Why does fantasy keep making copper a strong metal?

[Aotrs Commander]

I feel like copper would be a good material if you gave it silver's special properties against certain monsters (IE silver screws over werewolves, copper would also screw over werewolves but perhaps less effectively...).
They're both extremely conductive metals and perhaps that has something of value against magical flesh.


Similarly, I think the magnetism potential of iron is worth a special thing. Kill faeries with cobalt....

And now I feel even more justiied in the aforementioned Alum Bronze and "Star Metal" thing...!

[The Jack]

When it comes to Skyrim and its various metals, it's best to remember that they were backporting from a list of armours that they came up with back in Daggerfall and the real problem is that they weren't imaginative enough to come up with fantasy names for the metals.

See, the world already had adamantine, mithril (or some spelling variation thereof), Ebony, Glass and Stahlrim. Hell the shivering isles gave us amber and madness armour (Though my headcannon would guess that Madness is just sheogorath-themed daedric armour)

I think there's a few naming schemes here, and they didn't need to do the bull**** they did.


Honestly, they should've left glass as a morrowind-exclusive thing.

I don't get bethesda
I mean I do, I completely understand their decision making, but I think they've got it very wrong.

[Gnoman]

(Also why vampires don't show up in mirrors, because at the time the stories originated the mirror would be silver and thus have nothing to do with an evil vampire, not even show its reflection)

That is a common and plausible theory, but it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. While vampires specifically didn't get the no-reflection thing until the 19th century, not having a reflection was a feature of many malign supernatural entities - many of which predate the silver-backed mirror.

[Yanagi]

One archaeological theory stats that one of the OG magic metals, orichalcum, might have just been copper, maybe brass. Okay, we've got a few thousand years of legacy on that one. But where does Skyrim get off not only making orichalcum stronger than steel, but also making malachite, a copper ore, into the strongest light armor (that you dig out of the ground)? Copper isn't good for armor.

Better question: why is this suddenly bothering me so much? Does anybody else care about this?

Semantic gulf: general usage describing "real" materials versus a context specific usage in fiction in which a word is assigned to a different, nonexistent material. Your basic assertion accurately describes the reality of copper ore, historical alloys called "orichalcum" and Greek linguistics, but is not a coherent through line in a fictional setting where there are no Greeks and the material isn't copper.

Fantasy settings tend to nick obscure words and assign them to fictional things, but the assignment is intended to suggest the qualities of the (quality-less) fictional material because of the connotations of the actual named material. The eight bajillion versions of adamant all pivot back to "it's really hard and difficult to break."

In the case of Skyrim orichalcum and malachite, there's no deep meaning transferred from the "real" material to the fictional one. I suspect the naming choice might be as simple as a desire to have a crafting material that's coppery green, so they picked names of coppery green things.

I mean, we're deep into meta levels of harvesting tropes from earlier works, and the mythopoetic "metal that's better than normal metal" hearkens back to an age when good iron was considered amazing when contrasted with bronze and blacksmiths were maybe a bit magic...which turns into mithril contrasted with iron in Tolkien...which turns into many, many fantasy metals with special powers...which turns into fantasy games using fantasy metals as a way to both in-game explain scaling quality of weapons and providing varied-looking cool loot.

Orichalcum is a OG mystery metal and up for grabs, but I wonder if the person who picked the name thought is was bronze rather than brass, because in-game stuff made from that materials is the color of verdigris. But malachite is just kind of lazy.

[Zalabim]

This kind of discussion always reminds me of reaching the town that sells Gold Armor (and helmet, shield, and sword) in Dragon Slayer (TGCD, so technically Dragon Slayer VI or VII). The stuff is probably about 10 times more expensive rather than the usual "next town has better stuff" price hike. The nearby dungeon-equivalent has a few pieces of the stuff as loot, but if you want to equip your whole party in solid gold gear, you'll be grinding money for a good long time. Don't do that though, because all of this Gold equipment is significantly worse than the weapons and armor sold for a few bucks in the town you started the game at. Another town sells gear that is nearly the most powerful in the game for 1 coin each. The catch? It's all cursed, and you'll be permanently confused in any battle you bring it to.

This is also a game where ruby equipment can be destroyed by fire, amphibians are put to sleep by cold spells, and poison causes paralysis then death.

[Eldan]

Fantasy settings tend to nick obscure words and assign them to fictional things, but the assignment is intended to suggest the qualities of the (quality-less) fictional material because of the connotations of the actual named material. The eight bajillion versions of adamant all pivot back to "it's really hard and difficult to break."

