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Systems & Settings => Shadow World => Topic started by: Yseulte Harper on May 01, 2015, 11:36:09 PM
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In preparing to run my Shadow World campaign, I've been confused as to how available iron and steel weapons would be. The Master Atlas World Guide, mentions a "dearth of some of the heavier elements" and the "lack of metals" that "has also had an effect on the development of most civilizations..." (page 6).
In the description of a stock of a weapon store in the town of Kelfour's Landing, the Quellbourne module notes "Ninety-five percent of these weapons
are bronze; others are steel. Ferrous alloys are rare in Quellbourne."
Yet the Atlas Addendum lists iron as "typical weapon material", and goes on to describe both nonmagical low and high steel as well as magical forms.
And in some modules, I have seen large numbers of troops equipped with iron and steel weapons.
I'm confused.
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I've mentioned that some metals might be less common on Kulthea than, say Earth. However, much of the 'shortage' in the examples you mention is because of technology rather than availability. Iron is more difficult to extract from ore than tin and copper (the elements of bronze), and so often more expensive. And many societies (such as Lankanôk) only have limited facilities that can attain the heat necessary to smelt and work iron. Granted, there is considerable trade across the hemisphere, iron weapons are fairly expensive to purchase, especially in less developed societies. And more advanced cultures might not be as eager to share their technology with others. I would suggest reading about bronze and iron ages on Earth for some idea.
Anyone else want to weigh in? How about in other fantasy worlds?
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I think the biggest problem on Kulthea would be long distance transport. Iron, and sometimes steel, are probably very common in some areas (iron is not that heavy an element). However, the dangers of transport make it less likely that it would be shipped around as much as on Earth - or that, even when it is, that the ships would actually get there. For instance, Cornish tin was shipped all over the Mediterranean, and probably beyond; such a thing would likely be harder on Kulthea. Mediterranean traders didn't have to worry about Flow Storms, Essence Barriers or dragons. In the Bay of Izar region on Emer, which is protected from much of the weather and has good quality metal coming from Ton-Bor as well as Sarnaki steel weapons, iron and steel is probably a lot more common.
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This does bring up an interesting point. I was just looking at the prices for weapons in the Eidolon book that I am finishing up, and it does not specify the metal. I would assume they are iron (+0) and that there would be lesser bronze weapons (bladed would be -10), but there is no price given. Suggestions?
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Not sure on price (although ...And a Ten Foot Pole does list lots of weapon prices), but I would assume that Sel-kai is one of the places where steel would be more common, due to the trade network. They do trade with at least some suppliers of steel weapons.
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I don't think that there is demand on bronze tools in Se-Kai (unless cheaper rustproof tolls are needed - nowadays bronze tools are more expensive than even high quality cast iron tools: e.g. bronze bodied hand planes are more expense). If technology is fairly common like steel and iron in S-K "lesser metals" may not be cheaper at all. To my understanding bronze and copper were used in renaissance era only if those offered benefit over iron (e.g. manufacturing: casting large objects etc.) - price of base metal was not issue. I've always thought that S-K is kind of renaissance city. Several S-K smiths work with nonmagical but high quality metals. I assume that they offer special steels and alloys that are actually better than renaissance era metallurgy managed (white alloy - tool grade titanium etc.).
... I'd say that bronze could be half the price of steel but don't make it cheaper than that.
... Cyril 7 is "normal planet" Iron should be more common than copper: element numbers are 26 and 29 respectively - Iron can be produced in normal fusion while copper need additional neuron captures... how they are distributed in in planets minerals etc may change things but nothing that has been previously mentioned supports that. So its technology pendant.
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Bronze is softer than iron and bends/dulls more easily. And we are still learning about how common elements are on Earth. After the revelation that a Mars-sized planet hit Earth 1.0 and created the moon, more recently there is a theory that another small planet hit Earth, adding to the heavy elements and explaining why Earth's magnetic field is so strong.
Wow, it makes Kulthea's origins seem a little less strange.
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Kulthea also had a highly advanced technological civilisation, which probably used up a lot of stuff. However, when that civilisation ended, it did it in such a way that a lot of the surface was probably replaced with magma from deeper inside the planet, which could have brought a lot of new stuff back to the surface. So, you could probably argue either way for an element's presence.
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Just go with Mithril evry time! ;)
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I have a lot of trouble believing that a nation on par with Sel Kai, Danarchis, and Ardania is pre-iron age. That would be like pre-Pharaohic Egypt being a serious competitor with Rennaisance Italy.
If the mundane technology for smelting iron and even steel wasn't readily available, one of the duties of the vast Priestly caste of the sun god would be creating the intense heat necessary to produce those effects.
Steel is also not a development far behind iron. We've found steel in Anatolia dating back 4,000 years. Sel-kai steel might be better than Lankan steel, and it might be interesting to come up with who's still is better. But Rome had steel.
