super durable Sooo... they are (beside vibranium) better version of iron, sometime with magical property (but mostly they are limited to holding enchantments). Where are really unique ones? Cothorsis, that disable lightsabers? Dvimerit, blocking magic abilietes? Silver or Witcher universe, deadly to magical beasts? Metal based potions of Husite Trilogy, granting powerfull bufs?
In a story Im working on with a friend group, one species can make a alloy called nihilium. Whats important about Nihilium is that its literally made of this species "essense". They're essentially dark, angels of a void like space which is the anathema to traditional life and yet a lover of the settings magic system. By merging their flesh with mundane materials they make Nihilized variants of them - the metallic material is somewhat alive, being able to hold simple instructions which are important for various weapons. Even more importantly, nihilized materials can survive this Void if fueled properly with "mana". The most interesting aspect of it is of course the whole "You have a species with little to no armament who makes a great material" paired with "semi-living metal that seems to grow a life of its own if taken care of" which has lead to many interesting stories
I had a story where the MC had a sword made of diamond-steel - basically, he used diamond dust instead of carbon in the crucible process. The sword was so sharp that it needed a special scabbard (with cork wheels to hold the side of the blade) and would sing when used.
@@BigCheeeese8You are aware that diamond dust is distinct from the carbon used in alloying, right? Graphite is WILDLY different in crystal structure than diamond, regardless of them being composed of the same element
@@BigCheeeese8 @for950 Is confidently incorrect here. It is the same carbon- The difference between coal, graphite and diamond is the molecular lattice, which is broken down in the metals freshening process. Another impact are the impurities you get WITH the carbon. Hydrogen, Sulphur, Phosphor - things you can find around coal, but rarely in diamonds. Simply put : Iron takes carbon atoms and forms various Iron-Carbon molecules so you get steel. In a crucible process, you would get far fewer impurities using ground up diamond then charcoal. Also ensured you were REALLY REALLY PRECISE with how much you added, so the carbon content was correct and you didn't spend fortunes. Wouldn't have made a direct impact on the sharpness of a blade - but for a fantasy setting... GO FOR IT! have the Martensite crystals in the blades edge shine with a rainbow hue reminiscent of the diamonds sacrificed in its creation....
@@BigCheeeese8 diamond is not resistant to shattering though, so any story that uses it for a striking weapon, needs something that will keep it from doing so. That could be another metal / element that gets mixed in during the forging process... or some sort of magic process.
I have a metal in my sci-fi story whose original name was lost. It allowed for the rise of the ancient empires and was the prize sought by the invading titans. Normally found high in the mountains in the form of naturally occurring hexagonal shaped crystals, the metal is prized for the structure of the crystal storing potential energy. Breaking the crystal causes the metal to discharge the stored energy as kinetic force, which gave rise to the myths the crystals are alive as they push away when hurt. With proper smelting techniques, the crystal can be changed in shape and form through alloying without completely damaging the crystalline structure and discharging the stored energy. This allows weapons that seem to want to move through the air, allowing for faster and more decisive blows from those trained in making use of these movements. Various alloys of this metal are also used for projectile weapons, as projectiles fly more accurately and hit harder with this material. Finally, in the raw crystal form some inventors learned to slowly chip and grind away at the crystal in controlled amounts to kinetic energy which can be transferred into other devices or forms --it's basically a fuel source. The titan invasion and global war caused the fall of the ancients and the destruction of the invaders. All but myth of the crystal and the alloying process were lost, making any and all relics forged with the alloys legendary artifacts growing rarer and rarer each year. The new civilizations that arose to pick up the pieces after the total destruction have achieved using the mined crystals as fuel, but no one has successfully created a usable alloy yet. Additionally, the legacy of the titans remains in the form of ancient apex predators that roam the world consuming veins of this metal for their own purposes, as these bio-engineered beasts digest the crystals and infuse their bodies with the material. For the most part the war beasts leave pockets of civilization alone, but clashes with them happen as people explore the ruins of the world looking fore more relics.
I've always wanted to add alternative crafting materials such as metals with odd properties. I have 3 that i've been wanting to use in something 1. Oscillium: a metal that when used in a back and forth motion well increase the momentum, It would make things like handsaws, thrusting weapons, and short bursts of movement more efficient because of a rubber-banding effect on them. Swinging in an arc is often difficult due to it wanting to rebound often causing people to become off balance, but with a proper technique can be used to great effect like a massive sword wielder becoming as dexterous as a blade dancer. Its also a metal that can bounce and not lose much of its energy after impact. 2. Gyronite: A metal often found near Occillium who's properties tend towards a circular motion and points along them. When rotary tools made out of these are spun, they maintain a perfect balance. When a weapon is made out of it, they'd tend to cause wide, sweeping motions. When an armor or wearable is made out of it, the user can perform strange acts of balance that defy logic (think a goat climbing a sheer mountain). Thrusting motions though tend to cause the line of the thrust to go in a random direction unless done with slow precision. Probably not a good idea to do flourishes unless you want to stab something valuable on yourself. 3. Regenium: A metal that is able to regenerate itself if broken. Its typically not fast to regenerate, but tools made out of it will last for centuries. Weapons wouldn't lose their edge and would repair themselves when broken. Armor that is dented or severed would un-dent and repair itself. This metal does come with a dark secret though. When it comes into contact with iron, its regeneration properties go wild and the object's original shape becomes mangled. Bullets and ammunition made out of these become some of the most painful weapons to exist, however folks have learned to control the rate of regeneration with iron dust and sulfides. Its typically mixed into an alloy to strengthen it and during smelting its regeneration properties are subdued.
In the world of the story I am writing, magical ores form when mineral deposits form at intersections of Ley Lines and absorb the ambient energies over eons. If not processed and refined correctly, these energies can be dispersed and result in mundane materials. For example, Emberite: magically infused copper, it's special properties allow it to produce, manipulate, and/or redirect thermal energy and flames.
I've been thinking for a while about including a mystical and mysterious metal in the story I'm building, and even though I have references from great works, I love seeing a content creator touching on the subject. Great content, keep up with topics like this!
Fun Fact: Some historians and archeologists now think that the ancient references to Orichalcum were describing something very similar to brass, if not brass itself.
yep. before we understood how zinc worked, the only way to make brass was by accident :) the atlantean mystery power metal is now available at the hardware store in wires, screws, and plumbing fittings :p
1:18 Inaccuracy here. Most metals are not formed deep in the Earth, and especially not formed "from elements." Gold, iron, copper, silver, titanium, aluminum, and many other metals are pure elements, not "formed" from elements. Some metals, such as electrum, brass, bronze, and amalgams, are formed in the Earth, but these are not precious metals. Precious metals mostly pure elements present at the formation of the planet. Gemstones, such as quartz or diamonds, are formed deep in the Earth, not metals.
The things is... Minerals are formed deep in earth. Back in the days we hadn't forged weapon with iron. We did it with magnetite, hematite and others. And even now 99,9% of our industrially produced metals comes in some form of alloys because of this (and because alloys simply better at many things), firstly taken from a mineral that formed alloy by itself. Chemically and physically separated and re-alloyed with composition of alloying metals we need.
In Japan we have a mythological metal called Hihiirokane which is literally translated as fire colored metal. the metal is said to glow like fire and often has fire as its elemental attribute.
Would love to see a video like this on lesser known but still critical metals and minerals from history like zinc, tin, mercury, lead, etc. and their uses. Everyone gets gold, silver, iron, usually copper into their worlds but overlooks the importance of things like tin production for a medieval economy.
Back in the early 1980's the role-playing group (who wanted to work on a game system but never really published it) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute produced "Cold Iron" the literal opposite of most "fantasy" metals. Instead of being "magic" it was "anti-magic." Derived from meteors, this metal would reject the magical reality of the world, providing a field of "anti-magic" assuming it was held in each location for a certain amount of time (thus draining the area of its normal magical properties). Sometimes, in a world of high fantasy, anti-magical metals might be just as effective as magical ones.
Jumping directly from Copper to Bronze without touching on Tin first is problematic, particularly since Tin plays such an important part in other alloys, forming Pewter when combined with Lead and even strengthening cast Iron on the way to Steel.
You are not wrong, yes. I didn't feel Tin had the same 'punch' though as the others. That's why I stuck to only referencing it during the Bronze segment. There were a few metals (fictional as well) that I was debating for a while but decided against including to avoid overloading the video.
You forgot one very big category of fictional metals: Transparisteel (from Star Wars) and Transparent Aluminium (from Star Trek. The ability to create windows out of metal, rather than glass or plastic, creates a host of new opportunities in the design of vehicles, fortifications and even personal armor. Regular shielding materials typically restrict the user's field of vision in favor of physical protection. A transparent metal can provide both armor and an unimpeded view of the surroundings.
@@DH-xw6jp What you call "transparent aluminum" is aluminum **OXIDE**. It doesn't conduct electricity, shatters when bent, can't be forged. Also has many names as different colors of corundum -- a gemstone. Not a metal. "transparent aluminum" is one of those meme ideas the internet spreads, like "fire is plasma" (no it's not) and "flat earth" (no it's not).
@@tsm688 I understand that it isn't _pure_ aluminum. It is aluminum oxynitride, but it is still aluminum + additives. It is the hardest transparent ceramic available currently, but not as brittle as you seem to think since it is used to make high strength ballistic/blast resistant windows and it is also resistant to both acids and radiation with a pretty high optic clarity. In other words, not a pure metal, but certainly not just a meme.
Adamantium is actually an alloy of Adamantine (which is the original metal) that partially lost its natural hardness (something that usually happens when it is melted completely) in order to fuse it with Wolverine's skeletal structure
In the novel I've been kicking around the last few years. Filling out the details and world building. There are no magical metals....the characters don't know that. But still. I really like the idea of things having different names in the real world. Many cultures that speak the same language have different names for things. I have this alloy, called Goldsteel. It's a pale yellow. Harder than bronze, softer than actual steel. But more ductile. Doesn't shatter. It's just fisherman's bronze. Or aluminium bronze in our modern nomenclature. The only reason it never became an intermediate step in real world metal ages. Was just how hard it is to process bauxite (Aluminium) We didn't really discover a way to do so until the advent of electricity. However in a fantasy world. That wouldn't necessarily be a factor. As such. The versatility would shoot way up. Arms, armour, parts, basically most things you'd imagine if a medieval world. Would have progressed entirely differently based on the availability of resources. Aluminium is the most common metal on earth. It was again. Only not more prominent in our history because you have to heat the absolute crap out of it to melt it down conventionally.
@@joseluisbernalpavon448 , Metals are formed as a product of nuclear fusion in stars. At first, stars fuse hydrogen and make helium plus energy. At some point, they fuse three atoms of helium and make carbon. This process repeats over and over making different elements. In small stars like ours, scientists believe it pretty much ends with silicon being fused into iron. That's why silicon and iron are such common elements on Earth's crust. Scientists aren't as sure on elements heavier than iron since it doesn't create energy. One theory is that neutron stars colliding allows heavier elements like iron to fuse into things like copper, gold and uranium. I think that with all the fusion going on deep at the heart of a star, some heavier elements are made even though it is at a "loss" energy wise. That makes sense given the distribution of the elements, explains the "poisoning" of stars, and fits with gravity tending to pull the heaviest elements going towards the core of the star. It also fits with the discovery of Przybylski's Stara star which has rare earth elements including plutonium.
@@lechatrelou6393 , In my fantasy stories, I will have just a couple of points of magic. In effect, that is the new law. The rest of the world must follow the old laws, including how to forge iron and produce steel. It's very difficult for the character although they do succeed. I've got quite a bit of forging, smelting, and even copper and brass casting in my current story. A big problem with bronze is that it requires both copper and tin. Oh it sounds great and it can be great but tin is relatively rare here so I assume it's equally rare there. Zinc is enough more easy to find that they can experiment with it before deciding iron ore is easier to get.
In my story, different metals have different magical properties with an in universe scale determining they're magical "conductivity" and "resistance". Silver snd copper tools are basically wands, while iron burns any mage attempting to use it. This was a way to keep things like locks from becoming obselete. This even extends to things like oricalcum (a rare type of bronze) and meteoric iron on extreme ends of the scale.
For more real world materials that have had massive effects. Plastics have had a massive impact becoming integral to almost everything made today. It combineds many useful properties and can be made into composite.
lets not forget alloys too, such as electrum often used as a form of currency... or damascus steel, which can be difficult to forge, but is strong and uniquely beautiful with each forging...
iv been studying metals in fantasy and fiction sense my teen years and now that im writing my own novels i get to put that knowledge to use! also grate job you covers most of my own notes on the subjects in a comprehensive way. i hope that there will be a time in the near future when im watching a video talking about true sphinx steel and riddle steel from my series.
I have two types of fantasy metals in my story ! First of all, an honorable mention to silver, which is one of the two ingedients used to prevent lycanthropification, a magical virus. But onto the actual metals in my story, there is a category of magical metals alloys called M2 metals, or "Mass Momentum" metal, which regroups multiple different alloys like orichalcum, adamantine (yes, you read that right, TINE, not tium), which are all alloyed from one or more basic metals, and Myst, my world's version of magic. The effects of such an alloy can vary, but the most common and important, is their ability to *gain mass as they accelerate,* making sword swings much more powerful (as F=m×a, augment the m and you greatly increase the F). This kind of metal was used by the Alastans, my version of atlanteans, to conquer every continent when all other civilization was in the Stone Age. The other "metal" has no name, as it is actually solid Myst. It is impossible to manufacture, yet, two swords exist made of the stuff. The white sword, and the black sword. Both are semi-sentient, as slicey as lightsabers, and chose their wielder, remaining locked in space if someone they disapproved of tried wielding it (even if in mid-air)
Silver has all sorts of magical properties in traditional stories from Europe, with jade filling a similar role in Chinese mythology as I understand it.
