Somthing that has always bothered me.

[Radioactive Age]

The follow will refer to earth:
Earth is abundant with iron. It is one of the 11 most abundant substances.
When iron rusts it gaines a red pigment. Our blood is red for the same reason.

Iron Deficiency Anemia (also called IDA) is a condition where a person has inadequate amounts of iron to meet body demands. It is a decrease in the amount of red cells in the blood caused by having too little iron. IDA is usually caused by a diet insufficient in iron or from blood loss.

Iron is part of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying component of the blood. Iron-deficient people tire easily because their bodies are starved for oxygen. Iron is also part of myoglobin. Myoglobin helps muscle cells store oxygen. Without enough iron, the body's fuel cannot be properly synthesized.

IDA may affect all respatory(or gilled) creatures on earth except in the horse shoe crab because it instead of using iron uses copper. (that is why its blood is green. Like rusty copper)

Now you can argue that zalanthian people are evolved to live under harsher conditions but they still need to move oxygen around in thier bodies. They breathe do they not? They seat and bleed too. And bleeding is frequent. (with the RP at least) And if iron is as rare as it is then EVERY one should have IDA especially Desert elves who do lots of breathing and running.

Unless..... people drink blood. in that case the spleen will pick up the iorn and help with production of hemogobin.


So there should be more iorn.  Unless everyone actually moves like sloths and were RPing movement 100 times faster then it actually is?

[Armaddict]

AND!  Zalanthas humans can be different physiologically than earth humans through a different basis if evolution.

Look the same?  Yep.  Work the same?  Not in everything.

[Mook]

Like the addict said -

Zalanthans most porbably have very different biological make-up than earth-bred organisms, because as has been pointed out - there aren't enough transition metals in the Zalanthan environment to support earth-like biology.  Hemoglobin and countless other functional proteins and enzymes do not work without ions.

But as been pointed out many times.. Zalanthans is -obviously- different.  For example - there's magick.  So I assume their world just operates on some kind of alternate physics, biology, etc..

 Edit to add:

Radioactive Age said:

I mentioned that they are RPed breathing and bleeding and eating and drinking the same as creatures on earth would. Physiology can't be that different if the same maner of survival is equal.

Physiology can be different despite similar appearances.  Rather, physiology cannot be -the same- in a world with magick and near nonexistant levels of metals.  The only reasonable explanation is that Zalanthan physiology works on some other system, alternate from ours.

[Marauder Moe]

Perhaps there is plenty of iron in all the various Zalanthan plant and animal life, just that for some reason or another iron ore (any type of ore, for that matter) is very rare.  I mean, people did exist and have red blood before metalworking was invented too.

[Xamminy]

Well, let me see...Zalanthas, the world our characters live in this game called Armageddon, is it real?  I think it's a fantasy world where the rules of reality don't exactly exist.  Yeah, I think that answers this question/issue to my satisfaction.

It's called suspension of disbelief.

[Hexxaex]

Just because the race is called "Human", doesn't mean that they're identical to the Earth species.  Zalanthas bears little to no resemblance to Earth, so that presents the possibility that Humans on Zalanthas are hardly the same species as we are.  That means that there are extreme psychological (easily being able to use psionic powers) and physical (being able to take extreme heat and beatings) differences.

[Cuusardo]

I've always just assumed that Zalanthans are different.  I mean come on, do Earth humans have mutations that give them wings or blue hair or tentacles around their mouths?

[creeper386]

I personally remember someone or somewhere talking about the past of Zalanthas. Where it used to be alot like any other fantasy setting before the defilers came along.

Most likely there is iron. I'd say all the red sands might have something to do with iron. It's quite possible I would guess. Metal does exist. I'm sure iron exists. It's just is rarely found in useful form for weapons or armour or what not. It's scattered all over the place just in microscopic bits.

Just my guess.


Creeper

[Angela Christine]

What makes you think there is a shortage of iron?   There is plenty of iron.  Buckets and buckets of iron.  Heaps of iron.  

Sure, there isn't much in the way of solid iron objects or iron ore, but there is evidence that elemental iron is plentiful.  As you pointed out, when you see blood it is red.  That is how we know Zalanthans are humans and not Vulcans.    There is also the red desert, and nearly ever-present red dust.  The most likely reason for the ground and dust to be red is the presence of oxidized iron.

Why is the iron in dust form rather than handy lumps?  Dunno.  Maybe it has something to do with Zalanthas being a post-apolyptic world.  Maybe the Dragon had a nifty rust spell that caused all the iron and iron-alloy weapons, armor and equipment to instantly rust to the point of being nothing but rust dust.  You've got to admit, even in our world a spell that could disintigrate iron and iron alloys could send us back to the stone age almost by itself.  If the magick to power that spell came from killing most of the vegitation in the world, well, all the better for crushing organized resistance.  Maybe the civilizations of Zalanthas were just really, really old and all the easily accessible iron ore was mined long ago, and since then most of it failed due to metal fatigue and rust naturally over the thousands and thousands of years that it was in use (the known world was more moist back then).

