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  1. Journals

On Metals and Materials

Academic Essay

Throughout the world, there are various metals and materials used for crafting weapons and armour. Many are inherently magical, making them much stronger by default, though should you want your armour or weapon to undergo the enchantment process, the inherent magic makes it much more difficult. The reason metals like copper, bronze, iron, and steel have been the most common throughout history is because they balance their natural strength as well as ease of enchantment.

Metals

Adamantine

Adamantine isn't a naturally occurring material, but in fact an alloy of silver, electrum, and a material colloquially called "Dwarven Iron". Adamantine has an atypical hardness to it, making weapons and armour made using it more durable. That hardness makes it more preferable for usage in armour, since its durability allows any damage to be more easily spread out amongst its wearer. Though much less common to find, the durability that adamantine weapons have allow them to withstand even the most furious swing of a cloud giant.

Adamantine as a metal is a dark metal, having a shade between lead and cast iron, but it's also very naturally lustrous. In natural light and firelight, adamantine takes on an almost green hue, but in more magical or preternatural lighting, the metal takes on a purple hue. 

Clach-Moor

Clach-moor, colloquially known as "Dwarven Iron", is a naturally occurring metal found deep underground. The name clach-moor is the name given to it by the dwarves who mine it, but the reason it picked up the name dwarven iron is that most dwarven settlements seemed to pop up on top of large ore veins of the metal. Clach-moor is a very hard, but brittle metal, making it practically useless for armour and weaponry, but its dark colour and lustre make it a beautiful decorative material.

Copper

Copper is a naturally occurring metal, and depending on which side of the arcane or divine spectrum you land on, copper has two distinct uses. Starting with the divine, copper is a spiritual neutraliser, it's a balancer for all extraplanar energies whether they be celestial, elemental, fae, fiendish, or undead. A lot of vessels and containers used to capture extraplanar beings are made of copper, and a lot of religious curse breaking rituals use copper as a base component for the ritual.

On the arcane side, copper is a very important component in arcano-tech thanks to its ability to quickly and easily transfer heat, electric, and magic energy. A lot of arcano-tech uses copper plating and wiring as ways of transferring energy, and a lot of arcano-tech factories have copper piping moving that energy around the building.

Gold

Gold is a naturally occurring metal, being a very soft and workable metal, tending to be a metal used for ornamentation rather than the actual base metal of a piece of armour or a weapon. The addition of gold tends to make people find object more inherently valuable, and many smiths know this and use less pure gold leaf in order to capitalise off this psychological effect. But when it comes to more magical weapons, most arcane enchanters tend to keep away from using gold as it tends to have a noble, if not religious, connotation to it. A lot of gold tends to be used in religious relics, especially relics from the churches of the Morning Starthe Atonedthe Fortune-Seeker, and at times the Magistrate.

Electrum

Electrum is an alloy of gold and silver, it can occur naturally, but rather than mining for it, most people create the alloy manually. Electrum takes its name from the fact that it easily carries an electric charge, enchanting something made of electrum is usually very difficult, unless you are enchanting with electromantic magic. Though it's most frequently used as a decorative metal, especially as a cheaper alternative to gold for those who want to wear lots of gold but tend to be frugal.

Mithral

Mithral is a naturally occurring metal, it's one of the rarest metals, far surpassing the rarity of gold and platinum. Mithral is known for being a tough metal, as strong as steel with half the density and weight to it. Despite the fact that smithing tends to be seen as the dwarven art, mithral is most commonly used by elves due to it's lightweight nature, this association earned mithral the nickname of "elven silver".

Mithral is one of the most lustrous and gleaming metals, even when it's in an unpolished state. It is also the most naturally magical of almost all the metals that occur across the world, making it so much more difficult to enchant items made using mithral.

Essenced Mithral

Despite the difficulty in enchanting with mithral, there is a subset of smiths who have mastered the ability to magically enhance mithral. Only few have the skill set required, needing to be a master mithral smith, an arcane practitioner, and gunsmith practiced in arcane distillation. The cross section of all three processes is tiny, thus making what smiths call "essenced mithral" one of the rarest materials in the world.

Silver

Silver is a naturally occurring metal, a metal more heavily associated as a cheaper, though still high status, metal compared to gold. Usually used as part of ornamentation, while gold has a more divine connection, silver accents tend be found in more arcane circles either as a colour or the metal itself. This comes from the fact that the metal has a hint of magic woven into the ore, and as such, many weapons are coated with a thin sheen of silver to help slay innately magical foes. Unlike most of the other inherently magical metals, silver doesn't have the same level of difficulty when enchanting using it.