Metal and smithing is all well and good, but I'd like to see more explored in the areas of magical non-metal materials. Magic textiles, magic ceramics, the properties of materials made from magic animals and plants, magic ice...
I use black iron to reveal the Dark Lady's character. The dark sorceress is autistic and sensitive to pressure, so her hats are extremely light; mostly woven straw. When dealing with the public in her dark sorceress persona she wears a heavy black iron crown, but the crown is actually made from thin sheet metal and weighs only a few ounces.
@@doomdrake123 There may be several atoms in the battery of this phone that are made from primordial lithium, created about 400,000 years after the beginning of time.
I would recommend just learning the history of steel. Since it's been so easy to mass produce for the last 200 years most people don't understand how magical reliable steel is. Even now there's a mind boggling amount of types of steel for different applications. Katana have developed a mythical reputation just because Japan figured out a way to make substandard steel work before they found crucible smelting.
@@Justanotherconsumer It literally is several different metals. Modern metallurgy understands it as a mixture of a couple different forms, with heat treating methods to promote which form dominates and the crystal size of it
There are also so many alloys of steel, with each being unique in its own way, you would think they are different metals entirely. You have steels that can hold an edge but are nearly impossible to sharpen without the right skill or tools because they hold an edge so well, CMP S110V for example. Some that resistant corrosion but cannot hold an edge very well like H1 steel. The riddle of steel is a deep one.
This is nice, im writing a fantasy book and have 4 metals made out of condensed soul energy called "oscurio" , "corrudio", "luminio" and "redentio", each one with its especial uses, this gives a nice perspective on how to use them.
While my setting is more sci-fi than fantasy, metal does still play an important part. Not only are common metals like steel, titanium, and aluminum present, but there's also a rare metal with a slightly greenish hue that (so far) has only been discovered in one system: Highta, the main setting for my universe. This metal, known as Hexanium or Hightan Steel, has two unique properties that make it essential in armor and vehicle construction. While it is mostly similar to beskar, it's hexagonal molecular structure of iron and nickel redirects anything metal coming in at high speeds away from it, even nonmagnetic ones such as aluminum or lead. Also, once it has been forged, it is extremely difficult to melt, requiring the pressure and heat of a neutron star to even begin to heat it enough. Since, so far, it's only been found on Highta, namely the second planet of the system, only Hightan forges are skilled enough to shape it, but this means that it is in virtually every piece of Hightan armor and every vehicle. Any enemies who attack have a tough time taking out their invadee's forces.
Correction: the orichalcum of Atlantis likely wasn't a metal, but rather abundant Amber which was made malleable and turned into a lacquer to coat items and buildings with, giving them a golden hue. Also the big problem with near indestructible materials is, that they are also near impossible to process or shape except with extreme tools, techniques and effort, in unique locations with specific extreme properties or by magic. How about an Adamantium like metal which is resistant to all conventional smithing techniques and can only effectively be shaped by powerful magic, divine power or elementals. Or extremely rare and advanced tools and processes under great cost. The material itself wouldn't even have to be that rare, but those who can actually make use of it are. Also, in a fantasy setting, a steel that never rusts and always shines silvery alone would be a rare and desirable item, even if it had no other exceptional properties to regular steel.
The first and most common ore of copper is a type of semi precious gem. They are very beautiful when polished. Copper was discovered when malachite was heated in a roaring fire.
In my setting, I have a metal called "Jazin" that is formed when Intense magic fields flow through the stone. When forged, it has a draw for magic in it, and the first words used to describe it after its last heat will automatically form an enchantment. As such, those who work with it work in silence.
I was surprised you did not mention H.G.Wells Cavorite, a metal alloy which is functionally anti-gravity (from his 1900-01 story 'The First Men in the Moon,) great for your Sci Fi/steampunk/dieselpunk games.
I've been worldbuilding for almost a decade now, working on a single project. I've designed several metals, though one of the most integral to the main civilization is one that can alter gravity's effect on nearby mass when heated consistently. Heavy objects become lighter, and at a certain point it starts defying gravity entirely. This civilization is made up of various forms of machines - and big ones at that - which can weigh several tons. Early in their history, the metal known as "Flaeryte" was integrated in a thin layer within their bodies. The heat generated from their functioning is distributed across the Flaeryte layer, reducing their weight down to levels that allow them to not crush everything they step or sit on. Some variants - like Griffons - use this to fly higher and faster than would otherwise be possible. For most of the world's history, Flaeryte was viewed in a very negative light, as despite it's insane physics-altering properties, it had the issue of being a royal pain to work with - it would float out of the forge and sometimes take other stuff with it, a cold breeze would cause transport prototypes to crash to the ground, and it sometimes even destroyed artwork with how it could make a statue appear to be holding a floating object - only for it to fall because the source of heat gave out or weakened. It gained a reputation for being more trouble than it's worth, down to it being actively avoided by all but the most stubborn of craftsmen. It eventually found use in technological advancements where it could exist in contained environments that weren't subject to the problems of open air, but to this day only the previously mentioned machine civilization and their creators make much use of it. As a general rule: The world is predominantly magic based. Technology is seen by the majority of people as more effort and more points of failure for the same result. The machine-folk get away with being sci-fi levels of advanced because they cannot use magic, and when facing a magically adept enemy, they're usually outmatched. I think it makes for some fun rivalry between machine and biological characters, too.
In my current story I have a few different types of materials, metals and rules for magig, but one of my favorite things was adding liquad manna. Pure magic from nature that could be harvested only in mana rich area by extracting it from the air and the surroundings naturally rejuvenate it, but over harvesting is possible. The first faction introduced in the story uses this resource when crafting weapons and armor. Like when Blacksmithing they have to heat up the furnace to really high temperature to make the mana turn into a vapor in a special container that makes sure it doesn't just disperse back into the air. As the vapor comes into contact with the coals the moisture changes the fire and heat. Making it possible to then channel magic through the weapons and armor crafted in the furnace. (Which other wise is only possible with runes that Dwarfs keep hidden from other factions or special crystal that only mana users with the crystals elemental attunement is capable of using.)
This really inspired me to put more thought into my metals. Perhaps one that repels itself magnetically, and needs to be heated to a specific temperature from ore in order to be forged...
In my current project, I have an ore I call Ignium. A liquid-like metal that can warp itself based on the user. It's insanely rare to find and will bind itself to the user if they dig up the ore on their own
One of my new favorite novel called Supreme magus introduced a new type of magical metal call davross and is also called living adamant, it's not only stronger and more resilient than adamant but it can also amplify the power of spells that use it as a conduit making it the most valuable material in that world. It is formed when all the impurities inside adamant is removed naturally from bathing in massive amounts of mana that forces the impurities out, and as a result develops a unique magical circulation similar to a living creature
Fun fact: The word "diamond" actually comes from "adamant". It means "unconquerable". It was occasionally mentioned in Greek mythology - Cronus and Perseus both used adamant weapons, and the pillars of the gate to Tartarus are made of it.
My classic fantasy world almost always has these three: Mithril- Light, hard, but very rare and difficult to work. Adamantine- A nearly jet black metal of very high hardness and density Dragonsteel- a steel made through ancient techniques of metal alloying and heating using dragon’s fire
I love the idea of a metal that is both integral to a major world religion AND also legitimately powerful and useful on it's own. You get a conflict of nations worshipping that religion viewing nations that don't as desecrating their religion, while nations that don't worship that religion still see the metal as valuable and worth using. Individual adventurers or citizens can also have a powerful reaction, with those who worship the religion holding such an item reverently or viewing it's use in some 'base' pursuit as desecration, while those who have been scarred by that religion maybe avoid items of that metal, regardless of their origin, and finally the pragmatic adventurers value it for it's properties.
Oh my favourite is always UpsaDaysium from Rocky and Bullwinkle. It's the antigravity metal. Shout out to unobtanium from Avatar, terribly rare and expensive, but it doesn't actually seem to be useful for anything. Melange from Dune isn't a metal but bestows longevity on humans. Orichalcum? I like it. Maybe with properties like Chalcopyrite which is a copper mineral with an iridescent sheen. I do have an ancient underwater civilization returning to the world perhaps while using Orichalcum?
When I was doing some world building and coming up with metallurgy and magical alloys I came up with a basic start. It is magical minerals that can be found sticking to certain mineral veins and sometimes this would be gems, some ores, and also minerals within bones/organs of magical creatures. The main focus of my world building was around the "mirts" who were initially nomadic bronze age species. Bronze was very important whenever they could get the copper and tin to make the alloy and sometimes in limited amounts made by shamanistic redsmiths would work in monster parts making what I'd categorize as the first type of "chimerite" which varies in quality and effect. The mirts then migrate to a new continent where they fight the native goblins who mostly lived underground, these goblins were mining a copper-silver ore rich in magical minerals which they would cold forge into a type of magical obsidian. The mirts would go out of their way to war with the goblins to get this "gobite" which when melted they could separate the copper from the silver. The silver was able to hold onto a lot of the magical minerals making a very pure magical metal called "sithril" that was highly coveted but rather soft for making actual weapons. Then another migration of another species brought iron smelting, one group decided to make a deal with a mirt settlement (the mirts were starting to settle down) which would lead to steel production, steel alloyed with sithril would make mithril, a far better alloy for magical weapons and armor. Steel is usually stronger than mithril though so a wealthy enough warrior would aspire to have both a steel and mithril weapon with sithril or chimerite accessories.
6:00 Mithril 7:12 Adamentum (Its trademarked, but can be found in use as a metal since 1940 in non-marvel work, so probably safe to use?) 7:45 Orichalcum 8:30 Valyrian Steel (somewhat protected, I don't recommend using this) 9:10 Vibranum (also, used by Marvel) 9:30 Uru is Marvels, Úr/Urer could be used but means metal of low quality 9:55 Beskar (trademarked by Lucasfilm)
Thank you for the idea of a deposit upturning kingdoms, it would work so well in a setting of mine. One little element of the setting is a substance called Ichor. On paper it's just a fantasy equivalent to oil and is processed into a weird plastic equivalent which has a strong "Arcanic Grain" to it, meaning it forces magic energy along one path. The thing is that it's kind of the body of deities, as how those work in the setting is that worshipping a deity means you lend it a bit of your soul, and soul stuff needs a physical thing to be attached to. The idea of deposits of ichor forming under grand temples and such was already bumping around my head, but somehow never thought of barons conquering these places just for the Ichor.
This is wonderful. I have actually been exploring the possibilities of world with little to now metal. Going the opposite direction of your video but with your examples many myths could be woven into my world building.
Orichalcum was always so fascinating to me because of a manga/anime called Black Cat, which has it's own take on the fantastic metal. There is a legendary group of assassins and each member wields a weapon made from orichalcum, which they were presented upon becoming a member. This metal is one of the strongest in the world, and is so rare that it's never seen beyond use in these few weapons. The weapons of the Chronos Numbers are nigh indestructible, ridiculously sharp, and the skill of the assassins themselves them is on a completely different level. And the weapons usually have some mythological name such as Hades.
In my late bronze-age campaign setting Megara I've added the fictional metal Immaculum, or "immortal bronze". It has the physical properties of steel and the chemical properties of gold - tough, flexible and able to hold a fine edge like steel, but doesn't tarnish or verdigris like regular bronze. An immaculum artifact looks the same thousands of years later as it does when it's first forged. Iron in my setting is antimagical, it can't be enchanted and it resists magic - a suit of iron armour makes you all but immune to having spells cast on you, and an iron sword will cut through any magical defence like cobwebs. Sorcerers can't even touch it without being burned. Most magical equipment then is made of either bronze or immaculum, and immaculum gear is by far the superior.
In the fantasy world I'm working on, there is a magic crystal called starstone. It came here when a wizard called down meteors whose craters formed massive overlapping rings of land in the ocean with dozens of inland seas. These metors were rich in iron, silver, gold, copper, you name it, but also exceptionally rich in adamantine, making it fairly cheaper than normal. In the heart of those meteors is a starstone, which amplifies magic by orders of magnitude. Most of it is at the bottom of the sea, but they will evaporate off eventually, slowly revealing more ores and starstone. This has led to tensions between the 3 major nations. Because there is no freshwater, all settlements are on the coast of one of these seas with water treatment being a big industry. There is a fourth nation that is fairly new that came from another continent. They aren't as magical as the nations who have lived in proximity to the starstone for centuries, so they had to advance science, making them the only ones with gunpowder. This will be fun trying to figure out.
7:30 Some might consider that bituminous steel is real life alloy cousin of this metal, because it's REALLY durable material, but working with it is a pain in the ass. Mainly it's used for long-term infrastructure or making durable instruments, like knives, working tools etc. Blade made with this technique can hold it's sharpness even been used constantly.
I'm doing a comic universe that's basically D&D in space. There's a metal that does the opposite temp than the temp applied(if you dunk it in liquid nitrogen, it'll get hot/place in a furnace, it'll cool down) It's really good for tech weapons and magitech, mages use it on the tip of staffs so that it won't damage it when casting fire or ice spells. It's hard to work with if you don't have a arcane forge and it's somewhat hard to come by.
To provide a justification for D&D's absurd quantity of electrum coins, in my homebrew D&D campaign, electrum, with its equal amounts of silver and gold, was valuable to mages, especially alchemists, leading to realms run by mages using it for coinage.