However the iron came to be dispersed, the point is that it is now dispersed and mixed with the soil rather than in convinient lumps.  Theoretically the dust of the Red Desert could be smelted into iron igots, but I doubt that Zalanthans have the technology to do it.  They probably don't recognise the dust as containing metal in the first place.


AC

[Spoon]

Perhaps there is plenty of iron in all the various Zalanthan plant and animal life, just that for some reason or another iron ore (any type of ore, for that matter) is very rare.  I mean, people did exist and have red blood before metalworking was invented too.

Yep, I've done a fair amount of biology over the years, and I know that iron is taken in by plants from the soil in teeny weeny amounts (we're talking atoms and molecules and shit). Basically it's a completely different kind of iron (same in composition, but different in what cycles it goes through, etc.). Pop in a food web and people can obtain enough iron from almost anything they eat.

That is, unless they eat scrab meat or something. I don't know how the -fuck- they work.

However, in a world of giant insects, sorceror kings and elves, I think this is the last thing that needs explaining.

[Trenidor]

Ever try to skin a PC?

Doesn't work does it? So how do you know what's inside?  :wink:

[fearwig]

Abundance of iron ORE and TRACE iron is not the same at all. The fact that the Known World does not have any ready supplies of iron ore has absolutely nothing to do with the iron necessary for haemoglobin production, which is likely in most plants, animals (meat eaters--not blood eaters, dummy), and other edibles to varying degrees.

An entirely silly argument, from a biological/geological perspective. There are lots of areas of the world without much or any iron ore which support abundant, healthy life.

[xX_Cathedral_Xx]

In all honesty and without disrespect to anyone here, does it really fuckin' matter whether or not we come to the conclusion that the Red Desert is made up of iron which helps Zalanthan humans sustain hemogoblin? What happens if and when you all are through debating this and come to the decision that there is iron in the Red Desert? You all going to make a bunch of PCs that automatically know this shit? Whooptie fuckin' doo! Theres iron in the Red Desert! Lets go spout it off IC!


Why don't you all do something constructive and actually debate something that is worthwhile and makes a difference in our PCs lives?

[Marauder Moe]

Why don't you all do something constructive and actually debate something that is worthwhile and makes a difference in our PCs lives?

Because its Saturday.  

[Spoon]

Ok... so somebody says something really annoys them. Their argument happens to be flawed. You point it out, and explain why.

Hopefully they stop getting pissed off at the thing that pissed them off. Everyone wins. I think that's worth doing.

[Halaster]

Why don't you all do something constructive and actually debate something that is worthwhile and makes a difference in our PCs lives?

If you have nothing to say to contribute to a thread like this, please don't bother posting.  If you don't like what they're discussing, dont' read it.  Continuing to do this will only get you twitted, or banned, or the like.

[fearwig]

Praise the Highlord!

[Linedel]

Earth is abundant with iron. It is one of the 11 most abundant substances.

This is misleading - earth's crust is only about 5% iron.

There are plenty of places you can go on earth, and have difficulty finding it without having a decent understanding of chemistry.

Oh, and, by the way, I suggest doing some research on exactly what obsidian is....

The human body contains 4.2 grams of iron, and 43 kilograms of oxygen.  Not very much iron is required.

Ah heck..  As long as I have it on disk for cut pasting, these are the quanitities of elements in the human body.. the starred ones have a biological purpose.  Formatting owned by board, most likely.

