Randomish Metal Thoughts

[RogueGunslinger]

Know what I wouldn't mind seeing more of? Metal. When was the last time any of you saw a metal piece of armor? Or a metal weapon? Have you ever?

I understand that metal is rare. But I want to see a Templar wearing metal into battle, arrows deflecting off while he charges into the fray. Top Lieutenants/sergeants would all have a metal weapons. It shouldn't be so rare that a player never sees it.

[HavokBlue]

I don't think I've seen a unique metal item ever besides that one Tor warlord.

rip tor

[Inks]

I've never seen a metal item in 4 years apart from the ones nobles start with.

[Kronibas]

Some encounters with metal on Arm:


Fatty Tor's silver half mask was such a great metal object. The gypsy jegash bowl is another good one. I wonder if it has survived...

When I was playing a new templar, a red robe gave a corporal a bronze longsword, Magekiller, which had known anti magick properties. So he wore it on his belt and you can imagine how that turned out.  The Lirathan Felysia wound up with it, and then a staff avatar... I think, anyway. Plainsman.

In the last five years, I've had a rogue mage steal a fist sized chunk of metal from an estate.

In the last eight, one of my character mastercrafted metal items for a templar.

[Desertman]

When I was playing a new templar, a red robe gave a corporal a bronze longsword, Magekiller, which had known anti magick properties. So he wore it on his belt and you can imagine how that turned out.  The Lirathan Felysia wound up with it, and then a staff avatar... I think, anyway. Plainsman.

A Legion officer also carried it for a bit and actually fought The Plainsman with it in the ruins of Ayun Iskandir once.

(The Legionnaire got away, but I can't remember if he lost the sword there.)

[KankWhisperer]

I think the staff reasoning behind not adding more unique shit to the game went that every such item invariably ends up gathering dust in a noble's cabinet o' oddities anyway.

Or so I've been told. It does sound plausible.

Yeah Templars will just confiscate.  So a metal item is severely limited to who can even have a chance to use it. City soldiers, nobles, or someone who can never enter a city.

[Desertman]

Sometimes I wish the static power structures were somewhat less powerful overall to prevent certainties like that. I would rather see more, "If you want it, come and claim it, if you can.", and less, "Well, I have 100 NPC's and thousands of virtual NPC's on my side that I can call on, so, I win.".

But, without that a lot of the things that hold the game together would quickly fall apart at the hands of players, or at least change dramatically, and probably far too often for the game to have any sense of "foundation" and "continuity".

Overall I prefer the current model, but sometimes I do kind of wish I could go Conan the Conqueror.

[palomar]

I could be completely wrong, but it appears to me that metal weapons, and mostly armor too, have been more or less phased out of PC accessibility over the last 8 years or so. High ranked templars used to carry those things, and some of the super villains too, but they've been increasingly rare since the Copper/Gith wars. I wouldn't say I really miss that stuff, but seeing rare metal items that aren't part of the noble/templar setup is always cool.

Oh well, it's all about chopping things with bone swords anyway, isn't it?

[KankWhisperer]

I remember a guy having a cursed sword that would talk to him. I don't know if it really was talking to him or if he was rping crazy.

[Patuk]

Kinda sounds like someone enjoyed his Warcraft/Elric books too much.

[KankWhisperer]

Well it was around 2000. Was more crazy stuff then.

[BadSkeelz]

Play in a harsh, post-apocalyptic desert setting where lack of metal and advanced technology is a basic part of the premise

Complain how we don't have enough access to metal and advanced technology

[RogueGunslinger]

Play in a harsh, post-apocalyptic desert setting where lack of metal and advanced technology is a basic part of the premise

Complain how we don't have enough access to metal and advanced technology

See a decent question posted on the forums.

Make knee-jerk defensive post about "complainers" like they shouldn't have a say about the game we all play.

[BadSkeelz]

It's more of a general trend lately than something specific to you.

That said, there's plenty of games and settings with metal in them. We should work on making more interesting things with the materials we have, that make Armageddon unique.

[RogueGunslinger]

The cool thing about making metal rare, or really making anything rare, is when you finally get to see it. If it's so rare it's never seen it might as well just not exists.

[KankWhisperer]

Try and steal it from that Tuluk road echo.

[Reiloth]

The cool thing about making metal rare, or really making anything rare, is when you finally get to see it. If it's so rare it's never seen it might as well just not exists.

Truth.

Rare means it should still be somewhat present. It is, to an extent -- Nobles have their signet rings, and there is a big iron dragon in Allanak. It reminds me that discovering a vein of metal sparked a resource war (The Copper War), and that the presence of metal makes Zalanthans go cray cray.

The problem with making it a part of the world actively (Like on NPCs or even PCs) is that's reason enough to murder them -- Which I think is A-OK for PCs, but I wouldn't ever want to see metal objects on an NPC.