So, for my own worldbuilding. Elves are highly sensitive to magnetism, and exessively magnetic metal such as iron or nickel would be of no interest to them. However, to the Drow, pewter, copper and gold play significant social roles. Pewter, easy to mine and forge without too much heat, is the metal mostly used in tool making, especially tools that won't endure a lot of heat, sometimes in combination with copper to make bronze cooking implements. Gold in their culture is mostly used for chastity devices, and thus tend to symbolize both chastity and dynastic dominance. Dwarves tend to work with pewter, lead, copper and gold, being in mountains, with not a lot of iron available. They are known for their intricate pewter work for objects such as cups and ustencils.
If this video served as the ONLY source of inspiration, then it could be The Darksword Trilogy, by Weiss and Hickman (Iirc)! Such a great story, literally centred around the forging and crafting aspects! This channel just got a new sub!
RL nitpick: Metals aren't formed in the earth, but in supernovae. All metals were either on the earth when it formed from the remnants of one, or arrived later via meteorite impact. (Metals are often found in ores, but the atomic elements did not change after their supernovae assembly, except for radioactive decay. They often need to be purified.) Of course, alloying could be considered "creating" new metals, and of course stories with magic can do a lot of creative things.
RL nitpick nitpick: You only need supernovae to produce metals heavier than Iron. Lighter metals can be produced by fusion in stars, or from the decay of heavier elements. Astrophysicists refer to every element other than hydrogen and helium as metals, but even chemists recognize Lithium as a metal. Most of the lithium is thought to have been produced in the big bang, along with hydrogen and helium. Massive stars fuse lithium to make other elements until they get to iron. Some lithium and other lighter metals are also produced by classical novae. Obviously we can also produce metals in artificial fusion reactors. Artificial Technetium was made well before any natural Technetium was discovered.
Astronomers consider everything above Helium to be a 'metal'. Also, everything up to Iron does not require a supernova - and a lot of elements below Iron are metals, even to a non-astronomer. Lithium and Beryllium being good examples.
In my fantasy series "Thelema" I created a fictional metal called "Thelemite" said to be created by the gods. It's used in crafting pendants that all mortal humans require to live - removal of which is instantly fatal and irreversible. Said pendants also convey cryptically a person's life purpose and are each tied to another half belonging to a person's "twin flame," i.e. their soul mate. The metal itself is shown to have a number of material properties. It can make durable weapons (just don't ask where they get it from) as well as masks and veils for use in certain religious cults, but a chain made from it can stretch with a bit of elasticity, or even be snapped under human strength. Perhaps most-notably, however, is Thelemite's ability to act as a conductor of willpower, which is used in the series magic system as all magic is will-based. In most instances, a person must be making physical contact with an object made of Thelemite in order to use this ability. And upon a person's death, their pendants are usually returned to a deep body of water or a river that runs to one, wherein it's said that the "children of the gods" come to recycle the material presumably for use in making new pendants for those yet born. Because of Thelemite's properties as a conductor of spiritual energy, it's also used in the forging of artificial beings - basically living corporations - that work and live and interact with humanity on a daily basis. This process, as well as the government's processes for forging weapons from Thelemite, are highly classified and safeguarded.
In my setting, rather than metals i have two types of magical stones called Dawntite and Duskite respectively which serve as conductors and insulators for mama respectively. Dawntite draws mana in and allows it flow easily while Duskite slows the flow if mana down and suppresses it. While both minerals are used often in magical and anti-magical artifacts they are notably dangerous to handle as both are prone to self-destruct if they absorb too much mana. People have tried mixing the stones into metal alloys but the end result is always a weapon that is more brittle than a pure metal object and probe to violently breaking itself apart if not handled with care.
In my fantasy world, conducting electricity is what determines magical potential. Magical weapons and armor are made of copper or bronze or have copper, silver, or gold inlayed runes. It is a bit of flavor mostly.
In a fantasy series that I'm working on, I'm using metals that are commonly used in dnd, but I'm changing and/or adding a few details to them. Like for example, more common metals like gold and silver will still be used as currency, but their value can change depending on which region the characters are in. More mythical metal metals like adamantine will still have their properties but their origins and history I'm gonna tweak a little bit. For example, adamantine or what the dwarves call "sky iron" has unique properties, but only after experimenting and forging were these properties discovered. Like in it's raw state as adamite, it is compose of a variety of different metals but also filled with gases that made the metal unusable, but after developing a process to release those gases, the adamite becomes adamantine steel and almost completely indestructible.
In my fantasy world where I run D&D, there is a metal called Synchrolite. It's incredibly attracted to carbon, so it's actually incredibly poisonous to most living things. Every round of contact, you only have a 5% chance of not taking immediately lethal damage. And poison immunity doesn't count against it. Being coated in materials that don't contain carbon, like silicon, can let you touch it. But the best way to use it is to have a diamond. The Synchrolite will be attracted into the diamond and away from you. Having contact with diamond is the only way to have a chance of surviving it, without being a god. When stored inside a diamond, Synchrolite can store magic energies and spells. A trained mage can use it to catch incoming spells as well if they know the spell they are trying to catch. It's so rare that the only samples of it that exist in the world are either held by the gods, or gifts to mortals from the gods. One artefact in the world is a diamond staff that has a bunch of spells absorbed into it and has about 9 ounces of Synchrolite absorbed into its core. It can store up to 9the level spells. Of found by the party, it has a 25% chance of having any given spell stored inside, and the magic of the staff can teach a mage any spell absorbed into it as the cost of it not being in the staff anymore. Of course the mage has to be high level enough to cast it.
it'd be cool to see a metal that is otherwise soft enough to crumble like fresh cornbread but requires constant magic flowing through it to be as strong as vanadium steel, like it has to be casted or have specific smiths to work it (plot twist: it's surprisingly easy to learn to work it) but it's common enough that an aftermath of battles have common folk scavenging to use in their everyday farming tools since other metals require actual work to use and craft with
Bridging fantasy and science: Mithril is in fact Aluminium - light, surprisingly durable for its weight, and night unobtainable without advanced technology. Once knowledge of its extraction is lost, nobody can make more, only remelt existing pieces. Good plot hook for isekai-style stories where an engineer reintroduces the process to dwarven lords and becomes the most important smith in the world. Adamantine - I initially wanted to say Titanium(alloys) here, but I think Tungsten fits better. Its tough, but also heavy.
There's one series that delves into what makes magical metals.. well. What they are. Mithril is just plain ol' silver but saturated with a magical energy that makes it draw in and hold mana. And occurs in different grades based on how complete this process is. Silver isn't the only metal to do this, just the only naturally occurring one at the surface people can find and mess with. The MC learns how to enhance other metals, and that the strength of how much a metal is enhanced via infusing this magical energy is based on atomic weight and chemical bonding. Thus enhances denser metals and creates stuff far, far superior to mithril.
The Thunder Warrior's weapons are made with Carpathium, a highly conductable metal found at the top of the Carpathian's largest mountains, the Carpathium is created by the continuous lightning of those mountain peaks. This metal can channel the user's physical energy into a lightning, but the only issue is that it will drain you completely and quite possibly kill you. Which is why the Thunder Warriors require another element, Emerald, which can control the amount of energy the metal uses up. Another cool perk is that if a user's weapon is made by a lot of Carpathium, it can drain clouds of electricity and use it against any opponent, this does still require an emerald though if you do wish to control the amount of electricity it drains from the clouds. As a side-effect of draining your body's energy is that you age considerably quickly, and as for the clouds: if drained suddenly and completely of electricity, the vapor will immediatelly turn into water and it'll fall down like a bucket of water. Carpathium doesn't really have any magical properties, but it can be enchanted by a demon thanks to the emerald. So a few Thunder Warriors are also corrupted by magic, especially the Thunder King, and the rest of Thunder Warrors are either blindly obedient or traitors. An Enchanted Carpathium sword with 20% purity is just as powerful as a regular Carpathium sword which has 60% purity, so you can tell how OP those enchantments are. To be noted that if the demons enchanting the sword wants, it can just retract the sword's enchantment in an instant. A regular Carparthium spear is cool as it can make any place you throw it at explode in a lightning burst, without damaging the spear, but even cooler is the enchanted version which makes it come back to you after using up all of its electricity. More to be added.
for one of my campains I used Electrum as a powerfull conduct and amplifier for magic giving it's natural propreties for transmitting energy and it's brilliance.
My favorite fantasy metal is moon silver from the MTG world of Innistrad, where it really fits the gothic horror setting, where vampires and werewolves are common threats, and the fact that it has the ability to trap demons and comes from the moon gives it that little extra oomph over regular silver
I'm in favor alloys, personally. Like, have there be a substance that gives normal metals strange and fantastical qualities when they are mixed together. You can have it be fairly useless on it's own, and decide how well known the metallurgical processes are to determine the level or rarity. Maybe have different factions have access to the secrets of creating different alloys? I'm also playing around with the idea that mundane metals react to magic in very specific ways, for example that gold is magically inert and can't be changed, destroyed or created by magic. That way, gold is still valuable in the setting, plus you can wear gold-plated armor to protect against spells. Stuff like that. The metal itself doesn't need to be special.
Find even more videos to transform your worldbuilding here: ruclips.net/p/PLDpOcpMPZP3BL8XLQN-8pvW8PAxsS0hrD
Adamantine is actually Greek called adamant ore when referenced
you made a bit of a mistake when you talked about adamantium and included vibranium. Adamantium is an alloy of Vibranium and steel its not its own metal but an alloy
@@fangslore9988 no it is not. Adamantine is its own thing. Caps shield was an alloy of Wakandan vibranium and adamantium.
@@gdragonlord749 otherway around, to make Adamantium they need to combine Vibranium and Seel yes captain america's shield is a vibranium steel alloy labled proto Adamantium but the formula was refined and used on Wolverine's skeleton. its weaker than pure Vibranium but it was all to prevent Wakanda from retaliating and trying to to take it back. plus they were trying to remove its vibration conduction ability for the Weapon X program to ensure it wasn't uncomfortable for the recipients of the alloy
Fun fact:
Adamantine is based off Adamantine, which meant the hardest metal.
from Latin adamantinus "hard as steel, inflexible," from Greek adamantinos "hard as adamant," from adamas (genitive adamantos) "unbreakable, inflexible," as a noun, "hardest material"
Fun Fact 2:
Mithril composite weapons would be best because weight is an important part of weapons and techniques. Force = Mass*Acceleration, so the mass is especially important for crushing weapons. Think of a bowling ball vs a tennis ball being thrown with the same amount of strength.
Turns out copper is kind of magical even in our mundane world: Copper and copper alloys kill bacteria on touch, and even some viruses. We now know how this works, and copper/bronze door handles and bathroom fixtures are coming back with a vengeance, first in healthcare facilities but increasingly in other public spaces. The humble copper may yet turn out to be one of our most valuable metals! In a fantasy setting, we could turn this up to 11, having a metal that heals and maybe even slows the aging process of those who can afford to surround themselves with it. Expect some draconian legislation for theft. (Maybe we should have that for copper thieves - there is a lot of that nowadays.)
Silver also has antibiotic properties.
I love this fact because in my setting copper (which is not called copper) is the only magical material
In mine it's the pure aspect of [Metal] which opposes [Wood] and smaller creatures are very susceptible to such things, further enhancing this property.
Copper is great though it can also be poisonous to people under certain conditions usually only once oxidized and long exposure to the body. In that fantasy setting you could also add negative secondary effects with the misuse of copper. Like if you heal to much with it, it builds up inside your body and causes problems. Maybe you live for a lot longer and healthier but your body’s ability to heal itself without copper gets worse and worse until you have to constantly consume copper to stay alive and well.
A society rich with copper could develop in a way where the eldest and most powerful live for over two centuries and their armies are small but equipped with copper so every soldier can endure way more damage than a normal person could reasonably survive. Therefore that society could afford to train each soldier a lot more since they’re expected to survive most of the time
Every metal has some crazy property. Gold is highly conductive, soft and can be tapped out by hand into foil. Tantalum can not be blemished by any known acid. Cobalt resists super cold, tungsten resists super heat. Titanium is super light for it's tinsil strength. Lead, zinc, tin, copper, nickel, palladium, platinum, iron, molybdenum...on and on, everyone of them has strange and almost "magical" properties.
Something interesting to note is that in an era before modern chemistry, even perfectly mundane smithing might be seen as magical. Some cultures in real life were known to mix bones or other pieces of animals into their iron as sacrifices, accidentally making primitive steel and thus seeming to have worked to gain the gods’ favor. Honestly, most metallurgy seems pretty magical - turning brittle rocks into flexible and powerful weapons, simply by the application of exactly the right heat and rituals?
vikings are the most common example of making proto steel
@@vhaelen326the Japanese had a specific type of one-use kilt that had the ore mixed with the charcoal. It resulted in different types of steel with different carbon concentrations.
Worth noting, the results of this practice were kinda wack. But the ore they had access was absolutely garbage, so the process was still a notable achievement. It reached a half-decent result from utterly terrible ingredients.
@@marcospatricio8283 The folding thing, I remember that...
And it's not just 'many layers', its about sifting all the layers of impurities to the outside, causing only the purest steel to remain.
Think of metallurgy as alchemy in a context of a fantasy world. It kinda literally used to be that in real world before the Enlightenment era...
From my place there's some weapon that needs to be bathed with flowers and incense in its sacred ritual. Though those weapons are more of a charm weapon rather than a battle weapon, they're usually in the shape of a dagger or other small bladed weapon.
What interesting for me is, it is said that a true master blacksmith can mold the weapon with their bare hand without the need to use hammer or other tools
In my current story, there are very powerful weapons created with the collaboration of blacksmiths and glaziers to combine glass and steel with magic.
That's so cool!