Thefun thing is that adamant (adamantine, adamantium) goes back to Greek Adamas (unconquerable, invincible), which is also the root word for "diamond". So by the same logic that ebony should be a wood, moonstone a semi-precious gem and orichalcum just copper or brass, adamantium should be diamond.

[The Jack]

See, elder scrolls gets a pass for Glass and Ebony because they specifically go out of their way (IE there's in-game books on it) to explain what they are and that glass isn't glass. Glass was named glass because it looks like glass... a surprisingly common method of naming in real life.


Malachite, moonstone and quicksilver are just dumb.
Orichalcum undercuts the greatness of once-superior Orsimer smiths, and is just dumb for that.

IIRC Orichalcum's main thing is that it's really pretty and valuable, and atlantis paved it's streets with the stuff for decorative measure. But In TES orcs are apparently using it as a cheat material now for poorly designed equipment with better-than-mundane stats.

[Knaight]

Corrundumn is a crystal like diamond.

Specifically it's aluminum oxide - which tends to show up in the wild as either rubies or sapphires, but also gets used as a clear synthetic.

Bronze is mostly copper, but like the difference between mostly dead and all dead there's a big gap between the two. The thing about copper is that it's soft. That means it's no good at all for weapons and armour because they wouldn't last.

Pure copper is soft, yes. "Copper" in the sense of worked copper metal very frequently isn't, as there's all sorts of impurities there, and this actually did see some use before bronze was worked out well. It's much the same way that "iron" often actually has more carbon than steel (4% or so in pig iron, even hard steels rarely exceed 2%), despite elemental iron being soft. It's still not amazing, but when the basis of comparison is stone it starts looking a bit more impressive. Hence orichalcum.

[No brains]

Thefun thing is that adamant (adamantine, adamantium) goes back to Greek Adamas (unconquerable, invincible), which is also the root word for "diamond". So by the same logic that ebony should be a wood, moonstone a semi-precious gem and orichalcum just copper or brass, adamantium should be diamond.

See I actually was thinking of the opposite for adamant metals because technically the word a-damas could be descriptive of the material itself. If both are hard to shape, some Greek bozo would likely describe clear carbon jewels and Wolverine claws with the same phrase.

Similarly, 'a-tomic' armor would be 'un-cuttable' armor and would technically describe some pretty good armor. Then again, Yokudan Redguards got so good at swording they 'cut the atomos' and blew up their homeland, so there's some good, old TES problems there too.

Specifically it's aluminum oxide - which tends to show up in the wild as either rubies or sapphires, but also gets used as a clear synthetic.



Pure copper is soft, yes. "Copper" in the sense of worked copper metal very frequently isn't, as there's all sorts of impurities there, and this actually did see some use before bronze was worked out well. It's much the same way that "iron" often actually has more carbon than steel (4% or so in pig iron, even hard steels rarely exceed 2%), despite elemental iron being soft. It's still not amazing, but when the basis of comparison is stone it starts looking a bit more impressive. Hence orichalcum.

What's weird here is that mining can turn up some middle-to-high quality sapphires to rubies as well, so corundum ore probably describes corundum that doesn't meet those grades. Also to get steel, you must smelt together the corundum ore with iron ore, which implies that there's some impurity that normally gets smelted out that contributes to Skyrim 'steel'. Yeah, you can't just smelt together already purified ingots. Weird.

Regarding worked copper, isn't that still soft enough to be hammered into shapes cold? I think i remember reading that some non-metalworking people still had cold-hammered copper artifacts. I guess it could still take a hit good enough, but it would degrade pretty fast.

[DavidSh]

The thing with copper is that it is a classic example of work hardening. Freshly made* copper may start out soft, but as you work it by hammering it builds up crystalline defects and becomes harder and more brittle. Eventually, for involved work, you may have to anneal it by heating it up and then letting it cool again, to release these defects, and soften the copper again. Report is that even work-hardened it isn't as hard as steel.

*That is, deposited from solution, or smelted from ore.

[Keltest]

See, elder scrolls gets a pass for Glass and Ebony because they specifically go out of their way (IE there's in-game books on it) to explain what they are and that glass isn't glass. Glass was named glass because it looks like glass... a surprisingly common method of naming in real life.


