how to become a sartarite iron smith and create an iron sword

[French Desperate WindChild]

The secret of metal is very hard for me to manage..

I never succeed to find clear rules about smithing (or other craft)

Skills :

- Redsmith: Works bronze for weapons, armor, and other implements (RQG p65 adventurer occupation, p186 skills,)

- Craft Bronze: (RQG p296 humakt cult skills) I agree it is redsmith

- Craft Iron: (RQG p296 humakt cult skills)

and for the dwarves (p58 Bestiary) :

 Metal Lore / Redsmithing / Coppersmithing / Craft Gold / Secret of Iron / Silversmith / Tinsmith /

And maybe others

Then... does that mean that a (XX)Smith is not able to craft another metal ? I am a redsmith ==> am I unable to craft silver / copper / gold / iron if I have no skill ? Or at -x% malus ?

Should we conclude there is NO skill about armor smithing, weapon smithing, dedicated tool smithing ?

What is metal lore ? should a human redsmith have this knowledge ? How to use it ?

Is "Secret of Iron" ( iron dwarf) the same skill than "craft Iron" (Humakt cult skill)

 

Now let say my sister is a master redsmith (150%) and know a little bit ironsmith (40%) and silversmith (60%) (yes my sister is a bizarre wind child, did'nt say that previously ?)

She wants to craft 3 swords (1 bronze, 1 iron, 1 silver) Does that mean she rolls again 150% for the bronze, 40 for the iron and 60 for silver ?

or a mix:   she succeed iron test then the she can roll her best skill (150) to obtain a better quality (like "if you are a good smith and you know this metal, you can use fully/partially your best skill) ?

 

That's for the rule, now, for the story telling

Jojo is sartarite, iniate (hu... initiate / lay member / great iniate... it was clearer for me before RQG but it is another story) of Gusbran (or Orlanth , at least a "civil cult" ==> not Humakt)

So  he knows how to craft bronze sword but has no idea how to manage iron.

What can he do to learn the secret ?

Is there heroquest for that ? If a son of Gusbran succeed (I don't remember the humakti guy) is any quester of Gusbran able to find the secret, without becoming a slave of the death ?

Is there easier way ?

Find a big temple of a big god (Orlanth ?) as they are able to supply weapon for their rune lords ?

Where should he go ? What is the price ?

 

 

[Joerg]

Working iron is different from working godsbone, which is different from working cast bronze.

All of these involve pounding metal with a hammer, although cast (alloyed, or melted) bronze only gets a little hammering along the blade edges to make the metal a bit harder (but also a bit more brittle).

Cast bronze blades can come with a ridge across the center of the blade, creating allmost a + -shaped diameter, allowing for somewhat longer blades and less risk of bending.

Godsbone bronze comes with its natural growth lines which (at least in my Glorantha) work like layered (laminated) metal, giving the resulting blade greater tensile strength and making the brittle parts enclosed in way more ductile parts doesn't promote microfractures the way cast bronze does. I would give godsbone blades superior characteristics than for mass-produced alloyed bronze blades.

In order to retain the layered structure of godsbone, some moderate heating of the blade in between the hammering is required. (IMG) Heating has to be done carefully - if the metal heats up to more than a barely perceptible dark reddish glow, the material starts to lose the growth ring structure and deteriorates into a cast bronze blade.

There are smiths experimenting with coating rods of bronze with thin layers of tin, then dipping them into molten bronze, to imitate godsbone. At least aesthetically, blades hammered from such rods resemble godsbone blades. Some might also reach superior material properties.

Working iron requires tempering the iron at way higher temperatures - heating the metal to a white glow that can only be handled with copper pliers/grippers/tongs (no idea which of these apply for smithing, sorry), bronze would melt upon contact.

Bits of iron can be welded on to an existing rod, allowing the smith to layer on a little more material to make blades more durable.

 

For making a blade out of silver, you need to temper the result. Silver rods are pretty soft and ductile, and can easily be hammered into the desired shape, but that softness makes unenchanted silver useless for the backbone of a blade.

Godsbones of silver are a different kind of material (IMG) - harder, layered. It is possible to create short blades (say 5 inch) out of these without them bending even without enchanting the material.

Enchanted silver uses the POW of the enchanters to stabilize the silver, resulting in blades that can cut most magical entities (unless they have very high armor ratings).

 

Professional bladesmiths are able to fireplate bronze blades with silver, and exceptional ones will create runic inlays and coated blades on bronze and iron swords.

 

There is no upper price limit for extraordinarily crafted blades, even if the material enhancement effects diminish. But runically inscribed blades may also respond better to magic - imagine a blade that gains 2 points of magical damage instead of 1 from a standard 1 point bladesharp spell. Possibly only for every fifth point of bladesharp, but still this would be a significant improvement.

 

The best known cult for ironsmiths is Inginew, a hero or subcult of Humakt, but most cults have a few smiths they can contact for turning the iron their rune lords may acquire into weapons and armor, and who know to enchant the death metal.

Gustbran smiths (the lowfire cult, possibly a subcult of a ruling deity, possibly of Veskarthan/Lodril, or an independent cult) know the hammering, might be able to learn the coating (although for this they need to cooperate with Lhankor Mhy metallurgists or alchemists knowledgeable about metals). Both LM and alchemists guilds might be able to provide the Enchantment rituals, but many war gods grant some enchant <metal>, too.