Sounds brittle
Make it with Spring Steal and Obsidian Glass. A magical Obsidian Steal Great Sword will lay waste to the enemies while cutting through metal alloys by destroying the molecular bonds.
It also comes with Soul/Spirtual Magic as a bonus.
I'm mad I didn't think of that
Metallic glasses, also known as amorphous metals, are real and have some almost magical properties.
In theory any metal could be made into a metallic glass if you could freeze the molten metal fast enough, but without magic we cannot drop the temperature fast enough except for small quantities or thin film of complex alloys.
The lack of grain boundaries means that metallic glasses have no faults along which to break or to be nucleation sites for corrosion. They are extremely tough and will not rust.
They are technically brittle in that they will shatter before they bend permanently, but it takes a lot more force to bend them than to break crystalline metals and if they do bend (but not enough to shatter) they will spring right back to their proper shape much better than any spring steel.
One of my closest friends with a degree in aerospace engineering once opined that due to its rarity, the difficulty of working it, and its strength, Tolkien's "mithral" was a fantasy analog for titanium.
Titanium is also Wolfram
@@samuelferrell9257, you are incorrect. Wolfram is Tungsten.
Mithral is not from the works of Tolkien. It is the DnD world's knockoff of Tolkien's Mithril. They changed the spelling to try to avoid lawsuits.
@@magister343, pardon me for the frakking typo. "MITHRIL." How's that?
This hypothesis is supported by the fact that Tolkien was reading multiple scientific mediation journals form his time, and they all talked about a new discovery : the process to refine titanium oxyde into titanium metal. Ttitanium indeed being lighter than steel for a similar resistance, with a pale-silver color.
I've always liked the "metal from elsewhere" trope, whether it's from a strange meteor that fell to earth, or the concepts of extraplanar metals used in D&D, where the essence of the plane it came from imbues it.
I do like that trope as well at times, yes, because it comes with the disruption of an existing state/world :) This can be done with something primordial as well though. Basically a metal that is found aeons after the world is already defined and somehow shakes things up. What I like here is that it can have historical/mystical roots that are related to the world itself 🙂
Star metal is best metal 🗡️
It also opens up the good old trope of the alien empire coming for the scraps of their metal that they dropped...
Sokka's sword was the most unique sword in the entire Avatar universe...
@@doragonsureia7288 avatar is over hyped trash. It's the finding Nemo of anime
I have a metal in my story called Valorium. A satin blue metal that is the result of iron being exposed to and soaked in the liquefied mana crystals that can be found in the roots of mana-rich trees. These crystals are created as a byproduct of photosynthesis, leaking out from the roots before crystalizing. The process turns iron into Valorium in the same way carbon turns iron into steel, but infused the iron with mana, allowing for potent channeling, elemental protection, and enchanting.
Man that is legit a cool and well thought out concept!
That really sounds like a cool concept, yes! 🙂
Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon, so would that make valorium/valorite (which is it?) an alloy of iron and mana?
Sweet
@@SabiaSparrowI’m guessing “valorite” is the ore and “valorium” is the refined metal.
Orichalcum is a real metal, a naturally occurring copper-gold alloy found in the Andes. Look up tumbago for details. Of course, Plato’s orichalcum matching the composition and properties of tumbago is just a coincidence.
Yes, in this instance, the goal was to emphasize the mystique around Plato's Orichalcum though, especially given its relation to Atlantis :)
Orichalcum is an ancient brass.
But it was also very recently that we determined it to be real. Of course it also has really good conductive properties. This material's rediscovery is largely a byproduct of the electronics industry.
...or is it?
@@user-md8ep7lf6jBut wasn't it also described to be somewhat like red zircon?
The thing about Vibranium is that there's two variants: Wakandan Vibranium, which you described, and Antarctic Vibranium. Antarctic Vibranium is constantly emiting vibrations that cause other metals to warp, melt, and break when in contact with it, even Adamantium.
This is why it's also called Antimetal.
Which one was Cap's shield made of?
Adamantium is synthetic Vibranium. It's the same element, the same type of atoms, but because of the production process there is a different number/arrangement of bonds between them. Think kinda how many different materials can be made with carbon depending on the number and/or arrangement of bonds between the atoms. Adamantium is an artificial variety of Vibranium, a result of an attempt at a man-made Vibranium. The resulting different physical properties warrant giving it a distinctive name through the same way you give different names to different materials made with carbon, e.g. kevlar, graphene, etc.
Adamantium is also poisonous to humans (kinda like led is) and Wolverine can live with it thanks to his healing superpowers. Moreover, his healing superpowers would have killed him eventually by giving him all sorts of cancers and other stuff, but the adamantine skeleton kills all the mutated stuff and then healing powers reconstruct the body in the proper way, so the skeleton ironically tames his powers in a way that they wont turn against him, effectively improving his health and lifespan.
No,
It's the same vibranium, coming from two different part of the body from a Celestial.
Vibranium is literally what make their body...
@@robberyproductions1363 if we’re going by the books neither it’s made of Proto-Adamantium the best of the best of man-made metals never to be recreated again
A tiny historical tidbit here that might help with world building - there is a misconception that iron was better than bronze. In reality, it was the combination of the abundance of iron and scarcity of tin that made the use of iron tools/weapons become superior. During the Bronze Age collapse, the tin trade was one of the first things that broke down. Iron was initially harder to get, but once they figured out how, it was there and it was functional on its own.
Iron ore is very common but requires much hotter fires to refine or forge into useful tools or weapons. Getting it hot enough to liquify to produce a homogenous metal is even harder.
Once you get to the point where you can smelt iron into steel then nothing else truly compares. Tungsten and titanium can challenge its strength but not workability, bronze and brass can be more plastic and ductile but nowhere near as strong.
Once you get to the point where you can smelt iron into steel then nothing else truly compares. Tungsten and titanium can challenge its strength but not workability, bronze and brass can be more plastic and ductile but nowhere near as strong.
This is flat out wrong. Iron is much stronger than bronze. If your army has bronze weapons and armor and your enemy has iron, you're gonna have a bad time.
@@NinjamanhammerThat really depends on the iron. Good iron is stronger than good bronze, but it is very possible to make horrible iron.
Some ... corrections and additions- since you pointed out that a realistic grounding can make for a more immersive tale :
So... metals are not formed in the earth through pressure. Thats diamonds. Metallic elements are created through fusion in a sun. The presence or absence of certain elements tells us the general size and age of a star or planet for example.
Copper does not usually occur as a pure metal- Its usually encountered as an Ore(Metal in Mineral). it is nicely reactive forming copper oxide - the nice green patina on roofs etc. Coppers tendency to form such a protective patina is what makes it preferable for ornaments and armors... not so much for tools and weapons. But a copper tool that dulled or broke could easily be molten down and forged out again. Compared to stone tools before - THAT WAS MAGICAL!
4:40 Iron. Historians have spent whole documentaries talking about nothing else but this. Having a baseline understanding of the fundamental differences between cast iron, crucible steel, alloyed steel, hardening, tempering and metalworking alone can transform your tale. The metallurgical properties of differently produced steels is vast - it encompasses primitive tools to the intricate patterns of wootz damascus or the pattern welded blades of Samurai swords.
Unless you want to look like a pumpkin, having your tales smith casting swords and forging an edge onto them -> this fascinating metal is your starting point.
Iron deserves its own video.
Gold: Skipping the property that made Gold so sought after there...
It's not just because Gold was rare that it was popular - it was because it is a noble metal. Chemicly noble that is.
It is incredibly hard to get Gold to react - so it can not rust, tarnish or form patinas. Before chemistry, or to the layman - that was a quasi divine property any ruler worth their salt would like to be associated with: "Look, my rule won't change - just like my fancy gold crown!". Also quite the boon on cleaning, as polishing silverware or mirrors was constant hard work.
8 - Valyrian Steel
A good opportunity to come back to "why you need to know about Iron". Swords from a lost civilisation, that are still pristine after centuries ? To some its magic - to others stainless steel properly wrapped in oilcloth.
When they showed a sword of such steel being molten and recast in the series - you could hear the groans of dispair around the world. **Don't. Do. That.** It's incredibly stupid - on the line of "Drinking seawater to survive" stupid.
14:00 "How is your metal worked"
The most important factor in real world applications. Think about it: We have used iron throughout most of humanities history and are still finding ways to improve how we work it. Considering fuelsources, availability of magic and knowledge of alloying can allow you to generate several "magical" effects from fewer base metals.
Instead of coming up with more and more sources for magical metals - you can have just a few base metals, but make narrative differences in how these metals are processed.
For exmample - One of the few ways to kill undead is "Valyrian Steel" - If you want your story to be an expedition to a far distant land, it might be a unique metal that hasn't been found wherever said undead are a problem. If the story should focus on that land, the knowledge to create it could have political implications down the road.
Nation 1 disovered Valyrian Steel, so Nation 2 is sending spies to steal the secret or risk being militarily outclassed down the road.....
etc. etc.
Great comment, and I would like to also stress the point of understanding how important alloying and heat treatment can be:
Alloying is key to making the most use of metals. Often in the sense of getting stronger alloys, but it can bring about entirely new properties, like corrosion resistance in steel and shape-memory of Ni-Ti alloys. Steel can be both magnetic and non-magnetic depending on alloy, with some non-magnetic steels becomming magnetic upon deformation.
On the flip side, some metals do not like mixing: Some just don't mix, like oil and water, others form brittle intermetallics which are rarely of use, and in some cases mere fractions of a percentage to much of the wrong impurity can make a batch of alloy useless for its intendet purpose.
Alloys are also key in determining what heat treatments can be used, as pure metal cannot really be heat treated.
Heat treatment can also have a variety off effects:
- Depending on how quickly it is cooled, the samme steel alloy can be either hard and brittle, or softer but more ductile.
- Wrong heat treatment can cause stainless steel to losse its stainlessness.
- A few days at 600 -700 C will leave most simple steels alloys to soft for for weapon and armour usage.
- Many steels can have their heat treatment redone by heating them to 800 to 1200 C for a while, depending on alloy, and then giving them the new desired treatment.
- Other alloys, some alluminium alloys for examble, are first heatet to a high temperature for a while, cooled, and then kept at a specific temperature for a specified time, of hours to days, to harden. For such alloys, keeping them at too high a temperature can cause them to loose some of the gained strength, or reset the hardening entirely if heated to the temperature of step 1.
From a story perspective, this can mean:
- That a metal from a certain place is regardet as better than the same metals from other regions, if it has a more desireble blend of impurities.
- Someone happened to form a great wearpon or piece of armour, but can't recreate its strength being a lucky alloying accident.
- A once great sword has lost its strength if it was lost in a fire, or kept in a dragons lair.
P.S. there is still a lot of reasearch going into finding new iron alloys that are: Stronger, more corrosion resistant, a cheaper alternative to an existing alloy, or has specific mix of properties, and so on.
@@mikkelwulff5639do you have any recommended reading resources on the history and science of various metals?
@@lordjotamort
For reading resources I only really have my old uni book on material science. :
Materials Science and Engineering, by William D. Callister, JR. and David G. Rethwisch. ISBN: 978-1-118-31922-2
The following two videos might help you decide if it is a rabbit hole you care to delve:
- A primer on a few material properties: ruclips.net/video/BHZALtqAjeM/видео.html
- A primer on metallurgy: ruclips.net/video/PaGJwOPg2kU/видео.html
Though to understand how the concepts go together in order to worldbuild alloys and heat treatments, I can only point to the uni book.
I am much less versed in the history, but have found the following videoes interesting:
- Some on ancient copper mining: https: //ruclips.net/video/FL92iskCSZA/видео.html
- This lecturecovers some of the reasons for the change from bronze to iron and their differing qualities. ruclips.net/video/qSOTZ1t4sFI/видео.html
The latter also touches upon an importaint point I would like to emphasise, if one intents to use material science as a worldbuilding tool: What matters is often not [material property], but [materiable property]/price. i.e. no reason to use the fancy material, if more of a cheaper material can do the same job for cheaper. Thus, the greatest technological leaps are often not to be able to extract, make and/or make use of a material, but to do so cheaply and at scale.
Hope this is of some help, even if it is not much af a reading list.
P.S. I give my cheers to anyone who incorperates phase diagrams into their world building. Three horrays for cooling diagrams.
thank you I was going to point that out too about metal formation, and really the real thing is way more interesting
as a note gold is also rare because suns fuse up to Iron, other meatal like gold, need a lot more energy and are only produced in supernovas, adapting something like that in fantasy or with a magic system seems way more interesting than some earth pressure
Do note that he wasn’t entirely wrong about the whole “tectonic processes are important to ore veins being things” without some of what was described instead there would just be a mess of salts instead of large clumps of say bauxite or taconite
I want to give an example of this from my setting.
The metal in question is essentially a room temperature superconductor for magical energy. When paired with silicate, it can create a battery which can recharge simply from the ambient background magic. However, it is exceedingly difficult to work with.
The ore contains only 15-30% of the metal, with the rest being a mix of silicate, titanium, iron, and a number of others. In order to refine it, you'll need coal which has been heated to 2000° C in an airless environment and then enchanted to burn hotter. The enhanced coal mist then be burned in an oven which magically purifies the air to further increase the heat in the oven.
The final temperature must be roughly 3000° C to extract the metal, though it can be recycled in a furnace burning roughly 315° C.
It also produces extensive waste and only shows up in dwarf settlements.
I spent way too much time figuring out the implications of aluminum as a magic superconductor in a sword and sandal universe, but it's been fun.
how do you reach 2000 C in medieval fantasy setting?