When I think of heavy elements being rare in Kulthea, I'm not thinking of iron, I'm thinking of uranium -- and then I'm thinking most of it the supply is bound up in the Pillar of the Gods or stockpiled in Lords of Essence facilities behind very powerful guardians.
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Well, what were Native Americans up to during Renaissance Italy? The Maya didn't have the wheel (though they used it in toys...), and they certainly didn't have steel. Most of their weapons were wood and bone and obsidian. Now, Places like Sel-kai do trade with Lankanok, but what do they trade? I imagine there are controls on sending sophisticated weapons to less developed and possibly hostile kingdoms (and a bustling smuggling trade). And even if the Lankani Priests could generate the heat to smelt iron, could they do it in enough volume to be practical? The sun forge in the high temple could only crank out so many swords...
Just pondering...
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Trading advanced weaponry to potentially hostile civilisation is probably restricted. Which means it's a profitable smuggling operation. A possible adventure for players there, either stopping such an operation, or running their own.
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The Elves of Namar-Tol are like Stargate's Tollan. Smug, condescending (but usually pleasant enough), and totally unwilling to share their tech with most anyone.
http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Tollan (http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Tollan)
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The Elves of Namar-Tol are like Stargate's Tollan. Smug, condescending (but usually pleasant enough), and totally unwilling to share their tech with most anyone.
http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Tollan (http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Tollan)
Only to get flattened by someone with superior technology.
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The Elves of Namar-Tol are like Stargate's Tollan. Smug, condescending (but usually pleasant enough), and totally unwilling to share their tech with most anyone.
http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Tollan (http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Tollan)
Only to get flattened by someone with superior technology.
Blackmailed, then flattened, by a race that steals other races' tech as pet of their m.o. Hmmm
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I think I read earlier in the week that steel was pretty expensive until the 19th century, when it finally became cheap to mass produce it. So, even though there are countries that manufacture steel, it would still be pretty pricey.
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The Elves of Namar-Tol are like Stargate's Tollan. Smug, condescending (but usually pleasant enough), and totally unwilling to share their tech with most anyone.
http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Tollan (http://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Tollan)
SO MANY reasons I like playing an elf hating racist, the kind of PC that will give a human the shirt off his back but won't cross the street for an elf unless it was to slit the filthy creatures throat.
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Well, what were Native Americans up to during Renaissance Italy?
Getting colonized.
The Maya didn't have the wheel (though they used it in toys...), and they certainly didn't have steel. Most of their weapons were wood and bone and obsidian.
And they got colonized.
Now, Places like Sel-kai do trade with Lankanok, but what do they trade? I imagine there are controls on sending sophisticated weapons to less developed and possibly hostile kingdoms (and a bustling smuggling trade). And even if the Lankani Priests could generate the heat to smelt iron, could they do it in enough volume to be practical? The sun forge in the high temple could only crank out so many swords...
Just pondering...
As a stand-alone concept, a pre-iron Lankanok could make sense, but that bustling smuggling trade means iron weapons get out -- and Lankanok is not at all far from three realms with advanced metallurgy.
But a pre-iron Lankanok isn't an existential threat to Namar Tol requiring their first-ever use of canister bombs. A pre-iron Lankanok gets carved up by Sel-Kai, Ardania, and Relian. The Mayans lasted a long time before falling to the Spanish, but they had an ocean separating them.
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Well, both the northern Native Americans and the Maya/Aztecs were decentralized, and the Maya had developed these conquest rituals between their city-states that actually cost them very few men (they only attacked another city-state at certain times, and if they captured the king they won; it was almost a game), but of course the Europeans did not play by those rules, and neither American culture was the aggressor.
On Kulthea we have Sel-kai, the Renaissance Venice of the Shadow World, which extends its trade influence, and the rich merchants are happy with their islands, and the Namarian Elves have their own protected island cluster, and they have a small, fairly static population. Namar-Tol is more like the US pre WWII... they really want to just stay out of it, but if the Lankani are stupid enough to attack them, they will punish them. But Lankanok is big, has psycho leaders with a god complex, and has a large population of religiously driven pawns to spend...
And while Earth has oceans, the Shadow World has ever-changing Essænce Barriers (which I think I have not emphasized enough in later books).
The Alliance is much more like the invading Spaniards than anyone else.
Just more thoughts off the top of my head to ponder, loving the discussion.
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I imagine the Essænce Barriers would make an enormous difference. When people going looking for new lands don't come back, it does put a bit of a dampener on future explorers, whether they were looking to get trade routes, loot, or acquire the odd continent.
We really need a supplement on the Alliance.
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I see Lananok as closer to the Aztecs than the Mayans, and Aztec games were more like war than Aztec wars like games.
Rich merchants can be happy to live on their islands, but they cannot be happy to limit their markets to their islands simply because capitalism requires the fuel of new markets to keep it from collapsing on itself. Rennaisance Venice was an empire. They were a small player in the New World compared to Spain and Portugal not because they weren't interested in colonies, but because they backed the wrong horse against the Ottomans and that limited their resources -- which meant that Spain and Portugal were getting influxes of wealth from their immense colonial efforts.