Malachite, moonstone and quicksilver are just dumb.
Orichalcum undercuts the greatness of once-superior Orsimer smiths, and is just dumb for that.

IIRC Orichalcum's main thing is that it's really pretty and valuable, and atlantis paved it's streets with the stuff for decorative measure. But In TES orcs are apparently using it as a cheat material now for poorly designed equipment with better-than-mundane stats.

I don't agree about the orcs. The thing with Orichalcum was that it was supposed to be incredibly difficult to smith effectively with, and the orcs were by and large the only ones who figured out the secret to it. So by the time those secrets got out, pretty much every technique used for Orichalcum was developed by the orcs, so you get orcish gear from it even if you aren't an orc.

Likewise with moonstone, where the elves were the pioneers so everything that comes from it reflects those elvish designs.

[deuterio12]

The thing with copper is that it is a classic example of work hardening. Freshly made* copper may start out soft, but as you work it by hammering it builds up crystalline defects and becomes harder and more brittle. Eventually, for involved work, you may have to anneal it by heating it up and then letting it cool again, to release these defects, and soften the copper again. Report is that even work-hardened it isn't as hard as steel.

*That is, deposited from solution, or smelted from ore.

Trivia, the whole "start soft, harden under pressure" bit of copper makes it pretty good for sealing connections. It's something I myself did at the lab when setting up very low pressure vaccuum systems, add a copper disc in each side of tube connections, then tighten it up good and the copper discs will deform to fill holes in the connection then harden in their new shape to keep it that way.

Fascinating how some old tricks are still very useful millenia later with just a bit of adaptation.

[Erloas]

I think one of the reasons copper has gotten more popular in fantasy is simply that is it no longer really in common use. Sure everyone has copper wire in their house and copper in various things they use, but it isn't obvious that it is there. Copper utensils and pans, for instance are, "high end" goods now. Chances are if something has copper or brass on it, it is probably a fairly high end good, it has a look and style that stands out from the ordinary.

[No brains]

I think one of the reasons copper has gotten more popular in fantasy is simply that is it no longer really in common use. Sure everyone has copper wire in their house and copper in various things they use, but it isn't obvious that it is there. Copper utensils and pans, for instance are, "high end" goods now. Chances are if something has copper or brass on it, it is probably a fairly high end good, it has a look and style that stands out from the ordinary.

So that's why bright copper kettles were one of her favorite things!

[Knaight]

So that's why bright copper kettles were one of her favorite things!

Copper is a really good metal for kettles. The water isn't making much of an impact, it's tough enough to handle that use case, and it generally has usable physical properties. The thermal properties meanwhile are amazing. It transfers heat really quickly, while also not taking that much thermal energy to heat up, transferring more to the water in it.

[deuterio12]

I think one of the reasons copper has gotten more popular in fantasy is simply that is it no longer really in common use. Sure everyone has copper wire in their house and copper in various things they use, but it isn't obvious that it is there. Copper utensils and pans, for instance are, "high end" goods now. Chances are if something has copper or brass on it, it is probably a fairly high end good, it has a look and style that stands out from the ordinary.

Did you miss the bit where the lowest value coins are often made of copper?

Although that's a leftover from the times when copper was a pretty low value metal before electricity started to become mainstream, with the end result that nowadays the metal in most copper coins is worth more than the coin itself.

[The Jack]

I don't agree about the orcs. The thing with Orichalcum was that it was supposed to be incredibly difficult to smith effectively with, and the orcs were by and large the only ones who figured out the secret to it. So by the time those secrets got out, pretty much every technique used for Orichalcum was developed by the orcs, so you get orcish gear from it even if you aren't an orc.

Likewise with moonstone, where the elves were the pioneers so everything that comes from it reflects those elvish designs.

Here's my biggest problem with Orcs in skyrim.

In morrowind and Oblivion, their armour was ugly, but very ornate and well crafted.
In daggerfall, it was just green, but it was the best stuff in the game bar daedric.
In skyrim, everything's incredibly crude looking. Heck their swords are awfully designed even in the context of skyrim's paddle swords. The metal doesn't look consistent, the plates are crudely shaped, the blades are bent in ways that are really bad for blades. It's far more cosplay than functional armour and there's nothing to say -made by a skilled craftsman-
Also in skyrim: Orcish weapons are worse than Elven/Dwemer weapons, which only makes sense when you account for how ugly they now are. Historically Orc smiths>>>>> Elven and Dwemer smiths, but for skyrim, as they've returned to 'orcs are dumb barbarians' orcs are the worst.