 

Edited December 31, 2019 by Joerg

[g33k]

Yes but I think the OP is asking -- if you're a bog-standard Olanth/Gustbran redsmith, what can you do to learn to work Iron? 

In Glorantha, that's not just unrolling another scroll to see the characteristics of yet another metal...

[Bill the barbarian]

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

Yes but I think the OP is asking -- if you're a bog-standard Olanth/Gustbran redsmith, what can you do to learn to work Iron? 

 

Yes but that is our great and wise friend Joerg at his finest, someday ask him how he is today and then grab a coffee light a smoke put on a long playing album and sit and await the finish of the monologue....

Just kidding Joerg, I have always loved your answers, long though they might be.

[Joerg]

54 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

The secret of metal is very hard for me to manage..

I never succeed to find clear rules about smithing (or other craft)

Skills :

- Redsmith: Works bronze for weapons, armor, and other implements (RQG p65 adventurer occupation, p186 skills,)

- Craft Bronze: (RQG p296 humakt cult skills) I agree it is redsmith

- Craft Iron: (RQG p296 humakt cult skills)

and for the dwarves (p58 Bestiary) :

 Metal Lore / Redsmithing / Coppersmithing / Craft Gold / Secret of Iron / Silversmith / Tinsmith /

And maybe others

Then... does that mean that a (XX)Smith is not able to craft another metal ? I am a redsmith ==> am I unable to craft silver / copper / gold / iron if I have no skill ? Or at -x% malus ?

Should we conclude there is NO skill about armor smithing, weapon smithing, dedicated tool smithing ?

What is metal lore ? should a human redsmith have this knowledge ? How to use it ?

Is "Secret of Iron" ( iron dwarf) the same skill than "craft Iron" (Humakt cult skill)

 

Now let say my sister is a master redsmith (150%) and know a little bit ironsmith (40%) and silversmith (60%) (yes my sister is a bizarre wind child, did'nt say that previously ?)

She wants to craft 3 swords (1 bronze, 1 iron, 1 silver) Does that mean she rolls again 150% for the bronze, 40 for the iron and 60 for silver ?

or a mix:   she succeed iron test then the she can roll her best skill (150) to obtain a better quality (like "if you are a good smith and you know this metal, you can use fully/partially your best skill) ?

First, she needs to get the metal for these. Bronze and silver blades can be cast. Melting and casting metal is a common skill for redsmiths, as is the preparation/construction of casting moulds.

Godsbones need to be hammered into shape. It might be possible to make an item out of layered hammered godsbones to get more metal for a larger item, but that ought to require a significantly higher level of proficience.

Iron usually comes as scrap taken of defeated enemy rune lords, or as rods purchased from the mostali.

The Third Eye Blue sorcerer smiths are experts in welding together iron scrap into smithable rods. Your average Gustbran smith might not be able to do so, or may lose quite a bit of the precious material during the process.

 

So, how many skills do you need in RQ? Having three different smithing skills for the three different metals looks like skill inflation to me. But then there might be a smithing skill and a complementary metal lore skill (or name it somewhat differently so that it can have check-boxes), which might be resolved in the same roll.

In HQG, I would make the forging of a significant sword an extended contest, with multiple stages to accumulate successes to determine the quality of the outcome. For RQG, I would like to see a similar sequence of success rolls, much like a combat requires a series of rolls.

The smith would have to overcome certain obstacles on the way. I am open to suggestions how to handle this in RQG (or any other prolonged crafting effort).

 

54 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

That's for the rule, now, for the story telling

Jojo is sartarite, iniate (hu... initiate / lay member / great iniate... it was clearer for me before RQG but it is another story) of Gusbran (or Orlanth , at least a "civil cult" ==> not Humakt)

So  he knows how to craft bronze sword but has no idea how to manage iron.

What can he do to learn the secret ?

If it is about knowledge, pay an exorbitant fee to some Lhankor Mhy researchers or teachers, or offer them some of your services.

Apprentice to an accomplished master smith who knows the techniques. Overcome his distrust of you, prove your loyalty, and he may let you in to his experiences. If possible, rinse and repeat with other masters.

Learn the guild magics. Ritual magics, based off Enchant Metal or similar.

The Kalevala has a (quite long) song of iron, a magical formula meant for both forging blades, and for healing damage done by iron blades. In a perfect Gloranthan system, this would be a guild magic, a ritual, that requires some regular sacrifice of magic points over its duration.

 

54 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Is there heroquest for that ?

Plenty, I suppose. Find a trickster companion, and steal the secret from any target you like - the Sword Story has plenty of cases where copies of Death were made and stolen.

Stealing Death from Humakt may be a quest to learn the (basic) secrets of smithing iron. Obviously, the Humakt cult doesn't like this.

A quest to steal from the Mostali is possible. Live with the consequences.

Steal the secret from the Third Eye Blue. The consequences may be fewer, but that quest might be harder to learn.

Or you could do the original Sword story myth, descend into the deepest Hell and take Death out of Subere's Vault.

54 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

If a son of Gusbran succeed (I don't remember the humakti guy) is any quester of Gusbran able to find the secret, without becoming a slave of the death ?

That's a philosophical question. Can you learn to forge the essence of Death without getting tainted by it?

54 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Is there easier way ?

Drop some percentage into Mineral Lore, Alchemy, and of course smithing, and research. Possibly use the rules for researching a sorcery spell.

 

54 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Find a big temple of a big god (Orlanth ?) as they are able to supply weapon for their rune lords ?

These temples know the master smiths you may want to apprentice to.

54 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Where should he go ? What is the price ?