If you burn most of the impurities of coal off you can turn it into a substance called coke,@@royalecrafts6252. With proper ventilation and large billows (which you can easily hook up to something like a water wheel for sufficient power and air volume), you can get the temperature at the center to over 2,200 celcius.
This technology would have been available during the midieval ages.
@@royalecrafts6252 Dragons, maybe.
I'd recommend to adjust the temperatures, as the ore's "other metals" being a mix of silicate, titanium and iron, means that it should suffice to heat it to 1725 C° (titanium's melting point) to separate your metal from the others.
That, or make that the ores contain another unique metal with a melting point of around 3000 C° maybe?
Or maybe make it explicit that the metal bonds with other metals making itself and them more heat resistant or something
Some corrections.
Geological processes bring ORES to the surface, only a hand full of metalic elements occour in native aka pure form, such as copper and gold.
Iron is NOT superior to Bronze. Pure Iron is very soft and Iron weapons are no better then good Bronze weapons, and it rusts badly, the only advantage it has is that it is common and requires no alloying. It was the creation of STEEL, an iron/carbon alloy which is superior to Bronze. Steel was made accidently for a long time before enough control of carbon content could be mastered.
Mithril in the books is simply described as having HALF the weight of steel, having a silver shine and not rusting. Note also that only Dwarves could make it strong, in its raw form it was soft and the elves used it only in decorative manor. When hardened it had the strength of steel, not superior to steel. Subsequent lore and the movies vastly exagerate it's properties to nigh-indestrucatbility. It functionally looks to have been like annodized aluminum.
All of this
Agree with all of the above.
Worth noting that most early steels are also largely comparable to bronze, as while they kept their form better, they tended to crack rather than bend, meaning that they were more prone to catastrophic failures rather than smaller more manageable ones, to the point that most cannons up into the golden age of piracy were bronze, as iron and steel cannons had a tendency to explode while bronze cannons would just loosen (and steel couldn't be recycled at the same quality due to carbon inclusions, while bronze was readily recyclable, making them cheaper in the long run despite the high upfront cost).
And yeah, Mithril sounds is definitely just aluminium with the dwarves mixing in something like scandium or copper plus a bunch of trace stuff like iron and manganese to bring its ultimate yield strength up into the 400+mpa range.
Just adding on, I think he's actually gotten the chemistry of metals very confused. Metals are elements or alloys (mixtures) of elements. The more inert metals are the ones that natural occur in their element form. Reactive metals such as iron and aluminium occur as ores because of their reactivity. There is no such thing as raw elements forming precious metals (unless you're talking about nuclear fusion) because precious metals are all elements themselves. They were naturally there and simply needed to be extracted and purified.
New metals are created by alloying metals with other elements and compounds such as steel being created from a mixture of iron and carbon (and sometimes chromium and nickel). I'm very surprised he doesn't mention steel as an example on how one can use metals in writing. Infusing a metal with other (possibly magical) substances to alter its properties is a wonderful thing to add in your story. It makes you think about how your magic metals will react with other metals. Maybe they lose their magic when alloyed and needs to be pure to be functional. Maybe they can amplify an effect when coupled with another metal. That sounds cool. It also feels like it adds more depth than just calling a fantasy metal in "fantasy steel" because it uses the principles of steel and alloys to create something new.
To me Mithril is closer to Titanium, extremely strong yet lightweight.
If I remember correctly, elves inlaid mithril abd magic into their blades to make them glow in the presence of the enemy. Not just orcs. But only dwarves could make mithril armor. It was also stated that it took enormous amounts of mithril to make a small amount of this hardened mithril.
Nice vid. Worth noting, while Marvel popularized Adamantium, it wasn't the first to use the word to describe an incomprehensibly durable metal. Tolkien even had a similar metal, called Adamant or Adamantine, which was very very durable. Could have cited Marvel's usage as a proper way to adapt existing fantasy metals as inspiration for stories.
You are not wrong, but the reasons I phrased it like I did is mainly based on the actual name. To my knowledge 'Adamantium' was first used in the Marvel Universe. But it is named after 'Adamantine' from Greek mythology, yes, which was used elsewhere before too 🙂
I agree with you, would also like to mention that im non-native speaker when it comes to English, but whenever i came across "adamant" and is derviatives (or how you call it) i always assumed Tolkien used this word as an archaic form of "indestructible" or else, not its own metal. But to be fair i've read tolkiens legendarium in English only in parts, because as i said, it is not my first language, so correct me if i got it wrong
@@TheTaleTinkerer Adamantium verbatim was in other media before. It was in Astounding Stories, for example. Suze Kundu wrote about this exact topic, the coming together of real world chemistry and fiction in a paper in the journal Nature Chemistry.
Further, the reason why "Adamantium" verbatim wasn't used as often is because technically the suffix "ium" in this instance is pseudo-latin, and "Adamantine" is the proper etymological term. The reason Marvel and science fiction in particular use "Ium" to describe fantastical metals like this isn't because it's proper, it's a direct influence from the usage of "ium" on the periodic table at the time to describe what were then newly discovered synthesized elements.
Realistically, such metals would not use that suffix if they existed in a time before that suffix was used to describe metals, and far before it was used to describe new elements. Marvel's Adamantium not only isn't a pure element (it's an alloy), but it's also ancient. So there's quite a bit of evidence that they didn't come up with the name themselves but lifted it from a different setting and put their own spin on its history, as Marvel is wont to do. This is not at all a criticism or sleight against them, they are really good at what they do, hence why you can find "Adamantium" in fiction described in such a similar way decades before Marvel used it, but Marvel still gets the credit
@@TheTaleTinkerer "Adamantium" is the Latin genitive plural form of "Adamans" or "Adamas," which can either be the present participle for the verb "coveting" (ad+amans is literally "loving at" or "loving towards," but the prefix acts as an intensifier that tends to imply a very possessive form of love) or the word for "diamond" or "steel."
It also seems like a natural way to form a Latin adjective meaning "made of Adamant," although I haven't personally come across it beign used that way in Latin sources.
"Adamas" is a Greek term meaning "invincible" or "unconquered," which was used as the word for any very hard things. It most often meant diamond, but could be used for other hard stones like corundum (ruby or sapphire) and for very hard alloys of steel.
Adamas is a Greek 3rd declension noun which became a Latin third declension noun when borrowed into Latin. That means it was spelled just like the native Latin word Adamans in every declined form except the nominative singular. (Well, some Latin writers might preserve the Greek accusative forms Adamanta/Adamantas instead of Adamantem/Adamantes, and some would change the nominative to be Adamans too, but most would use the unaltered nominative/vocative form with the standard 3rd declension Latin endings for all oblique cases.
Adamantine is an Anglicized form which would not be found in Greek mythology unless translated into English.
'adamant' is also an archaic word for diamond. tolkien used it to refer to diamond like stones sometimes I think
One thing I’ve looked into is applying real-world metalworking concepts to fantasy, and one intriguing thing stood out to me. In the Forgotten Realms setting of D&D, adamantine is allegedly made by mixing large proportions of adamant ore, silver, and electrum, and adamant ore is said to be ferrous, so there’s iron there too. Typically mixing that many metals in roughly equal measure makes a brittle intermetallic compound, but sometimes it makes something called a high entropy alloy, characterized by extreme corrosion resistance, maintained strength at high heat, and high hardness. And sure enough, those characterize adamantine.
Materials science is fun!
I'd like to go further into material science and have an amorphous metal/metallic glass which can only be made by using magic to cool the molten metal too fast for it to crystallize. If it cools fast but still crystalizes it would be brittle and weak, but if it cools so fast that it has no grain boundaries then it is extremely tough (although technically still brittle, as it won't even start to bend unless under several times more force than would break any crystalline metal but cannot bend much before it shatters. )
@@magister343 ICE had a similar thing in Laen, a magic glass that needed cold forges to forge. When they wrote Middle Earth Role Playing they imported their supernatural materials into their version of Middle Earth, and later I think Laen was the inspiration for "glass weapons" in Daggerfall, Morrowind etc.
Big difference is that Laen IIRC is supposed to be strong but extremely flexible and suffer from almost no permanent deformation: Turn a Laen sword into a circle with its tip touching its hilt and it will spring back to its original shape without any permanent damage or weakening.
I would like to make one small clarification, IRON WAS NOT STRONGER THAN BRONZE, by the time people could make use of iron, the casting and smithing technique for bronze made it far better, iron was considered a mass production low quality thing. Have this in mind too when making fantasy metals
Pure iron is soft but the accidental inclusion of carbon happens easily enough that people quickly were making low grade steel rather than pure iron. It's actually harder to make soft pure iron than it is to make low grade mild steel that has carbon inclusions.
@@thelaughinghyenas8465 I didn't mean it in that way, the iron tools they produced would be weaker than the bronze ones because they would be more proficient at extracting the metal from the ore, making the item and reinforcing it, per example, while bronze is often cast to a mold with the desired shape and hammered afterwards to "forge" it in cold, iron ore needs to go to the furnance twice, once at lower temperature and a second time hotter so it doesn't weaken, then you need to smash the ingot while hot into a decent shape to then temper it, generations upon generations would need to practice with a much costly-to-produce metal to realize the right steps to reach it's maximum potential while they already know what to do with bronze
@@joseluisbernalpavon448 , Once you get a clean billet of wrought iron beaten out, you can work and use it as is. If you do manage by the various ways to make a semi-decent quality of steel, don't you quench to harden it at the higher heat first and then temper it like overnight at a much lower heat? Yes, iron and steel melt at a higher temperature but once you get that idea of heat and beat then you don't need to mess with mess with making the mold, heating the mold, crucibles, pouring it, getting it to go to fill out the mold, getting the sprues off and finishing it.
@@thelaughinghyenas8465 I think we have a missunderstanding here.
Yes, once you get to make half decent iron weapons and armor they will surpass bronze's in quality, quantity and ease of manufactoring, but for that you need to advance your technology in the specific area of iron smithing, and in the prehistoric times you don't often have the opportunity to spend resources, time and effort when you don't know how to or even if it can be improved, you know it because we live in an information based society thousands of years in the future where experimentation, discovery and advancement is our motto, but a dude in the middle of the iron age won't know where to start, specially because the discoveries that one tribe makes may not spread to another one or may even be forgotten (and it happened a lot)
Another thing is that just because you learned to use iron it doesn't make you able of making the same recipes plus quality bonus for harder metal, the greeks already had bronze breasplates, but until the late middle ages iron/steel ones wouldn't appear, why? because it is far harder to work with, so when making armor one would make chainmail, scalemail and brigandine from small pieces of metal, wich was easier, yes they would often be better than the bronze armor in most cases, but how much time would pass untill someone thought on a design, the armor, smithing techniques and specific tools for it when they already have something 100% usefull, yeah eventually they will make it better, but until it is done and said tech is spreaded widly enough bronze items are used and are better than the iron ones and that span of time is the one I was referring to in my first comment (because it wasnt a small ammount of time) so people could use the same concept of a new metal with great potential been the underdog for a time until the correct manufactoring method is created for it and everyone uses it
Which is why iron was used for mass production and the better but more complicated process of working with bronze fell out of practice over time
Surprised there was no mention of Brandon Sanderson's book series Mistborn. The entire magic system of Mistborn (one of the best magic systems ever created imo) is based on different metals and powers associated with those metals, and even includes its own legendary fantasy metals on top of the mundane real-world metals, called Atium and Larasium.
Technically Mistborn has 3 different magic systems that all focus on metals, called Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy.
Glad someone mentioned Mistborn!
And missing Shardblades/Shard plate from Stormlight.
True, but he's talking about how metal is special in and of itself, which doesn't really apply to Mistorn as it's the people and how they use it more than the metal itself.
I'm not surprised because mistborn is rarely ever mentioned in conversations about fantasy
@@delpheus7658rarely?
In ancient legends, before there was adamantium, there was Adamant. In history, there was oricalcum.
In my fantasy story, there aren't any inherently different metals than reality, but there are a series of runes you can carve into metal and other substances to make it indestructible, called the Adamant Enchantment. Anything given that enchantment is called Adamant.
but "adamant" was a clear gemstone, not a metal. It might even have just meant the color, as in an "adamant stone" meant a clear one without exactly distinguishing what kind it was.
A thing to make note of regarding mithril is that while it is magnificent for armor, it would be absolute crap for weapons, as it would be far too light to deliver an impact. Weapons need mass to deal damage, and mithril is just too light.
As for orichalcum, that's brass. Which would've been a terrifyingly advanced material in the copper age. :D
Actually no, because it can be razor sharp and never dull, it would be like a lightsaber. The Dwarf King of Moria used to have a legendary Mithril Axe
@@ghostdreamer7272 You sure that's not something cooked up in fanfiction or one of the games/movies? I'm pretty sure that's not mentioned in Tolkien's writings - and an axe is an absolute crap choice for a super-light weapon, an axe absolutely depends on mass to work effectively.
Speed x mass = the kinetic energy contained in an object. Swing anything fast enough and it will cut. A bullet only weighs a few grams but does a heck of a lot of damage due to the speed it travels.
@@samuelferrell9257 True, but I've yet to see someone able to swing an axe at 2,000 mph.😅
I think mithril would make for great rapiers, as a long thin light blade can move fast enough near the tip to more than make up for its low mass and be a very effective cutter. It would be a poor choice for an axe though.
One thing I want to add is that we can show a lot about the different cultures of the world with how they treat metals and blacksmithing and jobs related to it.
Let take an Example. You are an adventurer, who just gotten his hand on some Grand Sliver. A metal which is helpful to adventurers who lack magic training as the metal collects mana in itself slowly.
You wanted to make a dagger with the metal and enchant the said dagger with the spell "Extreme posion".