EDIT:

That's in public and can be insta-ganked for their metal loots.

[Armaddict]

The cool thing about making metal rare, or really making anything rare, is when you finally get to see it. If it's so rare it's never seen it might as well just not exists.

Or, you know, the whole thing where it changes dynamics for something that -we- know as common to be uncommon.

I see no reason at all for there to be more metal in the game, particularly metal that is usable by characters.  Go look at more noble hands.

[RogueGunslinger]

The cool thing about making metal rare, or really making anything rare, is when you finally get to see it. If it's so rare it's never seen it might as well just not exists.

Or, you know, the whole thing where it changes dynamics for something that -we- know as common to be uncommon.

I see no reason at all for there to be more metal in the game, particularly metal that is usable by characters.  Go look at more noble hands.

I don't understand. You think by seeing the occasional metal item like Kronibas did back in the day it would suddenly become common? When people have been playing for YEARS and still never see anything other than a signet ring, then I'd say that it's way too rare.

[Armaddict]

...too rare for what?

[RogueGunslinger]

Too rare to be meaningful in any way to the game. Too rare to be realistic. Making metal into jewlery and statues is fucking idiotic in the context of its current rarity.

[Armaddict]

When there's that little of it, that makes perfect sense.

And the lack of it -is- the meaningful part to the game.

[RogueGunslinger]

You really think it's realistic that what little metal there is would be wasted on jewelry, instead of tools, weapons, and armor?

[KankWhisperer]

What's the point?  Either you are powerful enough to not need the metal sword in the first place or you're Gollum. Clutching it to your chest in a cave, you whisper "My precious. "

[Armaddict]

Considering who can consistently afford to pay for it, yes.

There are rare exceptions, but then the quantity that is available becomes a limiting factor, considering it is also reliant on who it is who -finds- the thing, moreso than who -gets- the thing.

Altogether, this is pretty much the weirdest thing I've ever seen you complain about, and am totally wondering where it came from.  I don't want to see a metal sword, because there's usually a high-ranking templar attached to it, and they usually only come out when they're pissed.  And I'm perfectly okay with not having metal swords and armor floating around the PC populace, with everyone complaining about how they got it or how they are staff pets because they got it, etc etc etc.

Doesn't need to be in the game.  Doesn't really belong in the game in the first place.

[Reiloth]

Yeah, if anything it's a bit of flair you see once in a blue moon that makes you go OOOO.

Kind of like a horse.

[RogueGunslinger]

Why do you guys have to think of everything you don't agree with as complaining about the game? That's so irritating.

I think metal would be cool to see more of. That's it. That's all there is to it. I don't need to write a dissertation on why I think it would be cool. Your argument for making the worlds rarest and most powerful material into jewelry is laughable.

[Kismetic]

Easy there, RareGunSlinger

[Reiloth]

Why?

There's not that much of it.

Making a sword would be nigh impossible, which is what makes swords like Magekiller so frightening.

Small amount of metal? Make a ring! Or a cute little brooch.

[Fujikoma]

New dwarf focus: Murder nobility in order to take their rings and melt them down to make a sword.

Assassin/master weaponsmith

[Armaddict]

Because I entered the discussion at the last page, not your first post.  At that point, it had developed into a complaint rather than a random thought, because you'd already been put into the position of continuing a path of argument.  So, by appearance, to me, it appeared as if you were complaining about how you wanted to see more metal.  Looking back, yes, the original post was innocuous.

As far as my argument being laughable?  Clearly, that's a matter of opinion based off of your desire to see more metal.  At least mine is actually based on the game, and the fact that there's no one pushing for the acquisition of metal, which means the metal tools to find more metal faster aren't being made.  The people who want metal are not generally the ones swinging swords, and the ones who want it for swinging swords generally do not have the coin to outbid the ones who don't want it for swinging swords.  LAUGHABLE, GAWD.

[RogueGunslinger]

I just can't imagine a bunch of people starting a war over a source on metal, just so they could turn it into shiny, pretty little things. That seems very un-zalanthan.

[Nyr]

or make a dragon out of enough steel to outfit hundreds of soldiers

[Fujikoma]

Maybe it's some kind of golem?

[Reiloth]

I think it's just a big fuck you to the world, really.

[Reiloth]

Put a dragon on it!

[CodeMaster]

or make a dragon out of enough steel to outfit hundreds of soldiers

Lord Ian: This looks absolutely perfect. I mean it's, uh, the right proportions. It'll be this color right?
Dwarven Artisan: Yeah. Yeah.
Lord Ian: Yeah. That's...that's...that's just terrific. It almost looks like the real thing.
Dwarven Artist: You got it.
Lord Ian: When we get the actual, uh, set, when we get the piece, it'll...it'll follow exactly these specifications. I mean even these contours and everything?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMMy9t0TJNE

[Marauder Moe]

Noble signet rings are generally made of silver, right?  It's a very soft metal, not very good for weapons or armor.