Overcome the distrust of the master. Fulfil some of his challenges and requirements. Share the pains with the rest of the party.

[Qizilbashwoman]

18 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Steal the secret from the Third Eye Blue. The consequences may be fewer, but that quest might be harder to learn.

This one is the time-honored tradition, incidentally. Make it a heist with a spirit combat at the end. Third Eye Blue is also the name of the god(ling) they worship, who might be Tolat-affiliated or just Tolat, and they stole the info from the Mostali ages ago, so you might even get some material support in exchange for a willingness to train others.

Pavis (the god), for example, might allow His dwarven Daughters to support you in your quest with materials and other support so long as you come back and train more ironworkers in the cult. Pavides are cut off from dwarven society entirely and as far as I know lack the knowledge to work iron.

[M Helsdon]

6 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

 

I can't answer your questions regarding the RQ:G system, but iron working is very rare, and whilst a very few human cults are fairly good at it, they can't match the work of the dwarves.

This may be why the dwarf skill is named differently, because the human skill always produces inferior results.

There are no iron deposits in Dragon Pass or nearby, so the only sources of the metal are the dwarves, who will sell finished pieces for outrageous prices, or trade. If you can obtain iron, the human Third Eye Blue smiths can work it, as can some Humakti blacksmiths. A redsmith (who works bronze) can't work iron - the techniques, temperature (and probably the spells) do not transfer. A redsmith can work bronze, and copper and tin, in my opinion, because bronze isn't just dug out of the ground from the bones of dead Storm Gods, but alloyed using tin and copper. To learn how to work iron a redsmith would either have to steal the secret from the Third Eye Blue or the Humakti, or join them. The Third Eye Blue and Humakti guard their secrets closely, and a thief or heroquester who obtains what they consider their secret would have vengeful sorcerer smiths after them and/or bands of very annoyed skilled killers.

Other cults probably obtain their items from them, or from the dwarves, or as cult heirlooms.

Iron isn't known as the Death Metal just because of its effects on elves and trolls.

If you try to steal from the dwarves, you are liable to be pursued by Iron Dwarves, and in addition to comprehensible iron axes etc. they may also have strange iron tubes that fire deadly projectiles, and make smoke and a loud bang - things no human understands.

Shameless plug: I don't pretend to be an expert, but Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass gives details of bronze and iron working, including three different ways of making an iron sword, not all equal in how durable. It makes clear just how distinct the skills and technologies (and magic) are.

Additional: Suspect that a human smith has a skill in working all metals with a lower 'melting' temperature than the one they usually use, at least to some degree, as they probably won't have the same repertoire of metal-working songs/spells as a smith dedicated to a particular metal. A redsmith can make you items of silver or gold, for example, or use them to decorate bronze items,  but if you want high quality work you need a silversmith or a goldsmith, for much the same reasons these were distinct crafts in terrestrial history. Dwarven skill sets are probably not useful, because dwarves spend centuries becoming extremely skilled specialists, so they are not a good model for human skill categories. Dwarves are far more single minded and single focused than any human, and intellectually are as alien to humans as elves. A dwarf who is a silversmith probably creates intricate things, but only in silver.

Edited December 31, 2019 by M Helsdon

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

The secret of metal is very hard for me to manage..

I presume that was supposed to be a pun...

[Joerg]

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

I can't answer your questions regarding the RQ:G system, but iron working is very rare, and whilst a very few human cults are fairly good at it, they can't match the work of the dwarves.

This may be why the dwarf skill is named differently, because the human skill always produces inferior results.

There are no iron deposits in Dragon Pass or nearby, so the only sources of the metal are the dwarves, who will sell finished pieces for outrageous prices, or trade.

I posit that every non-octamonist dwarf colony will have the ability to smelt iron, and I suspect that they draw it out of dwindling remains of somewhat enlivened Stone.

Belskan in Seshnela has a huge deposit of iron that somehow got transformed when there was less scarcity in that resource, and is sending it off into the world - quite likely as a dwarven plot to damage their ancient foes, aldryami and uz.

 

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

If you can obtain iron, the human Third Eye Blue smiths can work it, as can some Humakti blacksmiths. A redsmith (who works bronze) can't work iron - the techniques, temperature (and probably the spells) do not transfer.

Temperature only plays a role in casting the metal.

Personally, I don't think that anybody but the mostali knows how to smelt metal (transmute the ores into the metal) by means of charcoal and fire (alone - there may be magics to separate metal out of sufficiently pure element, but they aren't chemistry).

While humans are able to melt metal, and to alloy different metals, and even separate metals from one another, all of that applies to native metal mined as nuggets or actual pieces of godsbone.

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

A redsmith can work bronze, and copper and tin, in my opinion, because bronze isn't just dug out of the ground from the bones of dead Storm Gods, but alloyed using tin and copper.

A (master) redsmith is a master of casting metal, and of hammering it further into shape and harden it thereby.

Temperature (pyrotechology, mastery of fire) obviously plays a role in melting metal. (Keep in mind that melting metal means liquefying metal, while smelting metal means transforming the ore and extracting the resulting metal from all the other stuff like slag and ashes.)

Human pyrotechnology is actually quite well developed, able to distil pitch, calcify chalk for whitewash and concrete, burn and glaze pottery, even melt minerals and salts into glass, or melt metals up to copper.

It should not be sufficient to melt iron (in the sense of wrought iron - I don't think there is (extremely carbon-rich) cast iron or (quite carbon rich) crucible steel anywhere on Glorantha, or at least not outside of massive dwarf projects.