You can go to the Dwarf City, Bwirt, the City of Blacksmithes but the city only allow low tier enchant and mid level mining enchantment. You could then go to the other dwarf city, Felius, where enchantment of mid tier are allowed.
The human, city, Sivis, allow both blacksmithing and mid tier enchantment, but they take more money.
Or an elf blacksmith is an option too. They do both for pretty cheap but your weapon will be hard locked to be only upgraded or repaired by an elf blacksmith.
You could add a lot of more details like dwarf don't allow mid tier combat enchament in the Briwt as combat enchament have higher failure rate and exploding rate or something.
So much can be told about each race without having to go on monologue on it.
Some great insights, yes - appreciate the comment. This is one of the reasons I decided to make a video about such a specific topic. There is so much depth in it exactly because it ripples through society, geography, etc 🙂
So, fantasy metals you talked about:
-super hard and super light one
-super durable one
-super strong and magical one
-super hard, super light and magical one
-absorbing and reflecting energy - ok, this one is really unique
-super durable and magical
-super durable
Sooo... they are (beside vibranium) better version of iron, sometime with magical property (but mostly they are limited to holding enchantments).
Where are really unique ones? Cothorsis, that disable lightsabers? Dvimerit, blocking magic abilietes? Silver or Witcher universe, deadly to magical beasts? Metal based potions of Husite Trilogy, granting powerfull bufs?
yeah, they all seemed the same, except for mitrhil which is **also** lightweight.
In a story Im working on with a friend group, one species can make a alloy called nihilium. Whats important about Nihilium is that its literally made of this species "essense". They're essentially dark, angels of a void like space which is the anathema to traditional life and yet a lover of the settings magic system. By merging their flesh with mundane materials they make Nihilized variants of them - the metallic material is somewhat alive, being able to hold simple instructions which are important for various weapons. Even more importantly, nihilized materials can survive this Void if fueled properly with "mana". The most interesting aspect of it is of course the whole "You have a species with little to no armament who makes a great material" paired with "semi-living metal that seems to grow a life of its own if taken care of" which has lead to many interesting stories
I had a story where the MC had a sword made of diamond-steel - basically, he used diamond dust instead of carbon in the crucible process. The sword was so sharp that it needed a special scabbard (with cork wheels to hold the side of the blade) and would sing when used.
You are aware that diamonds are made of carbon right?
@@BigCheeeese8You are aware that diamond dust is distinct from the carbon used in alloying, right? Graphite is WILDLY different in crystal structure than diamond, regardless of them being composed of the same element
@@ford950 Oh my mistake then. Sorry for the misinformation.
@@BigCheeeese8 @for950 Is confidently incorrect here. It is the same carbon- The difference between coal, graphite and diamond is the molecular lattice, which is broken down in the metals freshening process. Another impact are the impurities you get WITH the carbon. Hydrogen, Sulphur, Phosphor - things you can find around coal, but rarely in diamonds. Simply put : Iron takes carbon atoms and forms various Iron-Carbon molecules so you get steel.
In a crucible process, you would get far fewer impurities using ground up diamond then charcoal. Also ensured you were REALLY REALLY PRECISE with how much you added, so the carbon content was correct and you didn't spend fortunes.
Wouldn't have made a direct impact on the sharpness of a blade - but for a fantasy setting... GO FOR IT! have the Martensite crystals in the blades edge shine with a rainbow hue reminiscent of the diamonds sacrificed in its creation....
@@BigCheeeese8 diamond is not resistant to shattering though, so any story that uses it for a striking weapon, needs something that will keep it from doing so. That could be another metal / element that gets mixed in during the forging process... or some sort of magic process.
I have a metal in my sci-fi story whose original name was lost. It allowed for the rise of the ancient empires and was the prize sought by the invading titans. Normally found high in the mountains in the form of naturally occurring hexagonal shaped crystals, the metal is prized for the structure of the crystal storing potential energy. Breaking the crystal causes the metal to discharge the stored energy as kinetic force, which gave rise to the myths the crystals are alive as they push away when hurt. With proper smelting techniques, the crystal can be changed in shape and form through alloying without completely damaging the crystalline structure and discharging the stored energy. This allows weapons that seem to want to move through the air, allowing for faster and more decisive blows from those trained in making use of these movements. Various alloys of this metal are also used for projectile weapons, as projectiles fly more accurately and hit harder with this material. Finally, in the raw crystal form some inventors learned to slowly chip and grind away at the crystal in controlled amounts to kinetic energy which can be transferred into other devices or forms --it's basically a fuel source.
The titan invasion and global war caused the fall of the ancients and the destruction of the invaders. All but myth of the crystal and the alloying process were lost, making any and all relics forged with the alloys legendary artifacts growing rarer and rarer each year. The new civilizations that arose to pick up the pieces after the total destruction have achieved using the mined crystals as fuel, but no one has successfully created a usable alloy yet. Additionally, the legacy of the titans remains in the form of ancient apex predators that roam the world consuming veins of this metal for their own purposes, as these bio-engineered beasts digest the crystals and infuse their bodies with the material. For the most part the war beasts leave pockets of civilization alone, but clashes with them happen as people explore the ruins of the world looking fore more relics.
I've always wanted to add alternative crafting materials such as metals with odd properties. I have 3 that i've been wanting to use in something
1. Oscillium: a metal that when used in a back and forth motion well increase the momentum, It would make things like handsaws, thrusting weapons, and short bursts of movement more efficient because of a rubber-banding effect on them. Swinging in an arc is often difficult due to it wanting to rebound often causing people to become off balance, but with a proper technique can be used to great effect like a massive sword wielder becoming as dexterous as a blade dancer. Its also a metal that can bounce and not lose much of its energy after impact.
2. Gyronite: A metal often found near Occillium who's properties tend towards a circular motion and points along them. When rotary tools made out of these are spun, they maintain a perfect balance. When a weapon is made out of it, they'd tend to cause wide, sweeping motions. When an armor or wearable is made out of it, the user can perform strange acts of balance that defy logic (think a goat climbing a sheer mountain). Thrusting motions though tend to cause the line of the thrust to go in a random direction unless done with slow precision. Probably not a good idea to do flourishes unless you want to stab something valuable on yourself.
3. Regenium: A metal that is able to regenerate itself if broken. Its typically not fast to regenerate, but tools made out of it will last for centuries. Weapons wouldn't lose their edge and would repair themselves when broken. Armor that is dented or severed would un-dent and repair itself. This metal does come with a dark secret though. When it comes into contact with iron, its regeneration properties go wild and the object's original shape becomes mangled. Bullets and ammunition made out of these become some of the most painful weapons to exist, however folks have learned to control the rate of regeneration with iron dust and sulfides. Its typically mixed into an alloy to strengthen it and during smelting its regeneration properties are subdued.
Regenium sounds a bit like real life nitinol alloys. They have shape memory, getting their shape back after being heated.
In the world of the story I am writing, magical ores form when mineral deposits form at intersections of Ley Lines and absorb the ambient energies over eons. If not processed and refined correctly, these energies can be dispersed and result in mundane materials.
For example, Emberite: magically infused copper, it's special properties allow it to produce, manipulate, and/or redirect thermal energy and flames.
I've been thinking for a while about including a mystical and mysterious metal in the story I'm building, and even though I have references from great works, I love seeing a content creator touching on the subject. Great content, keep up with topics like this!
Fun Fact: Some historians and archeologists now think that the ancient references to Orichalcum were describing something very similar to brass, if not brass itself.
I've never heard about that before. Need to check that out, thanks for the tip 🙂
yep. before we understood how zinc worked, the only way to make brass was by accident :) the atlantean mystery power metal is now available at the hardware store in wires, screws, and plumbing fittings :p
1:18 Inaccuracy here. Most metals are not formed deep in the Earth, and especially not formed "from elements." Gold, iron, copper, silver, titanium, aluminum, and many other metals are pure elements, not "formed" from elements. Some metals, such as electrum, brass, bronze, and amalgams, are formed in the Earth, but these are not precious metals. Precious metals mostly pure elements present at the formation of the planet. Gemstones, such as quartz or diamonds, are formed deep in the Earth, not metals.
The things is... Minerals are formed deep in earth. Back in the days we hadn't forged weapon with iron. We did it with magnetite, hematite and others. And even now 99,9% of our industrially produced metals comes in some form of alloys because of this (and because alloys simply better at many things), firstly taken from a mineral that formed alloy by itself. Chemically and physically separated and re-alloyed with composition of alloying metals we need.
In Japan we have a mythological metal called Hihiirokane which is literally translated as fire colored metal. the metal is said to glow like fire and often has fire as its elemental attribute.
I love how Mistborn used metals. There is a combination of real and fictional metals and they all had different magical powers when consumed
Would love to see a video like this on lesser known but still critical metals and minerals from history like zinc, tin, mercury, lead, etc. and their uses. Everyone gets gold, silver, iron, usually copper into their worlds but overlooks the importance of things like tin production for a medieval economy.
Back in the early 1980's the role-playing group (who wanted to work on a game system but never really published it) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute produced "Cold Iron" the literal opposite of most "fantasy" metals. Instead of being "magic" it was "anti-magic." Derived from meteors, this metal would reject the magical reality of the world, providing a field of "anti-magic" assuming it was held in each location for a certain amount of time (thus draining the area of its normal magical properties). Sometimes, in a world of high fantasy, anti-magical metals might be just as effective as magical ones.
Jumping directly from Copper to Bronze without touching on Tin first is problematic, particularly since Tin plays such an important part in other alloys, forming Pewter when combined with Lead and even strengthening cast Iron on the way to Steel.
You are not wrong, yes. I didn't feel Tin had the same 'punch' though as the others. That's why I stuck to only referencing it during the Bronze segment. There were a few metals (fictional as well) that I was debating for a while but decided against including to avoid overloading the video.
You forgot one very big category of fictional metals:
Transparisteel (from Star Wars) and Transparent Aluminium (from Star Trek.
The ability to create windows out of metal, rather than glass or plastic, creates a host of new opportunities in the design of vehicles, fortifications and even personal armor. Regular shielding materials typically restrict the user's field of vision in favor of physical protection. A transparent metal can provide both armor and an unimpeded view of the surroundings.
Transparent aluminum isn't a fictional metal.
It is actually real.
There are MANY others I didn't include, yes. Had to make a cut somewhere to not blow up the video too much 🙂
@@DH-xw6jp Isn't a fictional metal because it isn't a metal. It is a ceramic.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride
@@DH-xw6jp What you call "transparent aluminum" is aluminum **OXIDE**. It doesn't conduct electricity, shatters when bent, can't be forged. Also has many names as different colors of corundum -- a gemstone. Not a metal.
"transparent aluminum" is one of those meme ideas the internet spreads, like "fire is plasma" (no it's not) and "flat earth" (no it's not).
@@tsm688 I understand that it isn't _pure_ aluminum.
It is aluminum oxynitride, but it is still aluminum + additives.
It is the hardest transparent ceramic available currently, but not as brittle as you seem to think since it is used to make high strength ballistic/blast resistant windows and it is also resistant to both acids and radiation with a pretty high optic clarity.
In other words, not a pure metal, but certainly not just a meme.
7:31 adamantium was from DnD first... as a magical ore
Adamantium is actually an alloy of Adamantine (which is the original metal) that partially lost its natural hardness (something that usually happens when it is melted completely) in order to fuse it with Wolverine's skeletal structure
Incorrect.
Adamantium first appeared in Marvel Comics lore in 1969.
Adamant, later renamed Adamantine, first appeared in Greyhawk in 1975.
Adamantine is a material found in Greek Myths. Doubtless Adamantium is based on it.
In the novel I've been kicking around the last few years. Filling out the details and world building.
There are no magical metals....the characters don't know that. But still.
I really like the idea of things having different names in the real world. Many cultures that speak the same language have different names for things.
I have this alloy, called Goldsteel. It's a pale yellow. Harder than bronze, softer than actual steel. But more ductile. Doesn't shatter.
It's just fisherman's bronze. Or aluminium bronze in our modern nomenclature.
The only reason it never became an intermediate step in real world metal ages. Was just how hard it is to process bauxite (Aluminium)
We didn't really discover a way to do so until the advent of electricity.
However in a fantasy world. That wouldn't necessarily be a factor.
As such. The versatility would shoot way up. Arms, armour, parts, basically most things you'd imagine if a medieval world. Would have progressed entirely differently based on the availability of resources.
Aluminium is the most common metal on earth. It was again. Only not more prominent in our history because you have to heat the absolute crap out of it to melt it down conventionally.
Iron, gold and copper are all central to my story, but more as limits. Metals are actually formed by stars, not by the Earth.
@@joseluisbernalpavon448 , Metals are formed as a product of nuclear fusion in stars. At first, stars fuse hydrogen and make helium plus energy. At some point, they fuse three atoms of helium and make carbon. This process repeats over and over making different elements. In small stars like ours, scientists believe it pretty much ends with silicon being fused into iron. That's why silicon and iron are such common elements on Earth's crust.
Scientists aren't as sure on elements heavier than iron since it doesn't create energy. One theory is that neutron stars colliding allows heavier elements like iron to fuse into things like copper, gold and uranium. I think that with all the fusion going on deep at the heart of a star, some heavier elements are made even though it is at a "loss" energy wise. That makes sense given the distribution of the elements, explains the "poisoning" of stars, and fits with gravity tending to pull the heaviest elements going towards the core of the star. It also fits with the discovery of Przybylski's Stara star which has rare earth elements including plutonium.
So... Just like IRL then ?
