Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Pennarin Feb 06, 2004 19:44:21	What of special materials on Athas? Here's what from the DS3 Core document already exists: Adamantine (Dwarven Steel) Silver, Alchemical ___________________________ How about new ones? Unidentifiable red alloy (Silencer [BoA],Scorcher [PAoA]) Vorpal Steel (Scourge [Prism Pentad]) All metals used by Rajaat to manufacture his weapons... The red alloy is said to be "much harder than enchanted steel" (PAoA). Also the Elven steel (Tribe of One) ___________________________ Much cooler and athasian if those special materials were to join those above. :D I'm sure I'm not the only one with those ideas, so if there is ever a Book of Athasian Magic Items and Artifacts, I would like to find in it an Athasian Special Materials section, wouldn't you?
#2 nytcrawlr Feb 06, 2004 19:56:02	I've always liked using silk wyrm silk for the mithril equivalent in DS.
#3 Pennarin Feb 06, 2004 20:19:31	Silk armor, as in the silk shirts the Champion of Urik wanted his soldiers to wear in Cinnabar Shadows? That would look good, kind of very light hide armor, no armor penalties or arcane spell failure chance.
#4 Kamelion Feb 07, 2004 3:07:34	I'm sure I'm not the only one with those ideas, so if there is ever a Book of Athasian Magic Items and Artifacts, I would like to find in it an Athasian Special Materials section, wouldn't you? I agree - development of these special materias would add lots of excellent flavour. Arms & Equipment Guide has some more special materials (but they're not ogl). You could use these as inspiration though. Astral Driftmetal can assist in hitting incorporeal creatures, f.ex. So athasian materials might have similar properties or be inherently more effective against creatures of the Gray or Black or advanced beings or whatever. The red steel could be like this or just have an extra 10 points of hardness. Vorpal steel might just be another way of describing high quality steel used to make a vorpal weapon. But you might also want to develop a form of steel that always makes nonmagical keen weapons or something like that. The elven steel from Tribe of One could be treated as mithral - it seems to have the same qualities. Silk wyrm silk (on its own) isn't as touch as mithral but it makes a great equivalent when used in armour construction (promptly steals idea - cheers Nyt ;)) Don't forget dasl, drake ivory and agafari wood - also in Ds3 Core. (Agafari wood is considered equivalent to darkwood, but for a non-ogl alternative, you could also consider it equivalent to bronzewood from A&EG, which is heavier and tougher and closer to steel in its stats).
#5 zombiegleemax Feb 07, 2004 5:17:02	I would keep these 'special materials' extremely rare and costly. Whole tribes of elves with elven steel weapons just ruins things. In my campaign, outside the city-states, only the dwarves of Kled and Ledopolus know how to work iron and steel into anything besides small arrow and spear tip, and even in the cityies, only Urik, Tyr, and Nibenay have smiths capable of making steel armors. Gith harvest silk wyrms to make their armor, but it fits very poorly on humans and other upright walking races (no dex bonus when wearing). Some elven tribes raid the silk storehouses of the gith to make very effective nets to use when hunting, and also forge good steel spears (but they normally do not have the amounts of steel at hand to make anything bigger). The strange metals used to make weapons such as the Silencer and Scorcher are an alchemical mixture of steel and the blood of Rajaat himself (non canon) so that limits my PCs from making replicas of these. Never saw a need for adamantium. If iron is rare enough to go to war over, then the existence of this metal would plung the Tablelands into complete anarchy. Anyhow, that's my take.
#6 Kamelion Feb 07, 2004 7:10:42	Absolutely. The rarer the better. I'm a big fan of the idea that the athasian dwarves are the last holders of the true secrets of metal-working.
#7 zombiegleemax Feb 07, 2004 9:44:38	I suggest going through the first and second, 2nd Ed dark sun monster manuals. A fair number of entries include what can be used with the creature's remains. eg the Rasclin has a metalic hide that can be used for amour or melted down for the metal. Also it is useful to remember that better materials not only make more effective weapons but also better and more durable tools/farming implements.
#8 gab Feb 07, 2004 10:21:06	I remember Draloric (?) working on a "Armor of Athas" guide. It had lots of different armor types, coming from all sorts of Athasian creatures.... Anybody remember that?
#9 Kamelion Feb 07, 2004 11:29:28	I did a treatment of armours for Athas, using the various suggestions for different materials as well as taking some inspiration from the Arms & Equipment Guide - ended up with 20 different kinds of armour and then some shields. I can email the list to anyone interested, or maybe someone would like to host it on their site? M.
#10 nytcrawlr Feb 08, 2004 2:27:22	Originally posted by Kamelion I did a treatment of armours for Athas, using the various suggestions for different materials as well as taking some inspiration from the Arms & Equipment Guide - ended up with 20 different kinds of armour and then some shields. I can email the list to anyone interested, or maybe someone would like to host it on their site? M. I can host it on my site if that is cool.