No humans can melt metal, and IMO none can smelt it either.

Luckily, for smithing iron, you don't have to melt it, and neither for smelting. You can work it by heating it up to a bright glow and then hammering it.

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

To learn how to work iron a redsmith would either have to steal the secret from the Third Eye Blue or the Humakti, or join them.

You seem to be approaching this from the idea that godsbone metal and iron need to be melted to be worked by a bonesmith, and I think that the method for working iron is pretty identical to working godsbone without destroying the godsbone properties by melting (or even sintering) it away.

So, as a bonesmith, working a bar of iron will be only slightly different from working a sufficiently sized piece of godsbone, and a master bonesmith would even be able to weld pieces of godsbone together, as an accomplished ironsmith would be able to weld pieces of iron into a rod (or model) that can be hammered (under heating) into the desired shapes.

It would be possible to experiment with experience from smithing godsbone to hit upon the temperatures when iron can be worked by hammering. That's why I think that a bonesmith (which isn't necessarily the same as a redsmith) will not be unable to work with iron, and may be able to master it by gathering experience.

 

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

If you try to steal from the dwarves, you are liable to be pursued by Iron Dwarves, and in addition to comprehensible iron axes etc. they may also have strange iron tubes that fire deadly projectiles, and make smoke and a loud bang - things no human understands.

Not iron tubes, I suppose - with brass (cast bronze) easily available, you can use it to produce high quality guns - from pistol and musket barrels all the way to Isidilian's Cannon Cult with its howitzers.

It doesn't make sense to use iron where brass is performing equally well.

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Shameless plug: I don't pretend to be an expert, but Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass gives details of bronze and iron working, including three different ways of making an iron sword, not all equal in how durable. It makes clear just how distinct the skills and technologies (and magic) are.

I don't claim to be an expert either, although as a chemist by trade and diploma I am not that far remote from material science, plus I read up recently on blade metallurgy a lot.

Your observations on metal are mostly in line with my impressions, although we differ in a few details. For instance, I don't think there is a qualitative difference between (wrought) Gloranthan iron and Gloranthan steel.

 

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Additional: Suspect that a human smith has a skill in working all metals with a lower 'melting' temperature than the one they usually use, at least to some degree, as they probably won't have the same repertoire of metal-working songs/spells as a smith dedicated to a particular metal.

That applies to casting metals, not to smithing them (by hammering).

Historically, hammering native metal was the first method for metalworking, and remained so in many cultures for a long time. It took about two or three millennia to develop the first smelted metal. And then hammered the molten and cooled copper into shapes, rather than casting it.

This is to say that mold-casting is a more advanced technology than hammering something into shape, but hammering something into shape is how you get tools out of native metal (aka pieces of godsbone) and out of iron - especially as one way to heat up an iron bar to smithing temperature is to bang on it with a hammer.

4 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

A redsmith can make you items of silver or gold, for example, or use them to decorate bronze items,  but if you want high quality work you need a silversmith or a goldsmith, for much the same reasons these were distinct crafts in terrestrial history. Dwarven skill sets are probably not useful, because dwarves spend centuries becoming extremely skilled specialists, so they are not a good model for human skill categories. Dwarves are far more single minded and single focused than any human, and intellectually are as alien to humans as elves. A dwarf who is a silversmith probably creates intricate things, but only in silver.

Agreed to all of this, but you are overlooking "cold-hammering" and "hot-hammering", both useful methods for working copper just as much as for working iron - without melting the metal.

[Shiningbrow]

Q: what metals did the gods use?

[Joerg]

47 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Q: what metals did the gods use?

Dwarf-made ones, for the most part. Sung dragonbone. Possibly bones of Umath after he was shattered in the ambush by Shargash from/in the Underworld.

[HreshtIronBorne]

Were the dwarves doling out Iron back then? or something like Truestone for the Gods?

[David Scott]

15 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

What can he do to learn the secret ?

Apprenticeship. That’s the traditional way that smithing works in the real world. Either a family business (I’ve three Generations of smiths back in my family) or talk your way into the job. Go somewhere where there is a lot or need of iron and you will find the work.the real issue with iron in my mind is that ultimately it needs magic to stop its negative magical effects, so an apprenticeship will have a cult /school / shrine associated with it. Remembering my metal work teacher, he was pretty good with casting, hammering and shaping a range of metals, so I can imagine iron work is closely related to bronze work. Softer metals like copper were easier, but he never used gold or silver as it was too fiddly (he was our lodger at home so I was exposed to a lot of different metalworking).

[Jeff]

15 hours ago, g33k said:

Yes but I think the OP is asking -- if you're a bog-standard Olanth/Gustbran redsmith, what can you do to learn to work Iron? 

In Glorantha, that's not just unrolling another scroll to see the characteristics of yet another metal...

If you are a bog-standard red smith, you work in bronze not iron. Orlanth knows how to Enchant Iron, but not how to craft iron. Humakt does have the secrets of working iron (as well as bronze). So your best bet to learn the secrets of iron is to go to the Humakt Temple.

[French Desperate WindChild]

Bonne année à tous

Thanks a lot for your answers and there details. For someone who doesn't know anything about metal working (IRL) and with poor english, it is a little bit difficult to master all these data so I will read it several times to try to cath so much knowledge !

To resume what I understood :

- for human (dwarf skills are for dwarf), use redsmith to make things with bronze and any other metal (except iron, maybe quicksilver too ?)