@@lechatrelou6393 , In my fantasy stories, I will have just a couple of points of magic. In effect, that is the new law. The rest of the world must follow the old laws, including how to forge iron and produce steel. It's very difficult for the character although they do succeed. I've got quite a bit of forging, smelting, and even copper and brass casting in my current story.
A big problem with bronze is that it requires both copper and tin. Oh it sounds great and it can be great but tin is relatively rare here so I assume it's equally rare there. Zinc is enough more easy to find that they can experiment with it before deciding iron ore is easier to get.
In my story, different metals have different magical properties with an in universe scale determining they're magical "conductivity" and "resistance". Silver snd copper tools are basically wands, while iron burns any mage attempting to use it. This was a way to keep things like locks from becoming obselete. This even extends to things like oricalcum (a rare type of bronze) and meteoric iron on extreme ends of the scale.
I am going to include Metalic Hydrogen as a mystical metal in my setting.
For more real world materials that have had massive effects. Plastics have had a massive impact becoming integral to almost everything made today. It combineds many useful properties and can be made into composite.
lets not forget alloys too, such as electrum often used as a form of currency... or damascus steel, which can be difficult to forge, but is strong and uniquely beautiful with each forging...
He mentioned Valyrian Steel, which is the 'magic' version of Damascus Steel.
I didn't even think of this! Thank you, this video was really helpful.
Glad it was helpful! 🙂
iv been studying metals in fantasy and fiction sense my teen years and now that im writing my own novels i get to put that knowledge to use! also grate job you covers most of my own notes on the subjects in a comprehensive way.
i hope that there will be a time in the near future when im watching a video talking about true sphinx steel and riddle steel from my series.
I have two types of fantasy metals in my story !
First of all, an honorable mention to silver, which is one of the two ingedients used to prevent lycanthropification, a magical virus.
But onto the actual metals in my story, there is a category of magical metals alloys called M2 metals, or "Mass Momentum" metal, which regroups multiple different alloys like orichalcum, adamantine (yes, you read that right, TINE, not tium), which are all alloyed from one or more basic metals, and Myst, my world's version of magic. The effects of such an alloy can vary, but the most common and important, is their ability to *gain mass as they accelerate,* making sword swings much more powerful (as F=m×a, augment the m and you greatly increase the F). This kind of metal was used by the Alastans, my version of atlanteans, to conquer every continent when all other civilization was in the Stone Age.
The other "metal" has no name, as it is actually solid Myst. It is impossible to manufacture, yet, two swords exist made of the stuff. The white sword, and the black sword. Both are semi-sentient, as slicey as lightsabers, and chose their wielder, remaining locked in space if someone they disapproved of tried wielding it (even if in mid-air)
Silver has all sorts of magical properties in traditional stories from Europe, with jade filling a similar role in Chinese mythology as I understand it.
@@Justanotherconsumer that's cool ! I'll see if I can put it in the lore as well !
Metal and smithing is all well and good, but I'd like to see more explored in the areas of magical non-metal materials. Magic textiles, magic ceramics, the properties of materials made from magic animals and plants, magic ice...
I use black iron to reveal the Dark Lady's character. The dark sorceress is autistic and sensitive to pressure, so her hats are extremely light; mostly woven straw.
When dealing with the public in her dark sorceress persona she wears a heavy black iron crown, but the crown is actually made from thin sheet metal and weighs only a few ounces.
All elements including metals are made in the core of stars.
Except hydration helium and a small percentage of lithium
No, all elements frrom lithium till iron are made in cores of stars. Heavier elements are formed during novas.
@@doomdrake123 I mean elements higher than iron are made in the cores of dying stars
@@doomdrake123 I love you mate. I love all smart minds.
@@doomdrake123 There may be several atoms in the battery of this phone that are made from primordial lithium, created about 400,000 years after the beginning of time.
So simple , but amazing video. Thank you so, sooo much! This video alone helps me a ton with my first ever world building! Thank you!
I would recommend just learning the history of steel. Since it's been so easy to mass produce for the last 200 years most people don't understand how magical reliable steel is. Even now there's a mind boggling amount of types of steel for different applications. Katana have developed a mythical reputation just because Japan figured out a way to make substandard steel work before they found crucible smelting.
we call so many different kinds of metals "steel", it's kind of like calling all food "carbon" :)
@@tsm688steel is inherently versatile as it’s an alloy, so it may as well be several different metals.
@@Justanotherconsumer It literally is several different metals. Modern metallurgy understands it as a mixture of a couple different forms, with heat treating methods to promote which form dominates and the crystal size of it
There are also so many alloys of steel, with each being unique in its own way, you would think they are different metals entirely. You have steels that can hold an edge but are nearly impossible to sharpen without the right skill or tools because they hold an edge so well, CMP S110V for example. Some that resistant corrosion but cannot hold an edge very well like H1 steel. The riddle of steel is a deep one.
@@pauljanetzke Yeah, real life steel has better lore than any fictional material I know
This is nice, im writing a fantasy book and have 4 metals made out of condensed soul energy called "oscurio" , "corrudio", "luminio" and "redentio", each one with its especial uses, this gives a nice perspective on how to use them.
While my setting is more sci-fi than fantasy, metal does still play an important part. Not only are common metals like steel, titanium, and aluminum present, but there's also a rare metal with a slightly greenish hue that (so far) has only been discovered in one system: Highta, the main setting for my universe. This metal, known as Hexanium or Hightan Steel, has two unique properties that make it essential in armor and vehicle construction. While it is mostly similar to beskar, it's hexagonal molecular structure of iron and nickel redirects anything metal coming in at high speeds away from it, even nonmagnetic ones such as aluminum or lead. Also, once it has been forged, it is extremely difficult to melt, requiring the pressure and heat of a neutron star to even begin to heat it enough. Since, so far, it's only been found on Highta, namely the second planet of the system, only Hightan forges are skilled enough to shape it, but this means that it is in virtually every piece of Hightan armor and every vehicle. Any enemies who attack have a tough time taking out their invadee's forces.
Correction: the orichalcum of Atlantis likely wasn't a metal, but rather abundant Amber which was made malleable and turned into a lacquer to coat items and buildings with, giving them a golden hue.
Also the big problem with near indestructible materials is, that they are also near impossible to process or shape except with extreme tools, techniques and effort, in unique locations with specific extreme properties or by magic.
How about an Adamantium like metal which is resistant to all conventional smithing techniques and can only effectively be shaped by powerful magic, divine power or elementals. Or extremely rare and advanced tools and processes under great cost. The material itself wouldn't even have to be that rare, but those who can actually make use of it are.
Also, in a fantasy setting, a steel that never rusts and always shines silvery alone would be a rare and desirable item, even if it had no other exceptional properties to regular steel.
The first and most common ore of copper is a type of semi precious gem. They are very beautiful when polished. Copper was discovered when malachite was heated in a roaring fire.
your videos are so well put together that i was surprised to see you only had 5.7k subs. You have earned my sub!
Thank you for the support and kind words :)
I got a fiction material idea imagine a plastic that acts like a metal but has any priorities depending how you cut it
In my setting, I have a metal called "Jazin" that is formed when Intense magic fields flow through the stone. When forged, it has a draw for magic in it, and the first words used to describe it after its last heat will automatically form an enchantment. As such, those who work with it work in silence.
I was surprised you did not mention H.G.Wells Cavorite, a metal alloy which is functionally anti-gravity (from his 1900-01 story 'The First Men in the Moon,) great for your Sci Fi/steampunk/dieselpunk games.
I've been worldbuilding for almost a decade now, working on a single project. I've designed several metals, though one of the most integral to the main civilization is one that can alter gravity's effect on nearby mass when heated consistently. Heavy objects become lighter, and at a certain point it starts defying gravity entirely.
This civilization is made up of various forms of machines - and big ones at that - which can weigh several tons. Early in their history, the metal known as "Flaeryte" was integrated in a thin layer within their bodies. The heat generated from their functioning is distributed across the Flaeryte layer, reducing their weight down to levels that allow them to not crush everything they step or sit on. Some variants - like Griffons - use this to fly higher and faster than would otherwise be possible.
For most of the world's history, Flaeryte was viewed in a very negative light, as despite it's insane physics-altering properties, it had the issue of being a royal pain to work with - it would float out of the forge and sometimes take other stuff with it, a cold breeze would cause transport prototypes to crash to the ground, and it sometimes even destroyed artwork with how it could make a statue appear to be holding a floating object - only for it to fall because the source of heat gave out or weakened. It gained a reputation for being more trouble than it's worth, down to it being actively avoided by all but the most stubborn of craftsmen.
It eventually found use in technological advancements where it could exist in contained environments that weren't subject to the problems of open air, but to this day only the previously mentioned machine civilization and their creators make much use of it.
As a general rule: The world is predominantly magic based. Technology is seen by the majority of people as more effort and more points of failure for the same result. The machine-folk get away with being sci-fi levels of advanced because they cannot use magic, and when facing a magically adept enemy, they're usually outmatched. I think it makes for some fun rivalry between machine and biological characters, too.
In my current story I have a few different types of materials, metals and rules for magig, but one of my favorite things was adding liquad manna. Pure magic from nature that could be harvested only in mana rich area by extracting it from the air and the surroundings naturally rejuvenate it, but over harvesting is possible. The first faction introduced in the story uses this resource when crafting weapons and armor. Like when Blacksmithing they have to heat up the furnace to really high temperature to make the mana turn into a vapor in a special container that makes sure it doesn't just disperse back into the air. As the vapor comes into contact with the coals the moisture changes the fire and heat. Making it possible to then channel magic through the weapons and armor crafted in the furnace. (Which other wise is only possible with runes that Dwarfs keep hidden from other factions or special crystal that only mana users with the crystals elemental attunement is capable of using.)
I have a really fun one: Orichalcum
In my setting it's like a green gold, but with a special property: it can deflect and amplify energy.
This really inspired me to put more thought into my metals. Perhaps one that repels itself magnetically, and needs to be heated to a specific temperature from ore in order to be forged...
In my current project, I have an ore I call Ignium. A liquid-like metal that can warp itself based on the user. It's insanely rare to find and will bind itself to the user if they dig up the ore on their own
One of my new favorite novel called Supreme magus introduced a new type of magical metal call davross and is also called living adamant, it's not only stronger and more resilient than adamant but it can also amplify the power of spells that use it as a conduit making it the most valuable material in that world. It is formed when all the impurities inside adamant is removed naturally from bathing in massive amounts of mana that forces the impurities out, and as a result develops a unique magical circulation similar to a living creature
Fun fact: The word "diamond" actually comes from "adamant". It means "unconquerable". It was occasionally mentioned in Greek mythology - Cronus and Perseus both used adamant weapons, and the pillars of the gate to Tartarus are made of it.
My classic fantasy world almost always has these three:
Mithril- Light, hard, but very rare and difficult to work.
Adamantine- A nearly jet black metal of very high hardness and density
Dragonsteel- a steel made through ancient techniques of metal alloying and heating using dragon’s fire
I love the idea of a metal that is both integral to a major world religion AND also legitimately powerful and useful on it's own. You get a conflict of nations worshipping that religion viewing nations that don't as desecrating their religion, while nations that don't worship that religion still see the metal as valuable and worth using. Individual adventurers or citizens can also have a powerful reaction, with those who worship the religion holding such an item reverently or viewing it's use in some 'base' pursuit as desecration, while those who have been scarred by that religion maybe avoid items of that metal, regardless of their origin, and finally the pragmatic adventurers value it for it's properties.
Oh my favourite is always UpsaDaysium from Rocky and Bullwinkle. It's the antigravity metal.
Shout out to unobtanium from Avatar, terribly rare and expensive, but it doesn't actually seem to be useful for anything.
Melange from Dune isn't a metal but bestows longevity on humans.
Orichalcum? I like it. Maybe with properties like Chalcopyrite which is a copper mineral with an iridescent sheen.
I do have an ancient underwater civilization returning to the world perhaps while using Orichalcum?
I'm sure upsidasium is a reference to cavorite
This has certainly given me a lot to consider in my own work for sure 👍🏼
When I was doing some world building and coming up with metallurgy and magical alloys I came up with a basic start. It is magical minerals that can be found sticking to certain mineral veins and sometimes this would be gems, some ores, and also minerals within bones/organs of magical creatures.
The main focus of my world building was around the "mirts" who were initially nomadic bronze age species. Bronze was very important whenever they could get the copper and tin to make the alloy and sometimes in limited amounts made by shamanistic redsmiths would work in monster parts making what I'd categorize as the first type of "chimerite" which varies in quality and effect.
The mirts then migrate to a new continent where they fight the native goblins who mostly lived underground, these goblins were mining a copper-silver ore rich in magical minerals which they would cold forge into a type of magical obsidian. The mirts would go out of their way to war with the goblins to get this "gobite" which when melted they could separate the copper from the silver. The silver was able to hold onto a lot of the magical minerals making a very pure magical metal called "sithril" that was highly coveted but rather soft for making actual weapons.
Then another migration of another species brought iron smelting, one group decided to make a deal with a mirt settlement (the mirts were starting to settle down) which would lead to steel production, steel alloyed with sithril would make mithril, a far better alloy for magical weapons and armor.
Steel is usually stronger than mithril though so a wealthy enough warrior would aspire to have both a steel and mithril weapon with sithril or chimerite accessories.
6:00 Mithril
7:12 Adamentum (Its trademarked, but can be found in use as a metal since 1940 in non-marvel work, so probably safe to use?)