But hey, I feel like if TES were to elevate itself beyond simple tiered systems for higher numbers (as I feel all games should) Elven and Dwemer items would be equal improvements over steel with different miscelaneous modifiers (elven weapons would be more accurate and less tiring, Dwemer weapons would be more durable, be a little better against armour and be less ressisted by -resist common weapons- and perhaps one of them would be more enchantable...)


And, y'know, elven would be made by magical techniques or would use alloys or alchemical ingredients that're totally not real-world. 'My sword's blade is 99% high carbon steel with just a pinch of moon sugar and void salts' would be totally cool.


I feel like Copper (and various fantasy material weapons) are hugely more prevalent in games with crafting components.

Games with crafting components and leveled areas just make everything more ****, because they need to saturate the possibilities of what you can use to craft in a very controlled way. You can't just have 'this is steel, that's steel, this is better made steel' you've got to have a gamut of lvl 1 to lvl 100 nonsense.

[No brains]

'My sword's blade is 99% high carbon steel with just a pinch of moon sugar and void salts' would be totally cool.

I wouldn't even be mad if there were swords made out of crack. Varying grades of copper being mythically strong is too unrealistic for me, but a sword made of drugs is just crazy enough to work. Sheogorath approves.

[Keltest]

Here's my biggest problem with Orcs in skyrim.

In morrowind and Oblivion, their armour was ugly, but very ornate and well crafted.
In daggerfall, it was just green, but it was the best stuff in the game bar daedric.
In skyrim, everything's incredibly crude looking. Heck their swords are awfully designed even in the context of skyrim's paddle swords. The metal doesn't look consistent, the plates are crudely shaped, the blades are bent in ways that are really bad for blades. It's far more cosplay than functional armour and there's nothing to say -made by a skilled craftsman-
Also in skyrim: Orcish weapons are worse than Elven/Dwemer weapons, which only makes sense when you account for how ugly they now are. Historically Orc smiths>>>>> Elven and Dwemer smiths, but for skyrim, as they've returned to 'orcs are dumb barbarians' orcs are the worst.

But hey, I feel like if TES were to elevate itself beyond simple tiered systems for higher numbers (as I feel all games should) Elven and Dwemer items would be equal improvements over steel with different miscelaneous modifiers (elven weapons would be more accurate and less tiring, Dwemer weapons would be more durable, be a little better against armour and be less ressisted by -resist common weapons- and perhaps one of them would be more enchantable...)


And, y'know, elven would be made by magical techniques or would use alloys or alchemical ingredients that're totally not real-world. 'My sword's blade is 99% high carbon steel with just a pinch of moon sugar and void salts' would be totally cool.

Dwarven metal, at least, is explicitly called out as its quality being a property of the metal, not the smithwork that goes into it. And Orcish armor is still better than that, though their weapons are worse.

Honestly, the visual imagery almost looks like orcish equipment in Skyrim is carved out of stone rather than forged metal. In Oblivion, it looks like its assembled from hundreds of scales, like lamellar or brigandine armor. It could simply be that the environment in Skyrim and the orc stronghold lifestyle simply doesn't allow for the level of intricacy that went into the Oblivion style armor, which would probably have come directly from Orsinium via trade, or been made for the Imperial Legion troops.

But if you want to talk about terrible smithing practices, the nords all seem to have forgotten how to make chainmail except for the sleeves of their guard armors.

[The Jack]

The Khajiit army sends two thousand of it's crack troops to reinforce Riverhold, they spend their occupation giggling on the floor.


See a thing about TES is that the land's suffused with magic and plants and animals have a wild variety of effects; Drink this and fly, eat this and go invisible, put these two things together and get telekinesis for a limited time.

Put some crazy into something you make and see what kind of effect it has.

But despite that logic, I still have trouble with crap like Malachite and moonstone, because you're obviously not pulling some alchemist shenanigan, you're just using real world materials in ways they shouldn't be used. You're making Moonstone ingots and making swaths of the armour solid malachite. If you were putting powdered moonstone/Malachite into the metal and maybe quenching the blade with some trauma root/rabbit potion then everything would be really cool (this example is deliberately stupid).