Copper is usable for weapons, and was in ancient history.  It's better than stone weapons, though copper blades wear pretty quickly.

If you have a little tin, you can make bronze weapons which are much more durable than pure copper ones.

[Molten Heart]

Put a dragon on it!

Performing every night this week outside the west gates of Allanak from dusk til dawn!

[Fujikoma]

That's what Allanak needs, magickal amplifiers and guitars, distortion pedals, and a drum set. Tuluk would be HORRIFIED. "That's, not, music! That's the sound of a Quirri getting mounted by a Gwoshi! ARG!"

[Reiloth]

THE DRAGON'S MUSIC.

[whitt]

That's what Allanak needs, magickal amplifiers and guitars, distortion pedals, and a drum set. Tuluk would be HORRIFIED. "That's, not, music! That's the sound of a Quirri getting mounted by a Gwoshi! ARG!"

There must be a "Fuji's Law" version of "Godwin's Law" wherein any discussion can be rendered "done" when it devolves into inter-species kanking.   

[Fujikoma]

... sorry guys, going to have to have a Krathi cut the tail off the dragon statue for the cymbals and highhats.

[Twilight]

Your argument for making the worlds rarest and most powerful material into jewelry is laughable.

The powerful folks who come to possess metal are less likely to need it as a weapon.  Some merchant doesn't need a whole sword that is going to bankrupt him, he needs a silver necklace, which is much more powerful to him, because it makes a statement, which to a merchant is more important that a single sword (and much less expensive).  Even more importantly, its about the volume of the stuff necessary to make a weapon vs something else.

I think the rarity is about right, but that is thinking about my entire time here.  We aren't the game where a Blackwing can run around Nak with a steel sword anymore, so maybe it is a little less that I'd like to see now, in terms of usuable non-noble/templar items.

[jstorrie]

an Allanaki templar once gave a PC of mine a big chunk of iron ore because he implied to her that he was going to take her to the bone zone

he immediately went to Tuluk, sold it to a Jihaen for some obscene amount, and spent it all on a spice vacation and a fancy white hat

[Jingo]

Ahaha I get it now Rathustra.

[Jingo]

I could be completely wrong, but it appears to me that metal weapons, and mostly armor too, have been more or less phased out of PC accessibility over the last 8 years or so. High ranked templars used to carry those things, and some of the super villains too, but they've been increasingly rare since the Copper/Gith wars. I wouldn't say I really miss that stuff, but seeing rare metal items that aren't part of the noble/templar setup is always cool.

Oh well, it's all about chopping things with bone swords anyway, isn't it?

I think this is more or less accurate. The last metal item I saw that wasn't a ring was Kija's sword.

I think rare items could be a way for staff to sprinkle rewards to characters who pursue plot goals even if the plot goals arn't always attainable. I remember all the copper items people got at the end of the copper war.

[creeper386]

I had my hands on a dagger that was bone or stone but had a mix of silver in it. I only mention it as it was probably a decade ago .... I think that's safe enough now to mention. It was an exciting time. My character died very shortly after acquiring it.

[Ender]

I had a character stored that took something like six or seven metal items out of the game as late as 2009.  Come at me RGS.


Also, metal is far more common than you are purporting.  Every noble and every templar in both cities openly wear metal items.  When I was thinking of the items I removed from the game I didn't count signet rings and templar medallions because I considered them too common.

[RogueGunslinger]

2009 was a long time ago. And I'm assuming that character was a Templar.

took something like six or seven metal items out of the game

So we have someone to blame, boys! Lynch him!

[HavokBlue]

I feel like the city-states probably have reasonable amounts of metal in storage, considering they can afford to use it on things like doorbells and dragon statues.

[Patuk]

I feel like the real power behind either city-state is supernatural anyway, and that metal is largely inconsequential in the end.

[Fujikoma]

I feel like the real power behind either city-state is supernatural anyway, and that metal is largely inconsequential in the end.

Old stories and legends often impart supernatural-negating attributes to certain metals.

[Erythil]

I personally would like to see metal be considerably more common than it is now -- I'd like to see probably at least a half-dozen metal objects of varying rarity circulating through the game world at any given time.  Their very existence creates interesting conflict and plot.

Rarity is good, but I've seen a non-ring metal item once EVER and it was on a Valika NPC.  It seems a little silly when a precious metal like silver is common enough that it can be found to adorn the fingers of a few thousand people, but common metals like copper and bronze seem not to exist at all.


Also, let's not forget that if a templar ruins everyone's party by confiscating all of it, it's actually not too hard to kill templar.