- if a human wants to craft Iron he must join Humakt(possible but big sacrifice) or Third Eye (hu a little bit harder, isn't it). I suspect that become a dwarf slave will not give you the knowledge (risk to see the knowledge go outside)

Jeff gave a terrible news: the gods who know enchant iron don't know smith iron.

- the last solution is to go in heroquest, for sure, but not so sure, to much danger during and after the heroquest for a person "who just want to smith"

 

[Jeff]

2 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Bonne année à tous

Thanks a lot for your answers and there details. For someone who doesn't know anything about metal working (IRL) and with poor english, it is a little bit difficult to master all these data so I will read it several times to try to cath so much knowledge !

To resume what I understood :

- for human (dwarf skills are for dwarf), use redsmith to make things with bronze and any other metal (except iron, maybe quicksilver too ?)

- if a human wants to craft Iron he must join Humakt(possible but big sacrifice) or Third Eye (hu a little bit harder, isn't it). I suspect that become a dwarf slave will not give you the knowledge (risk to see the knowledge go outside)

Jeff gave a terrible news: the gods who know enchant iron don't know smith iron.

- the last solution is to go in heroquest, for sure, but not so sure, to much danger during and after the heroquest for a person "who just want to smith"

 

Iron is a strange and terrible thing. If you just want to smith, have a reason how you (or more likely your master) learned (or more likely stole) the secrets of ironsmithing from the dwarves. That's Third Eye Blue in a nutshell.

Or just join the cult of Humakt. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

1 minute ago, Jeff said:

Iron is a strange and terrible thing.

yes more terrible than I believed

that is the biggest info for me, it is not only craft, it is "power" => no pain no smith

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Were the dwarves doling out Iron back then? or something like Truestone for the Gods?

I think so. Giving iron to some humans who then use it on aldryami or trolls does makes enough sense that at least some openhandist enclaves or the enclave sitting on an entire mountain of that stuff may pursue.

The concept of iron may only have entered Glorantha when Eurmal and his accomplices (Humakt, Nontraya/Vivamort) released it from the Chaosium/Subere's Vault.

It is possible that Disorder was the precursor to Death when it came to taking a Golden Age enitity out of the following mythical cycles. The knife used by Bolongo to kill Earthmaker, the red sword from Hell that dismembered Umath beyond recovery, but also Boztakang's power against Chaos may have their origin in that rune. Storm Bull and Zorak Zoran participate in that. But if Disorder had its own metal, we don't know about it. It is possible that those blades were not made of metal at all, but some other material. Stone comes to mind, possibly living Stone.

Edited January 1, 2020 by Joerg

[M Helsdon]

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

Temperature only plays a role in casting the metal.

Personally, I don't think that anybody but the mostali knows how to smelt metal (transmute the ores into the metal) by means of charcoal and fire (alone - there may be magics to separate metal out of sufficiently pure element, but they aren't chemistry).

Temperature has an impact on casting many metals, and for extracting metal from ore, as metals won't always be in tidy nuggets. For iron, it has an impact on extracting the ore, and in manufacture, as, for example, fashioning an iron sword requires different temperatures for different portions of the blade. Given that there are a few Human iron mines (though they always run out) probably formed from where dwarven armies and animals died en masse in the Gods War, the iron is likely to be tainted and require smelting. Pure slugs of iron purchased from the dwarves is likely to be as pure as they feel like providing, for a price.

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

You seem to be approaching this from the idea that godsbone metal and iron need to be melted to be worked by a bonesmith, and I think that the method for working iron is pretty identical to working godsbone without destroying the godsbone properties by melting (or even sintering) it away.

So, as a bonesmith, working a bar of iron will be only slightly different from working a sufficiently sized piece of godsbone, and a master bonesmith would even be able to weld pieces of godsbone together, as an accomplished ironsmith would be able to weld pieces of iron into a rod (or model) that can be hammered (under heating) into the desired shapes.

I work on the assumption that iron is very very different from other metals that result from the bones of a god. The other metals can be cast as liquid, and then subjected to a few other processes to make usable weapons; iron is different - if it were not, the working of iron into functional weapons would not be a secret of a very few cults (and I assume that only the dwarves can make really good steel, though some human blacksmiths can make not so good steel).

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

This is to say that mold-casting is a more advanced technology than hammering something into shape, but hammering something into shape is how you get tools out of native metal (aka pieces of godsbone) and out of iron - especially as one way to heat up an iron bar to smithing temperature is to bang on it with a hammer.

Agreed to all of this, but you are overlooking "cold-hammering" and "hot-hammering", both useful methods for working copper just as much as for working iron - without melting the metal.

Cold hammering non-iron metals into shape is possible for some (though not iron except as part of the later stages of the smithing process) but often results in a weaker object than by casting because what has been bent by force, can be bent by force again. To actually heat iron by cold hammering is pretty impractical - you need to have already heated the metal, even if you are using a power hammer, whether modern or medieval. When cold hammering is used on iron, the iron isn't literally cold, but at a stage sometimes called black heat, when the metal is just below a dull red heat - and the hammering is comparatively lightly done, if you don't want to ruin what you are working on.

YGWV, but I consider iron to be a radically different material to the others - in Glorantha, because it isn't a natural material.

Thus its mythological and practical properties, and why working iron is such a secret.

16 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Were the dwarves doling out Iron back then? or something like Truestone for the Gods?

