> Joerg:
>>A strict recycling regimen during the Ban, I suppose.
> I find that highly unconvincing.
I find it unconvincing that if the Loskalmi have methods to mine and refine copious amounts of steel there still is meaningful trade in the Castle Coast. If the Loskalmi knew how to do it before the Ban, so would the Carmanian settlers under Syranthir, which in turn would make iron and not bronze the standard metal all over Peloria, too.
Which isn't the case.
IMO Gloranthan "iron" is an element alien to its earliest ages (Green, early Golden), brought in fairly lately (late Golden Age/Middle Storm Age, probably related to Humakt and Eurmal bringing in Death from beyond Subere's caves). The development of the Mostali iron crucible was about contemporary to Middle or Late Storm Age, too.
How did iron enter the (middle) world? We know its main entry point(s) as Iron Mountains in Seshnela, and possibly Magnetic Mountain in southeastern Danmalastan. My suggestion is that iron came into the world(s) as the four original, pure worlds collided. It is the metal of Separation, and it is found at or near the seams where the collision took place, plus deep below.
As such, iron is alien to several forms of life - and it seems to be especially hostile to Spirit World descendants (aldryami and uz). Sorcery appears best suited to deal with the stuff.
Gloranthan iron deteriorates much like Real World iron does - you can dissolve it with acids, it is prone to rust when kept in humid conditions, and if you heat it strongly it will form a black crust which is hammered off when you beat it into shape. I might allow for such deteriorated former metallic iron to be re-refined into metallic iron, but I'm highly dubious about this stuff being a common component of the surface world soils or minerals.
In order to keep it out of the hands of everybody and their warhorses, deposits of this iron have to be rare. Think meteorite iron in Real World Bronze Age, and scale up metal frequency to match Gloranthan ubiquity of bronze.
Let's list the known deposits of iron: Iron Mountains in Seshnela, and newly found deposits in the mountains beyond the Redlands. Possibly Old Jrustela (Magnetic Mountain). And Deepest Underworld.
Seshnela lies on the seam between Danmalastan and the Theist World. Magnetic Mountain was slightly west of the seam between Danmalastan and "Bamatela". The Pentan mountains are roughly on the seam between Theist Peloria and Mystic East. Deepest Underworld is the border separating the World(s) from the Void.
>>Loskalm has shown no
>>indications for iron mines other than trade with Nida,
> Does Loskalm even trade with Nida? The trading outpost is called > Bad Deal for a reason.
One could make similar names for places producing crude oil nowadays...
Fronela may hide another source of iron deposits - after all it makes no sense if the _only_ humans who ever stole the secret of making iron from the Mostali settled somewhere where the basic material for applying that secret were non-existing.
That still doesn't mean that I expect deposits in Loskalm proper. As far as I am concerned, Loskalm during the Ban was cut off from iron imports, and had to make do with what was in the country. Which probably was a huge amount, more than the Lunar Empire holds.
One means of re-distribution of that iron may have been the socialist regime of disallowing hereditary nobility, making the armour and weapons of a knight property of the office rather than the family.
>>and even the
>>mostali there appear to have imported from Seshnela (presumably through
>>tunnels).
> Why can't Nida make its own iron?
Nida might have very deep deposits of iron, but the Nidan Mountains were the result of accelerated mountain seeding in Kachasti lands. If that would be a method to access iron deposits, I would expect the Mostali to have applied it elsewhere as well.
To add dwarf history:
I don't think the Nidan dwarf assault on the Iron Mountain was about doctrine alone. The Seshnegi dwarfs controlled an essential resource the Decamony was unwilling to do without.
If Nida had its own deposits, they may well have surfaced when Gonn Orta shattered their mountain (while rescuing the Jolanti). If these deposits had been plundered then, Fronela and western Peloria would have amassed huge amounts of iron. Somehow the EWF and the early Lunars encountered mainly bronze-clad Carmanian knights and hoplites, or something would have been mentioned. So maybe only Fronela (Loskalm) got the stuff in abundance. Metal supply problem solved.
Making iron a rare trade good explains its known distribution (human use uncommon in the West, rare elsewhere) quite well.
To summarize:
IMO iron is rare on surface Glorantha, be it in metallic or deteriorated (ore) shape. If it wasn't, not only the west would be avid iron users.
Iron might have entered Glorantha where (and when) the worlds collided. Parts of the separation tossed up, or so.
The Third Eye Blue smiths have been cited as the only humans who managed to steal the secret of making iron from the mostali.
End of Glorantha Digest, Vol 11, Issue 36
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