#11 Kamelion Feb 08, 2004 2:39:54	That'd be cool, Nyt - thanks At the end of the day, it's just name-changes for flavour purpose, but I found it handy to have all this on one list. It could maybe use some text descriptions too, but I guess that's something for a less busy day - heh. Anyway, bounced you a mail...
#12 Pennarin Feb 08, 2004 2:53:21	Originally posted by Mach2.5 I would keep these 'special materials' extremely rare and costly. Whole tribes of elves with elven steel weapons just ruins things. I'm with you all the way Mach, but the idea would be to have great special materials to give to DMs, even if its just for artifacts and powerful magic items, and not every day armor and weapons. Here's an old write up of a weapon I made in 2e, using a special material I invented: «Haegnôr is an heavy broadsword that can be used with one or both hand. Its blade is straight, diamond-shaped in cross-section and made from a dark iron. The hilt is made from the same iron and wrapped in dark gray Lirr hide. This sword had been found on the dead body of a warrior that fought in the ranks of a Champion’s army, on a battlefield where it layed its last battle. The enchanted metal is so hard that it shatters weapons (bone, wood or obsidian) that parry its blows (opposing weapon save against crushing blows) but will not shatter in turn when struck by a stronger weapon in combat. Whenever a critical hit is made the sheer hardiness of the blade add the effects of a bludgoening critical of the same location and severity. The sword bears a dark essence, for its purpose is to kill its enemies. Any wound that it inflicts will continue to bleed (as per sword of wounding) and wont heal naturally, only by extoardinary means. The sword is of +3 enchantement and save with a +5 bonus. It is heavy and extremely hard so it confers a +1 bonus to hit oppenents in any type of plate armor or chitinous hide armor.»
#13 zombiegleemax Feb 08, 2004 10:37:19	Years ago I created a material for a homebrew world, but I think it could used very well in DS, it was called Tarl Root. (or something like that) Tarl is a grass-plant that primetaly exists at the last sea. It is thin green/brown grass, with long thick "leathery" roots. If the roots absors too much water (or they gets soaked in it) they kind of crystialize and become hard like stone. The pratical function of this is, that you bend rings of tarl root, soak it in water (also saltwater) and bingo, you get a chainmail. It is also used to create darts. Skilled cratsmen can also sow sliced roots together, and make tools of it, in extreme cases also splint mails. It functions as normal steel, but is lighter.
#14 zombiegleemax Feb 08, 2004 18:52:30	It functions as normal steel, but is lighter While I really like the idea of grass chainmail (how could you not?), I do have a slight problem with most special materials being 'the equivalent of steel' as a replacement for what is already hard to come by. Even worse is the better than steel idea. I simply can't wrap my brainpan around the idea of crystalized plants being tough as iron (pun intended). I'm also a little more in the line of thought that even these special materials shouldn't always be the equivalent of steel weapons and armor or better. Better than bone and obsidian I'm fine with, or even specialized in some way (dsal is a good example), or with some kind of flaw such as no penalties as steel, but sunders more easily with few hp, or triple damage from x type attack like fire (plant based) or sonic (crystaline). Sorry for the rant, it is a cool idea.
#15 zombiegleemax Feb 11, 2004 7:08:35	or with some kind of flaw such as no penalties as steel, but sunders more easily with few hp, or triple damage from x type attack like fire (plant based) or sonic (crystaline). I like this idea. So we change it to: Functions as steel, except: weighs half takes double damages from fire AND sonic has a hardness of 8 instead of 10. In the northern areas of The Tyr region it is a more commen the steel, but armors are still rare.
#16 flip Feb 12, 2004 8:14:25	Originally posted by NytCrawlr I've always liked using silk wyrm silk for the mithril equivalent in DS. And I've always hated the idea, because it's replacing a finite resource (There's only so much Mithral in the world) with a renewable one (Just farm more wyrms.) It's got world balance implications that I can't not follow up on, and I don't like the end result. Originally Posted by Gab I remember Draloric (?) working on a "Armor of Athas" guide. It had lots of different armor types, coming from all sorts of Athasian creatures.... Anybody remember that? I think I've still got that floating around, [i]somewhere[i]. I'll poke around the detrius.
#17 nytcrawlr Feb 12, 2004 14:00:26	Originally posted by flip And I've always hated the idea, because it's replacing a finite resource (There's only so much Mithral in the world) with a renewable one (Just farm more wyrms.) It's got world balance implications that I can't not follow up on, and I don't like the end result. The easiest way of dealing with this is making the process of turning said silk into a mithril like substance to be used in armors and such is complicated, to say the least. I don't have a problem with saying the process is so complicated in fact, that they only attempt the process via special request, and said process takes months to complete, not to mention that it might not even succeed, since it should also have a high failure rate, therefore starting the process all over again. Using this, it keeps the cost and everything else the same as stated in the DMG IMO. Besides, there is nothing in the DMG stating how much it should be allowed in one's campaign and is set up in way to practically allow every character to have it as long as they can afford it, so I don't see why what you fear should even be taken into consideration since the DMG doesn't Just my 2 ceramic.