7:45 Orichalcum
8:30 Valyrian Steel (somewhat protected, I don't recommend using this)
9:10 Vibranum (also, used by Marvel)
9:30 Uru is Marvels, Úr/Urer could be used but means metal of low quality
9:55 Beskar (trademarked by Lucasfilm)
If you’re going interested in magical metals, I have to recommend the Mistborn series. The whole magic system is based around different metals
Thank you for the idea of a deposit upturning kingdoms, it would work so well in a setting of mine.
One little element of the setting is a substance called Ichor. On paper it's just a fantasy equivalent to oil and is processed into a weird plastic equivalent which has a strong "Arcanic Grain" to it, meaning it forces magic energy along one path. The thing is that it's kind of the body of deities, as how those work in the setting is that worshipping a deity means you lend it a bit of your soul, and soul stuff needs a physical thing to be attached to.
The idea of deposits of ichor forming under grand temples and such was already bumping around my head, but somehow never thought of barons conquering these places just for the Ichor.
This is wonderful. I have actually been exploring the possibilities of world with little to now metal. Going the opposite direction of your video but with your examples many myths could be woven into my world building.
Someone check me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Adamantium from Greek Mythology? The metal used to bind the Titans in Tartarus.
Adamantium itself was introduced in the Marvel Universe but it was named after the Greek 'Adamantine' , yes 🙂
Orichalcum was always so fascinating to me because of a manga/anime called Black Cat, which has it's own take on the fantastic metal. There is a legendary group of assassins and each member wields a weapon made from orichalcum, which they were presented upon becoming a member. This metal is one of the strongest in the world, and is so rare that it's never seen beyond use in these few weapons.
The weapons of the Chronos Numbers are nigh indestructible, ridiculously sharp, and the skill of the assassins themselves them is on a completely different level. And the weapons usually have some mythological name such as Hades.
In my late bronze-age campaign setting Megara I've added the fictional metal Immaculum, or "immortal bronze". It has the physical properties of steel and the chemical properties of gold - tough, flexible and able to hold a fine edge like steel, but doesn't tarnish or verdigris like regular bronze. An immaculum artifact looks the same thousands of years later as it does when it's first forged. Iron in my setting is antimagical, it can't be enchanted and it resists magic - a suit of iron armour makes you all but immune to having spells cast on you, and an iron sword will cut through any magical defence like cobwebs. Sorcerers can't even touch it without being burned. Most magical equipment then is made of either bronze or immaculum, and immaculum gear is by far the superior.
In the fantasy world I'm working on, there is a magic crystal called starstone. It came here when a wizard called down meteors whose craters formed massive overlapping rings of land in the ocean with dozens of inland seas. These metors were rich in iron, silver, gold, copper, you name it, but also exceptionally rich in adamantine, making it fairly cheaper than normal. In the heart of those meteors is a starstone, which amplifies magic by orders of magnitude. Most of it is at the bottom of the sea, but they will evaporate off eventually, slowly revealing more ores and starstone. This has led to tensions between the 3 major nations. Because there is no freshwater, all settlements are on the coast of one of these seas with water treatment being a big industry. There is a fourth nation that is fairly new that came from another continent. They aren't as magical as the nations who have lived in proximity to the starstone for centuries, so they had to advance science, making them the only ones with gunpowder. This will be fun trying to figure out.
7:30
Some might consider that bituminous steel is real life alloy cousin of this metal, because it's REALLY durable material, but working with it is a pain in the ass. Mainly it's used for long-term infrastructure or making durable instruments, like knives, working tools etc. Blade made with this technique can hold it's sharpness even been used constantly.
I'm doing a comic universe that's basically D&D in space. There's a metal that does the opposite temp than the temp applied(if you dunk it in liquid nitrogen, it'll get hot/place in a furnace, it'll cool down) It's really good for tech weapons and magitech, mages use it on the tip of staffs so that it won't damage it when casting fire or ice spells. It's hard to work with if you don't have a arcane forge and it's somewhat hard to come by.
To provide a justification for D&D's absurd quantity of electrum coins, in my homebrew D&D campaign, electrum, with its equal amounts of silver and gold, was valuable to mages, especially alchemists, leading to realms run by mages using it for coinage.
So, for my own worldbuilding.
Elves are highly sensitive to magnetism, and exessively magnetic metal such as iron or nickel would be of no interest to them. However, to the Drow, pewter, copper and gold play significant social roles. Pewter, easy to mine and forge without too much heat, is the metal mostly used in tool making, especially tools that won't endure a lot of heat, sometimes in combination with copper to make bronze cooking implements. Gold in their culture is mostly used for chastity devices, and thus tend to symbolize both chastity and dynastic dominance.
Dwarves tend to work with pewter, lead, copper and gold, being in mountains, with not a lot of iron available. They are known for their intricate pewter work for objects such as cups and ustencils.
If this video served as the ONLY source of inspiration, then it could be The Darksword Trilogy, by Weiss and Hickman (Iirc)!
Such a great story, literally centred around the forging and crafting aspects!
This channel just got a new sub!
I’ve just finished writing a book on metal magic and am gearing up for a Kickstarter campaign to launch it!
Just finishing it is already an accomplishment, congratulations. And of course, best of luck with your Kickstarter 🙂
@@TheTaleTinkerer Thank you.
RL nitpick: Metals aren't formed in the earth, but in supernovae. All metals were either on the earth when it formed from the remnants of one, or arrived later via meteorite impact. (Metals are often found in ores, but the atomic elements did not change after their supernovae assembly, except for radioactive decay. They often need to be purified.) Of course, alloying could be considered "creating" new metals, and of course stories with magic can do a lot of creative things.
RL nitpick nitpick:
You only need supernovae to produce metals heavier than Iron. Lighter metals can be produced by fusion in stars, or from the decay of heavier elements.
Astrophysicists refer to every element other than hydrogen and helium as metals, but even chemists recognize Lithium as a metal.
Most of the lithium is thought to have been produced in the big bang, along with hydrogen and helium. Massive stars fuse lithium to make other elements until they get to iron. Some lithium and other lighter metals are also produced by classical novae.
Obviously we can also produce metals in artificial fusion reactors. Artificial Technetium was made well before any natural Technetium was discovered.
Astronomers consider everything above Helium to be a 'metal'. Also, everything up to Iron does not require a supernova - and a lot of elements below Iron are metals, even to a non-astronomer. Lithium and Beryllium being good examples.
In my fantasy series "Thelema" I created a fictional metal called "Thelemite" said to be created by the gods. It's used in crafting pendants that all mortal humans require to live - removal of which is instantly fatal and irreversible. Said pendants also convey cryptically a person's life purpose and are each tied to another half belonging to a person's "twin flame," i.e. their soul mate. The metal itself is shown to have a number of material properties. It can make durable weapons (just don't ask where they get it from) as well as masks and veils for use in certain religious cults, but a chain made from it can stretch with a bit of elasticity, or even be snapped under human strength. Perhaps most-notably, however, is Thelemite's ability to act as a conductor of willpower, which is used in the series magic system as all magic is will-based. In most instances, a person must be making physical contact with an object made of Thelemite in order to use this ability. And upon a person's death, their pendants are usually returned to a deep body of water or a river that runs to one, wherein it's said that the "children of the gods" come to recycle the material presumably for use in making new pendants for those yet born.
Because of Thelemite's properties as a conductor of spiritual energy, it's also used in the forging of artificial beings - basically living corporations - that work and live and interact with humanity on a daily basis. This process, as well as the government's processes for forging weapons from Thelemite, are highly classified and safeguarded.
In my setting, rather than metals i have two types of magical stones called Dawntite and Duskite respectively which serve as conductors and insulators for mama respectively. Dawntite draws mana in and allows it flow easily while Duskite slows the flow if mana down and suppresses it.
While both minerals are used often in magical and anti-magical artifacts they are notably dangerous to handle as both are prone to self-destruct if they absorb too much mana. People have tried mixing the stones into metal alloys but the end result is always a weapon that is more brittle than a pure metal object and probe to violently breaking itself apart if not handled with care.
In my fantasy world, conducting electricity is what determines magical potential. Magical weapons and armor are made of copper or bronze or have copper, silver, or gold inlayed runes. It is a bit of flavor mostly.
In a fantasy series that I'm working on, I'm using metals that are commonly used in dnd, but I'm changing and/or adding a few details to them. Like for example, more common metals like gold and silver will still be used as currency, but their value can change depending on which region the characters are in. More mythical metal metals like adamantine will still have their properties but their origins and history I'm gonna tweak a little bit. For example, adamantine or what the dwarves call "sky iron" has unique properties, but only after experimenting and forging were these properties discovered. Like in it's raw state as adamite, it is compose of a variety of different metals but also filled with gases that made the metal unusable, but after developing a process to release those gases, the adamite becomes adamantine steel and almost completely indestructible.
The most fantasy part of fantasy metals is how 100% percent pure anything is actually useful for making things from
In my fantasy world where I run D&D, there is a metal called Synchrolite. It's incredibly attracted to carbon, so it's actually incredibly poisonous to most living things. Every round of contact, you only have a 5% chance of not taking immediately lethal damage. And poison immunity doesn't count against it.
Being coated in materials that don't contain carbon, like silicon, can let you touch it. But the best way to use it is to have a diamond. The Synchrolite will be attracted into the diamond and away from you. Having contact with diamond is the only way to have a chance of surviving it, without being a god.
When stored inside a diamond, Synchrolite can store magic energies and spells. A trained mage can use it to catch incoming spells as well if they know the spell they are trying to catch.
It's so rare that the only samples of it that exist in the world are either held by the gods, or gifts to mortals from the gods.
One artefact in the world is a diamond staff that has a bunch of spells absorbed into it and has about 9 ounces of Synchrolite absorbed into its core. It can store up to 9the level spells. Of found by the party, it has a 25% chance of having any given spell stored inside, and the magic of the staff can teach a mage any spell absorbed into it as the cost of it not being in the staff anymore. Of course the mage has to be high level enough to cast it.
it'd be cool to see a metal that is otherwise soft enough to crumble like fresh cornbread but requires constant magic flowing through it to be as strong as vanadium steel, like it has to be casted or have specific smiths to work it (plot twist: it's surprisingly easy to learn to work it) but it's common enough that an aftermath of battles have common folk scavenging to use in their everyday farming tools since other metals require actual work to use and craft with
Bridging fantasy and science:
Mithril is in fact Aluminium - light, surprisingly durable for its weight, and night unobtainable without advanced technology. Once knowledge of its extraction is lost, nobody can make more, only remelt existing pieces. Good plot hook for isekai-style stories where an engineer reintroduces the process to dwarven lords and becomes the most important smith in the world.
Adamantine - I initially wanted to say Titanium(alloys) here, but I think Tungsten fits better. Its tough, but also heavy.
There's one series that delves into what makes magical metals.. well. What they are.
Mithril is just plain ol' silver but saturated with a magical energy that makes it draw in and hold mana. And occurs in different grades based on how complete this process is.
Silver isn't the only metal to do this, just the only naturally occurring one at the surface people can find and mess with.
The MC learns how to enhance other metals, and that the strength of how much a metal is enhanced via infusing this magical energy is based on atomic weight and chemical bonding. Thus enhances denser metals and creates stuff far, far superior to mithril.
The Thunder Warrior's weapons are made with Carpathium, a highly conductable metal found at the top of the Carpathian's largest mountains, the Carpathium is created by the continuous lightning of those mountain peaks. This metal can channel the user's physical energy into a lightning, but the only issue is that it will drain you completely and quite possibly kill you. Which is why the Thunder Warriors require another element, Emerald, which can control the amount of energy the metal uses up. Another cool perk is that if a user's weapon is made by a lot of Carpathium, it can drain clouds of electricity and use it against any opponent, this does still require an emerald though if you do wish to control the amount of electricity it drains from the clouds. As a side-effect of draining your body's energy is that you age considerably quickly, and as for the clouds: if drained suddenly and completely of electricity, the vapor will immediatelly turn into water and it'll fall down like a bucket of water.
Carpathium doesn't really have any magical properties, but it can be enchanted by a demon thanks to the emerald. So a few Thunder Warriors are also corrupted by magic, especially the Thunder King, and the rest of Thunder Warrors are either blindly obedient or traitors.
An Enchanted Carpathium sword with 20% purity is just as powerful as a regular Carpathium sword which has 60% purity, so you can tell how OP those enchantments are. To be noted that if the demons enchanting the sword wants, it can just retract the sword's enchantment in an instant.
A regular Carparthium spear is cool as it can make any place you throw it at explode in a lightning burst, without damaging the spear, but even cooler is the enchanted version which makes it come back to you after using up all of its electricity.
More to be added.
Having common elemental variants of metals can also work where it just is infused with said propertys from places of power.
for one of my campains I used Electrum as a powerfull conduct and amplifier for magic giving it's natural propreties for transmitting energy and it's brilliance.
My favorite fantasy metal is moon silver from the MTG world of Innistrad, where it really fits the gothic horror setting, where vampires and werewolves are common threats, and the fact that it has the ability to trap demons and comes from the moon gives it that little extra oomph over regular silver
I'm in favor alloys, personally. Like, have there be a substance that gives normal metals strange and fantastical qualities when they are mixed together. You can have it be fairly useless on it's own, and decide how well known the metallurgical processes are to determine the level or rarity. Maybe have different factions have access to the secrets of creating different alloys?
I'm also playing around with the idea that mundane metals react to magic in very specific ways, for example that gold is magically inert and can't be changed, destroyed or created by magic. That way, gold is still valuable in the setting, plus you can wear gold-plated armor to protect against spells. Stuff like that. The metal itself doesn't need to be special.
I just love they way you explain things.
Thank you for the kind words, glad to hear you found something valuable in the video 🙂
I make use of the standard mithril and adamantine, but importantly a select few hold the secret of how to alloy them together into mithantine