Probably spreading around a material that lets others kill their racial enemies. Humans weren't seen as a threat to dwarf plans compared with elves or trolls, and so were simply cheap delivery systems, and their casualties didn't impact the dwarven war effort. Of course, now, the dwarves wish they'd made iron poisonous to humans as well, but seem to lack the capability to alter its properties - just as they seem to be losing other technologies such as making giant-sized jolanti.

For the Gods, the dwarves, or more accurately, the mostali, were enacting their divine role in engineering and maintaining the cosmos. When the Gods War started, it took them time to realise that contests of skill had been replaced by deadly combat.

Edited January 1, 2020 by M Helsdon

[Joerg]

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Temperature has an impact on casting many metals, and for extracting metal from ore, as metals won't always be in tidy nuggets.

There was a copper-using culture in the northern parts of the USA which used native copper nuggets from rich copper deposits for a few millennia. Now real world copper deposits are special because between the oxidic and the anoxic layers there is a layer where the oxidizing sulphide may release native copper, so those nuggets may even have been re-created after a higher deposite had been mined away. The oxidic ores are nice pigments or have been made into jewelry in quite a few early copper adopter cultures in the Real World.

Extracting metal from ore is not a necessary element of Gloranthan metallurgy as known to humans. Nuggets are available because godsbones, shattered and ground up, will provide these. This is a postapocalyptic world, in which gods have walked and fallen that could leave footprints fifty miles across. The godsbones would have been commensurate in size. Theoretically, miners might find themselves in a tunnel where they have to remove petrified marrow two men high to discover that they are surrounded by Godsbone.

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

For iron, it has an impact on extracting the ore, and in manufacture, as, for example, fashioning an iron sword requires different temperatures for different portions of the blade.

Not quite. I suppose you are referring to harden steel by adding carbon, which does indeed require a very exact control over the quality of the fire, and temperature is just one of several components that have to be right, and that are related. Air flow and carbon content have an decisive impact here.

Iron that you harden in a flame becomes steel.

If your iron sword is to have areas with different material properties (ductility vs. hardness), you usually weld it together from rods with those properties. But a smith can take a carbon-rich steel and make it softer in an oxygenating flame, or harder in a hot reducing flame.

Controlling the fire really is the art here.

There is one specialized cult in Glorantha who controls all the hot fires used in manufacture, from baking via pottery to smithing and glass-making, and that is Gustbran, the Bonesmith, who works the bones of any dead gods.

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Given that there are a few Human iron mines (though they always run out) probably formed from where dwarven armies and animals died en masse in the Gods War, the iron is likely to be tainted and require smelting.

Smelting Real World iron with early Iron Age technology will result in a red hot spongy material full of slag and brittle iron. In order to get something in the vicinity of low quality wrought iron, smiths need to keep beating at it, re-heating it periodically, over better than a day.

A deposit of dwarven scrap iron or bones on the other hand will have pieces that might be corroded, but which can be heated, hammered individually, then welded together, and pounded and re-heated until you cannot make out any more where the one piece ended and the other began before the welding. Still a lot less pounding than would be necessary to start with smelted iron.

Except for iron age China, no Real World ancient culture melted the iron they used. Not even the famous crucible steel from India was liquid in any phase of its production. Smelting steel via the liquid iron is a very modern process. Smelting cast iron results in a very brittle and carbon rich material solidifying in puddles below your smelter which was largely unsuitable for smithing, unless you subjected it to a difficult and highly controlled process of heating it with oxygenating fire to drive out the carbon. The Chinese were the only iron-producing culture of antiquity that used this method.

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Pure slugs of iron purchased from the dwarves is likely to be as pure as they feel like providing, for a price.

Less purity (more slag etc) just means you need more of the material as your losses will increase and you have to pound away at it much longer. If we are talking about a metal with the melting point of terrestrial wrought iron, that is.

You are free to have cast steel swords in your fantasy game, with the metal pouring into open molds with an orange glow.

Metallurgically, I have a couple of bad news for you if you do that, though. Iron needs to be heated above white glow to melt, unless heavily alloyed which may lower the melting point to just white glow.

Having crucibles that work at this temperature exceeds normal pottery. Terracotta will melt at these conditions, too.

 

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

I work on the assumption that iron is very very different from other metals that result from the bones of a god. The other metals can be cast as liquid, and then subjected to a few other processes to make usable weapons; iron is different - if it were not, the working of iron into functional weapons would not be a secret of a very few cults (and I assume that only the dwarves can make really good steel, though some human blacksmiths can make not so good steel).

Steel and iron are terms that are interchangeable. Iron mostali know many secrets of the metal that will result in products that cannot be reproduced by human blacksmiths without putting their soul (POW) into it, and part of the secret is that Mostali pour their soul into their work all the time. Almost all the Mostali caste-specific spells are bestowment spells, adding POW to a work to make it more stable.

All other metals can be cast as liquids. If you have sufficiently intact pieces of godsbone, you will want to avoid that at all cost, however, as you will lose whatever special benefit the bone structure offers.

Rods of iron have no such special properties unless they happen to be special dwarf crucible steel, but when worked by a human blacksmith, iron of whichever original quality will end up as slightly coaled up wrought iron. Not even the iron mostali know about alloyed steel (with anything but carbon as part of the wanted alloy). They will know about inferior iron that needs more wrighting (i.e. pounding and heating).

 

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Cold hammering non-iron metals into shape is possible for some (though not iron except as part of the later stages of the smithing process) but often results in a weaker object than by casting because what has been bent by force, can be bent by force again.