I could see Sel-Kai not doing much colonization of Lankanok becuase their money's tied up in Stroani and Rhakhaani wars, but with Lankanok being this huge plum right in their back yard I'd think it more likely they were focussed there -- with the surge in Zanarian influence due largely to their being able to fill the Khatra's coffers with coin in the 6030s-40s TE. Even then, there's no way that someone growing as rapidly as Relian is doesn't push through the Choak and take a big bite -- if only to ensure it's got the wealth to be able to avoid being colonized by Stroane.
Pre-WWII America was wildly colonial. The Monroe Doctrine was pretty much the U.S. staking a claim on South America as it's colonial property. They'd have certainly defended against the attack, but I think they'd have dropped moderately sized rocks instead of canister bombs. Revealing the bombs can only result in everyone in the region looking at Namar Tol as an existential treat. Rocks are far safer in the long run, and the tech difference would still result in the joke "Why does the New Lankan Navy have glass-bottomed boats?"
I see a continuity issue with explaining it away with essence flows -- those flows didn't stop Lankanok from sending a navy at Namar Tol. If Lankanok's pre-iron then Sel-Kai, Preten, Danarchis, and pretty much everyone else on the Haestran and Silaari coast is going to have a better navy better able to handle them. Certainly the flows are navigable enough for Sel-Kai to have a stable gold trade with Lankanok.
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Venice may have been a small player in the New World, but they dominated the Mediterranean trade, with substantial overseas holdings at their height, vastly more than the limited population of Venice itself - especially after they helped conquer the Byzantine Empire. Which was their undoing, because the weakened empire fell to the Ottomans, who then took away Venice's colonial possessions. Sel-kai could always go on a conquering binge themselves.
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We discuss about iron, but what about aluminium ?
In Emer Atlas II p.37, In Peligris "they are an abundant source of iron, coal, and bauxite (used in making aluminum)".
Aluminium metal is very difficult to produce and has been done only at the end of the XIX century. Furthermore, process claim electrolyse (so electricity).
Is there a nation able to do that ? It seems to me that even Namarian don't.
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Even a blast furnace would struggle to extract aluminum/aluminium from bauxite. I assume that in Shadow world, it would be down to Sel Kai or the Steampunkish Elves of Namar Tol would have some form of Electricity source to extract the aluminum/aluminium.
For example, they could create a lightning conductor that harvests electrical energy and conducts it to the smelt furnace, and put it in an area that has thousands of electrical strikes per day ... and you have a modern style electrical smelter without a standardized electricity supply.
For a real-life example of such an area, see the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning) phenomenon.
In an area with Essaence Storms, having a harnessable Catatumbo-style phenomenon is hardly beyond the bounds of reason ... and would certainly only be harnessed.
Plus ... it would be incredibly atmospheric (in all senses of the word) ;)
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Bronze is not cheaper than iron: it is a semi precious metal since it is the basis of coinage. The reason iron phased out bronze was because it was cheaper. iron pieces are traditionally below tin pieces, so the conversion is 1000 ip = 100 tp = 10 cp = 1 bp. Bronze is about 50/50 tin and copper making a bronze piece .55 copper piece.
In reality, however, tin was a more scarce resource than copper and it had to come from far giving bronze a high value. Iron was available on many more spots making it a much cheaper resource but also it was a much more useful metal, being able to fill so many roles.
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Reading a history on earth's civilizations (Hope and Tragedy by Prof. Carroll Quigley, link: http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf (http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf)) - the British, Spanish, French were able to subjugate other larger nations by a common practice of creating a critical dependency through trade i.e. by selling advanced weaponry to these nations but not the manufacturing capability and know how. It put those nations in a difficult position - don't accept the trade relationship at peril as their enemies will likely accept...trade relationship is dominated by those with the ability to manufacture advanced weaponry. Point is the elves of Namor-Tol and Sel-Kai's trade barons are likely to be in a trade war for influence (even subjugation of lower tech nations) as both have the advantage being TL6 where Ardania and other realms are TL5 or less.
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Reading a history on earth's civilizations (Hope and Tragedy by Prof. Carroll Quigley, link: http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf (http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf)) - the British, Spanish, French were able to subjugate other larger nations by a common practice of creating a critical dependency through trade i.e. by selling advanced weaponry to these nations but not the manufacturing capability and know how. It put those nations in a difficult position - don't accept the trade relationship at peril as their enemies will likely accept...trade relationship is dominated by those with the ability to manufacture advanced weaponry. Point is the elves of Namor-Tol and Sel-Kai's trade barons are likely to be in a trade war for influence (even subjugation of lower tech nations) as both have the advantage being TL6 where Ardania and other realms are TL5 or less.
+1
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The manufacturing technique is almost more important than the material. A weapon could be 'steel' but still crap. Better steel had less ore inclusions (vie higher smelting temps) and more carbon. And by using lamination of many layers, this produces a superior weapon. The Loari would guard these techniques jealously.