Or the staff can use their scarier NPC templar to confiscate it right back.

[Patuk]

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, templars and nobles and such are likely to just stuff their rarities in a cabinet o' oddments. Killing the meanie adult who took away your toys just means it's gonna gather more dust.

[RogueGunslinger]

Maybe spineless northern Templars would.

[Patuk]

RogueGunslinger! There is a time and a place for everything, and this is neither!

/professoroak

[Molten Heart]

I think the staff reasoning behind not adding more unique shit to the game went that every such item invariably ends up gathering dust in a noble's cabinet o' oddities anyway.

Or so I've been told. It does sound plausible.

It'd stand to reason that noble's cabinets aren't impervious to theft.

[Patuk]

An object is a safer storage space than any locked apartment or even ten layers of bags, for the sheer reason that alas, steal does not work when getting items from containers. They may as well be banished into oblivion

[RogueGunslinger]

An object is a safer storage space than any locked apartment or even ten layers of bags, for the sheer reason that alas, steal does not work when getting items from containers. They may as well be banished into oblivion

Except more classes get slight of hand than get steal.

[Patuk]

What kind of elves do you play, RGS?

[genmaicha]

Expecting every single noble ever has at least one metal ring, considering the number of nobles, there's a lot of damn metal going around, from my point of view.

I had a sibling who owned gold, a long time ago. I was dead by that point but it was pretty cool. I bet he was the first Stormer to own gold and the security to keep it in real life years. You hear about people having thousands of sids in the bank, droves of important friends, twenty salt worm hides in their apartment, a badass bastard sword shaped like a dragon, but you don't hear of them owning metal, and I like how that is.

[MeTekillot]

I wouldn't doubt that some nobles are probably wearing the rings of other, dead nobles.

[little chicken woman]

Whatever happened to that steel dagger that was being given out as a contest prize in Tuluk, I wonder.

[HavokBlue]

I think I remember some largely useless metal objects relatively easily available in a location just about any PC could access with enough time and effort a few years ago.

I wonder what happened to them.

[Molten Heart]

I wouldn't doubt that some nobles are probably wearing the rings of other, dead nobles.

That's where gypsies and raiders and other bad guy types get their metal rings. But are they the bad guys or the good guys?

[Kol]

Muk Utep has a pretty bad-ass sword.

I think getting metal items IG is possible, it just takes a long time to achieve.

So, according to timescale and weaponry, Zalanthas should look something like this...
                                      ||
                                      V
Stone age----------------------copper age------------------iron age-------------steel---------------modern

We should be around where the arrow is, or just after. That's not to say that metal doesn't exist, or is incredibly rare, but as modern day people, we know you have to heat that funny looking rock to extract the metals inside. Your average zalanthian will look at that rock and see it as a lower quality piece of jasper, or a low quality piece of sandstone hardly worth noticing.

Unless you're familiar with ores, smelting, and the forming of ingots, you're incredibly likely to overlook them as just lower quality rocks of the kind you're looking for. Because you've never been in a position to learn about those things.

I'm terrible with history, I can hardly remember what I did yesterday, let alone what I was taught 11+ years ago, but I imagine the copper age didn't happen overnight, and in fact took several hundred years before it was widespread enough that it could be called an age. By which point, someone else had figured out how to make steel. During all of these ages, you could probably find someone who could craft tougher and more durable materials, but their knowledge would be closely guarded, and they'd b treated well enough that they wouldn't want to share their knowledge outside of accepted channels.

[HavokBlue]

There's evidently enough metal for Salarr to maintain crafters who know how to work it into weapons/armor, or for Allanak to be skilled enough to make a giant dragon.

[Fujikoma]

Making a sword that's effective that doesn't fall apart in combat actually takes a bit of advancement, or so I've heard. Axes, clubs, and knives, on the other hand...

[Zoan]

I once went probably a whole year trying to make a metal thing out of a metal thing. Staff threw roadblocks in my way (in a good, fun way in which I realize I should have appreciated more - I didn't fully understand what was happening until retrospect) but it eventually happened. When I was stored.

BUT I DID IT.

[valeria]

The thing with comparing Zalanthan technology to Earth ages is that the technology levels don't match up.  Zalanthas basically has a high level of social technology (extensive bureaucracy and centralized government) and agricultural technology (large-scale surplus plantation farming) without an appropriate level of hardware.  Probably because of magick.  So I'm not sure I'd call Zalanthas "stone age" because, with the except of stone tools, it doesn't have any other hallmarks of the stone age.

[BadSkeelz]

Zalanthas is also post-apocalyptic. Technology has regressed and not evenly. Combine that with magick doing things like sucking the resources out of the land, yeah, mapping where Zalantahs "should" be is difficult.

The best you can do is look at what we actually have, and try and thing what we can do with that.