Göbekli Tepe smiths produced an almost fist-sized maze head from a huge piece of native copper without resorting to heating.

Hammering metal is a proven way to heat metal, and this is the craft secret of Gadblad, the troll smith.

A trained smith can light a cigarette with a hammer, an anvil, and a bar of wrought iron with only a few beats of the hammer, producing red heat. A few beats more, and you can cauterize a wound with a nearly white hot piece of iron.

A proficient iron smith or bone smith in Glorantha has to be very aware of the heat that he hammers into the metal he is working.

Much like what you wrote about black heat iron hammering.

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

YGWV, but I consider iron to be a radically different material to the others - in Glorantha, because it isn't a natural material.

Oh, I agree.

One major difference other than that it cannot be melted (if it can, it's worthless) is that iron doesn't alloy with any of the other metals, not even with quicksilver, the one metal to dissolve them all. In  that regard even Real World iron is a dead metal.

But then, godsbone is sufficiently different from molten metal that it qualifies as a material with mythological and practical properties beyond some cast metal of the same type.

23 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Thus its mythological and practical properties, and why working iron is such a secret.

All metal has mythological and practical properties. All of it is the result of Death, or at least separation, too. Bones of living gods are usually surrounded by godly flesh and unavailable as material for smithies.

There are no known gods with iron bones. Humakt never lost a limb in his myths, and he might be the only deity whose bones may have undergone that transformation that happens in ancient clay iron dwarves.

 

While diatribing about this, what about lodestones in Glorantha? Ferromagnetism doesn't really become noticeable in the absence of ferromagnetic metals.

We know that the Magnetic Mountain of Jrustela attracted a lot of the debris from the collapse of the spike. Now the Curustus range of Jrustela is not made of Truestone, so it must have been the foothills of the Spike which were tossed there as consequence of the implosion (in case anyone should wonder, every implosion is necessarily followed by an explosion).

[M Helsdon]

57 minutes ago, Joerg said:

There was a copper-using culture in the northern parts of the USA which used native copper nuggets from rich copper deposits for a few millennia.

I know. Even a bronze alloy, in and around Michoacan. Believe I saw a few pieces at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City a long time ago.

59 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Extracting metal from ore is not a necessary element of Gloranthan metallurgy as known to humans. Nuggets are available because godsbones, shattered and ground up, will provide these.

I suspect the reality (such as it will be in a fantasy world) is a bit more complicated than that.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Iron that you harden in a flame becomes steel.

Um, it's a bit more complicated than that.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

There is one specialized cult in Glorantha who controls all the hot fires used in manufacture, from baking via pottery to smithing and glass-making, and that is Gustbran, the Bonesmith, who works the bones of any dead gods.

Iron is not derived from dead gods.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Except for iron age China, no Real World ancient culture melted the iron they used.

I've researched the production of iron, and steel, in some detail, though I don't claim to be an expect, though I have studied the methods used in ancient Europe, the Near East, India, and China. There's a very great deal we don't know about their production techniques, but we can work out the basic techniques. Archaeology has shown that the Chinese were probably the first to utilize pig iron in seal clay crucibles - but in Glorantha, I'd limit that to Kralorela.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

Steel and iron are terms that are interchangeable.

Um, only if you are very imprecise.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

You are free to have cast steel swords in your fantasy game, with the metal pouring into open molds with an orange glow.

That's a meme in bad fantasy; Game of Thrones did it because the producers thought it looked cool. It's a lazy approach.

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

A trained smith can light a cigarette with a hammer, an anvil, and a bar of wrought iron with only a few beats of the hammer, producing red heat. A few beats more, and you can cauterize a wound with a nearly white hot piece of iron.

Um, red hot, white is a bit more difficult, and whilst useful for localized welding, it isn't exactly useful in forging a sword with any accuracy.

But this doesn't really serve to answer the original questions: in Glorantha working iron is very rare specialised skill, known only to a very few.

YGWV, but I prefer my fantasy grounded closely to terrestrial metallurgy.

Terminus Est.

[Jeff]

7 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

I know. Even a bronze alloy, in and around Michoacan. Believe I saw a few pieces at the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City a long time ago.

I suspect the reality (such as it will be in a fantasy world) is a bit more complicated than that.

Um, it's a bit more complicated than that.

Iron is not derived from dead gods.

I've researched the production of iron, and steel, in some detail, though I don't claim to be an expect, though I have studied the methods used in ancient Europe, the Near East, India, and China. There's a very great deal we don't know about their production techniques, but we can work out the basic techniques. Archaeology has shown that the Chinese were probably the first to utilize pig iron in seal clay crucibles - but in Glorantha, I'd limit that to Kralorela.

Um, only if you are very imprecise.

That's a meme in bad fantasy; Game of Thrones did it because the producers thought it looked cool. It's a lazy approach.

Um, red hot, white is a bit more difficult, and whilst useful for localized welding, it isn't exactly useful in forging a sword with any accuracy.

But this doesn't really serve to answer the original questions: in Glorantha working iron is very rare specialised skill, known only to a very few.

YGWV, but I prefer my fantasy grounded closely to terrestrial metallurgy.

Terminus Est.

Martin - your approach is right. Iron is rare in Glorantha, and uses different techniques for each stage of construction from Glorantha. In Dragon Pass, it is worked mainly by the dwarfs (and to a lesser extent, the Humakt cult). Some smiths (especially player characters) might have learned Craft Iron from someone who stole the secrets from the dwarfs, which can be a good story hook. 