oxygen      43 kg                  37 L      33.5 cm  *
carbon      16 kg                   7.08 L   19.2 cm  *
hydrogen     7 kg                  98.6 L    46.2 cm  *
nitrogen     1.8 kg                 2.05 L   12.7 cm  *
calcium      1.0 kg               645 mL      8.64 cm  *
phosphorus     780 g              429 mL      7.54 cm  *
potassium      140 g              162 mL      5.46 cm  *
sulfur         140 g               67.6 mL    4.07 cm  *
sodium         100 g              103 mL      4.69 cm  *
chlorine        95 g               63 mL      3.98 cm  *
magnesium       19 g               10.9 mL    2.22 cm  *
iron             4.2 g              0.53 mL   8.1 mm  *
fluorine         2.6 g              1.72 mL   1.20 cm  *
zinc             2.3 g              0.32 mL   6.9 mm  *
silicon          1.0 g              0.43 mL   7.5 mm
rubidium         0.68 g             0.44 mL   7.6 mm
strontium        0.32 g             0.13 mL   5.0 mm
bromine          0.26 g            64.2 uL    4.0 mm
lead             0.12 g            10.6 uL    2.2 mm
copper              72 mg           8.04 uL   2.0 mm  *
aluminum            60 mg          22 uL      2.8 mm
cadmium             50 mg           5.78 uL   1.8 mm
cerium              40 mg           4.85 uL   1.7 mm
barium              22 mg           6.12 uL   1.8 mm
iodine              20 mg           4.06 uL   1.6 mm  *
tin                 20 mg           3.48 uL   1.5 mm  *
titanium            20 mg           4.41 uL   1.6 mm
boron               18 mg           7.69 uL   2.0 mm
nickel              15 mg           1.69 uL   1.2 mm
selenium            15 mg           3.13 uL   1.5 mm  *
chromium            14 mg           1.95 uL   1.3 mm  *
manganese           12 mg           1.61 uL   1.2 mm  *
arsenic              7 mg           1.21 uL   1.1 mm
lithium              7 mg          13.1 uL    2.4 mm
cesium               6 mg           3.2 uL    1.5 mm
mercury              6 mg           0.44 uL   0.8 mm
germanium            5 mg           0.94 uL   1.0 mm
molybdenum           5 mg           0.49 uL   0.8 mm  *
cobalt               3 mg           0.34 uL   0.7 mm  *
antimony             2 mg           0.30 uL   0.7 mm
silver               2 mg           0.19 uL   0.6 mm
niobium              1.5 mg         0.18 uL   0.6 mm
zirconium            1 mg           0.15 uL   0.54 mm
lanthanium           0.8 mg         0.13 uL   0.51 mm
gallium              0.7 mg         0.12 uL   0.49 mm
tellurium            0.7 mg         0.11 uL   0.48 mm
yttrium              0.6 mg         0.13 uL   0.51 mm
bismuth              0.5 mg        51 nL      0.37 mm
thallium             0.5 mg        42 nL      0.35 mm
indium               0.4 mg        55 nL      0.38 mm
gold                 0.2 mg        10 nL      0.22 mm
scandium             0.2 mg        67 nL      0.41 mm
tantalum             0.2 mg        12 nL      0.23 mm
vanadium             0.11 mg       18 nL      0.26 mm  *
thorium              0.1 mg         8.5 nL    0.20 mm
uranium              0.1 mg         5.3 nL    0.17 mm
samarium                50 ug       6.7 nL    0.19 mm
beryllium               36 ug      20 nL      0.27 mm
tungsten                20 ug       1.0 nL    0.10 mm

[Linedel]

With a negligible amount of google...

http://www.fao.org/docrep/U5900t/u5900t05.htm

A key quote from the above,

Boron, chromium, manganese, nickel, tin, vanadium, molybdenum, arsenic, lithium, aluminium, strontium, cesium and silicon are regarded as new trace elements in the sense that they have only recently been considered essential in human diets.

Remember that classes numbered "101" are typically "introduction to X for non-majors," and are thus dumbed down to the point where just about anyone could understand it...  I recommend classes in the "200" (grad) series or higher, if you want more interesting (and detailed) information...

It is interesting to note that the abstract from that conference and the starred elements on the list I had available have a couple of discrepencies...  (Most notably, silicon)

What we learn from this is... the human body requires matter formed from the remnants of a star that went nova (since elements with higher atomic weight than iron can't be formed by the star path that doesn't nova).  This may or may not apply to Zalanthas, depending how far back the history goes

[fearwig]

I dunno. If the red desert was red because of ferrous(II) oxide then a bon fire would smelt the oxygen off the iron. But you don't see giant bon fires in the desert every day.

Also pretty unrealistic, I'd say, from what knowledge of smelting I have.

It takes a hell of a lot of heat to work iron. A bonfire won't reach smelting heats without some sort of intentional control/bellows system.

But most of that is moot. Really, if there aren't iron deposits, there won't be ironworking. You can't derive iron practically from the trace amounts found in soil, obsidian, or any other source that actually contains Fe. It's just silly, from the technological standpoint of the game.

So even from the theoretical standpoint, the lack of metal deposits in the game is absolutely geologically reasonable. Which is a much better reason not to bother with the discussion than the one given a page or so back.

[Agent_137]

First off, I like the initial question.

Second, I don't like the response, "Zalanthans are different. Duh. Go home." I only like to use that in a last ditch attempt to retain some sort of consistency in the "reality" of zalanthas. I don't think we're quite at that point yet. There's obviously some good ideas on why there's no iron deposits, so let's go with THOSE answers instead of "It's just different." You don't want to sound like a bunch of politicians, do you?

"How come you say this, but then say that?? Aren't those the same?"
"No!! Their different! Vote for me!"

Lastly, as an answer to the question, I'm satisfied with AC's basic reasoning and Linedel's science.

I hadn't seen this thread until just now, so i wanted to get in on it before it faded away completely.

[WarriorPoet]

As far as we know the rest of the World is much, much different than the small corner we inhabit and call the 'Known World'. Perhaps over there *points* Iron is common. Perhaps there are massive crags that are nothing but iron, and our little corner of the world is just lacking for some reason.

After all, I've lived my entire life in the Texas panhandle and I've never seen an iron outcrop, deposit of coal, a vein of pure silver, etc etc etc etc etfuckingc... But a few hundred miles away there are places where you can see old veins of gold, working mines, abandoned mines and all the like.

Just because you don't see something doesn't mean it isn't there, over that rise or under that stony mountain, just waiting to be discovered.

-WP