Glorantha has a rich and wonderful tapestry of magic materials. The metals are manifestations of, or at least assosiated with distinct elements, she has magic crystals, truestone, adamant, dragonbone...
And to my experience fantasy gamers love such things. But:
What do they look like? We have already pushed back the veil of descriptive vagueness in many areas of Glorantha in recent years. Let's try to tear down this one.
***
Truestone : Possibly the easiest. Truestone is just that. Archtypical stone. Since it's almost compleatly indestructive and impossible to work, I'd leave out sandstones and the like, but othervice anything goes. As usual I'd try to pick a type of stone, or at least a color, that would somehow assosiate with the power/effect of that particular piece, but that's a matter of taste.
***
Crystals: This has always been a knotty one. Some writers have described them as various gemstones (what about the regular sorts of the same gemstone?), some have in mind large new-age crystals, others tiny chips one can insert into ones tooth.
As I recall we discussed this here at some point, and most seemed to like smallish stones. Like naturally occuring mountain-crystals (the ones that rather look like diamond). Again I'd try to go for distinct looks for different types to reflect their origin and powers. The RQ-3 era product 'Shadows at the Borderlands' did some nice work at this.
***
Dragonbone / Dragon's teeth: This is a fascinating one: There should be the occasional artefact made of this, since the dragonewts know how to shape it (presumably it's dreamdragon teeth/claws/bones for the most part, made permanent by enchanting), and I'd guess so did the EWF humans.
For this I've drawn on Kulthea and the magical "glass" that is called Laen. I've described dragonteeth/bones as a transluscient and glass like substance (glass sharp too, for the teeth and claws), but nearly indestructible.
Usually I've described it as more or less purple in color, but this varies with the source.
Incidentally the dragonsnails (IMO) have teeth like that too, hence the name. These "dragon's teeth" are of inferior quality, and may seriously piss off a trading partner if offered as the real thing.
But to summ up: Hard to shape (very much so, by modern humans), glasslike and very hard to break. Just by attachting a handle a dragon's tooth makes an excellent and showy dagger that won't need sharpening. Just imagine a Klanth with such teeth...
***
Adamant: Frankly I have no idea. It seems such a dwarfish thing it should propably be a metal. It's refined truestone though, so I suppose that would make it a gemstone of some sort.
Parhaps something that seems like a cross between something like jade and finest steel. Beautifully patterned and with a metallic glint, but with the inflexibility of stone. Utterly indestructible, of course. Arkat's/Humakt's sword is supposed to be of this, as are some cruscial parts of the Mostali machine.
***
That's my current, tentative, thinking on the subject. If there's something offiscial I'd love to hear it. If Greg want's to tell us how it is, I'm happy.
But if not, let's try to make it up ourselves.
-Adept
Powered by hypermail