 

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Um, it's a bit more complicated than that.

Yes, but the role of carbon monoxide in smelting and carbonizing iron is a kind of chemistry that I wouldn't pursue in Glorantha.

 

 

7 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

I've researched the production of iron, and steel, in some detail, though I don't claim to be an expect, though I have studied the methods used in ancient Europe, the Near East, India, and China. There's a very great deal we don't know about their production techniques, but we can work out the basic techniques. Archaeology has shown that the Chinese were probably the first to utilize pig iron in seal clay crucibles - but in Glorantha, I'd limit that to Kralorela.

Metallurgical, I don't think that any Gloranthan humans should be that advanced. Not even the Third Eye Blue.

 

Iron and steel being interchangeable terms:

7 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Um, only if you are very imprecise.

Sure. For precision, I'd have to roll out phase diagrams.

The material we know as iron - even wrought iron - is an alloy of pure iron crystallites and cementite crystallite (Fe3C), with a variable amount of cementite. (Al)chemically pure iron has no carbon content at all, but that has few practical applications as its physical properties aren't much better than copper.

But all of this is pertinent only to non-Gloranthan iron. If Gloranthan iron can be hardened, it won't be by carbon, but by Death.

You don't want to harden iron while you are hammering it, though - you use heat to keep the hardness at bay.

But then, the bonesmith uses well dosed amounts of heat when working godsbones, too.

 

7 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

That's a meme in bad fantasy; Game of Thrones did it because the producers thought it looked cool. It's a lazy approach.

I was groaning at the Isengard foundries in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings here... and I agree that it is bad fantasy.

 

7 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Um, red hot, white is a bit more difficult, and whilst useful for localized welding, it isn't exactly useful in forging a sword with any accuracy.

But this doesn't really serve to answer the original questions: in Glorantha working iron is very rare specialised skill, known only to a very few.

True.

Your average redsmith can cast a sword from bronze. He might even be able to weld cracks in bronze items, although not back to the original quality of the forged piece.

He won't be able to work godsbone in the way that the godsbone qualities are retained.

 

The bonesmith is a specialist in this. True, the redsmiths worship Gustbran just like the bonesmiths do, but they don't know all the secrets, all the work songs.

I think that Inginew started out as a bonesmith when he learned the additional secrets of iron. The cult of Humakt adores iron, but it relies on bronze, and on superior, godsbone bronze, to make their oversized blades stable. Real World bronze alloy or brass cannot produce the greatswords used by the cult, only godsbone bronze can. This is why the Orlanthi sword-smiths have an edge over other sword-smiths, and why Orlanthi bonesmiths who have both the access to bronze godsbones and the knowledge and affinity to make them into blades are famed among Western as much as Pelorian warriors. There might be an Ulfberht somewhere in Dragon Pass. Possibly in the Grazelands?

 

A Gustbran bonesmith won't know the secrets of iron, but he will be in an excellent starting position to investigate them, both through work at the anvil and through accessing the myths. A smith's heroquest may take his workshop along to the Other Side.

7 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

YGWV, but I prefer my fantasy grounded closely to terrestrial metallurgy.

Terminus Est.

As long as you can avoid the chemistry of it entering Glorantha. It is established that Gloranthan matter is not made up from atoms that follow quantum-mechanical rules, but from runic material. Especially metals.

 

I have made a fairly deep dive into the metallurgy of swords - iron swords mostly, but also covering earlier metalworking - into the course material of the material sciences faculty of Kiel university. It helped that I have a full background in chemistry, but I think even with undergraduate chemistry knowledge one might be able to follow the material. The writing is occasionally whimsical, there are a few imprecisions in the chemistry outside of the author's speciality, and likewise in the archaeology outside of his speciality, but it tells you way more than you ever thought there was to know about the material science of swords.

This doesn't make me an expert. I haven't done a single day of smithing in my life, and welded only with electrical arc. But I have done my diploma thesis in crystallography, which means I am trained to understand material from this inside out.

 

What defines a metal? It is (usually) a ductile solid, and it is glossy. It remains glossy when melted (although that is hard to see in most cases because of surface oxidation, a mitigating factor in the glossiness of solid metals, too. Especially lead.)

The dislocated electron cloud that makes metals glossy is not a topic that I would bring into Glorantha. Metal just is glossy, nobody asks why.

Real World metal is made up from micro-crystals of the constituent compounds (often just the element) which are sintered together, forming irregular connections between the surface of the crystals. That fuzzy, not quite crystalline and glass-like structure that connects the solid cores of regular crystals is what is responsible for the physical properties of metal (other than the electric ones).

I don't like to think that crystal structure has any place in Gloranthan metallurgy, though. Gloranthan metal is the essence of ductile hard matter (unless we are talking about the outlier Quicksilver).

[Tindalos]

12 minutes ago, Joerg said:

What defines a metal? It is (usually) a ductile solid, and it is glossy. It remains glossy when melted (although that is hard to see in most cases because of surface oxidation, a mitigating factor in the glossiness of solid metals, too. Especially lead.)

The dislocated electron cloud that makes metals glossy is not a topic that I would bring into Glorantha. Metal just is glossy, nobody asks why.

It's glossy for the same reason gems sparkle in the light, it's the remnants of divinity in the remains.

[Shiningbrow]

Q: what's the difference between what the Humakti know of iron, and what Lhankor Mhy knows of it? I presume there are at least a couple of LM smiths out there...