I think a thing that tells with skyrim is that to make daedric you need ebony and daedra hearts. The Daedra heart is an alchemical ingredient, but you can also do this stuff with a ritual under the college of winterhold. It's one example where I think they actually considered the lore (but somehow it feels cheap that there's two ways of doing this stuff. The smithing route feels gamey because it's the only arcane/alchemical practice in the smithing skill)


I just want a load of different steels with different alchemical practices now; Plain Steel, Nordic steel, Elven steel, Orcish steel, crack steel, adamant steel, Fire/Shock/Frost steel, shadow steel, Snake Steel... And then a bunch of X mithrils and X adamantines (Ebony can't alloy if i recall correctly)
(but the differences between steels is rather nuanced because adding +1's and +2's to damage or defence is really old hat. It works for pen'n paper where you can't be too complex, and I get that people just like numbers, but the whole thing's really counter to the strengths of PCs and immersive settings)


Actually, regarding TES and Copper; I feel the Draugr/Aylieds would've been cooler if they largely used bronze equipment to reflect how ancient they were. The Draugr equipment isn't very good and their swords look awful, so they might as well've.

[Keltest]

The Khajiit army sends two thousand of it's crack troops to reinforce Riverhold, they spend their occupation giggling on the floor.


See a thing about TES is that the land's suffused with magic and plants and animals have a wild variety of effects; Drink this and fly, eat this and go invisible, put these two things together and get telekinesis for a limited time.

Put some crazy into something you make and see what kind of effect it has.

But despite that logic, I still have trouble with crap like Malachite and moonstone, because you're obviously not pulling some alchemist shenanigan, you're just using real world materials in ways they shouldn't be used. You're making Moonstone ingots and making swaths of the armour solid malachite. If you were putting powdered moonstone/Malachite into the metal and maybe quenching the blade with some trauma root/rabbit potion then everything would be really cool (this example is deliberately stupid).

I think a thing that tells with skyrim is that to make daedric you need ebony and daedra hearts. The Daedra heart is an alchemical ingredient, but you can also do this stuff with a ritual under the college of winterhold. It's one example where I think they actually considered the lore (but somehow it feels cheap that there's two ways of doing this stuff. The smithing route feels gamey because it's the only arcane/alchemical practice in the smithing skill)


I just want a load of different steels with different alchemical practices now; Plain Steel, Nordic steel, Elven steel, Orcish steel, crack steel, adamant steel, Fire/Shock/Frost steel, shadow steel, Snake Steel... And then a bunch of X mithrils and X adamantines (Ebony can't alloy if i recall correctly)
(but the differences between steels is rather nuanced because adding +1's and +2's to damage or defence is really old hat. It works for pen'n paper where you can't be too complex, and I get that people just like numbers, but the whole thing's really counter to the strengths of PCs and immersive settings)


Actually, regarding TES and Copper; I feel the Draugr/Aylieds would've been cooler if they largely used bronze equipment to reflect how ancient they were. The Draugr equipment isn't very good and their swords look awful, so they might as well've.

I mean, obviously malachite and corundum and moonstone and ebony and all the others aren't actually the same thing as what we call them in this world. Quicksilver in particular is, as I recall, both liquid at or just above room temperature and in fact rather toxic to handle with bare skin. If we can say ebony ore is just called that because its dark, why cant we say malachite or is called that because its a similar color to the actual gem? Heck, even in real life there are lots of things that are named because they look similar to other things and the people doing the naming didn't know they were unrelated.

[The Jack]

But if you want to talk about terrible smithing practices, the nords all seem to have forgotten how to make chainmail except for the sleeves of their guard armors.

When it comes to nords and their failings, I constantly remind myself that they're objectively the dumbest race that's still around. (They suffer both Int and Cha penalties in older games, which are the two stats I'd associate with functional intelligence)

Guard armour is the nicest set there is in Skyrim and the most common. There's two guard armours, the scale and the gambeson (brown padded garb). The Gambeson one likely still has mail underneath it (I think the sleeves vary) as wearing padded cloth over mail was something done in history
However, as steel armour/scale armour is terribly designed and so many are running around in furs... Yeah, they're undoubtedly idiots. But then again the Imperials went full-retard with their getup too. Imperials>stormcloaks>Thalmor when it comes to functional armour design. Elven armour is the sole reason I can believe in thalmor victories.
Nord full plate is nice.
In morrowind, the nords had much more sensible metal/fur armour, plus some cool trollbone/dragonbone stuff.

The ancient nords used mail, as low ranking draugr have mail hanging from their helmets and the females have some mail leg protection. But, while you can give them some leeway in that their mail is rusted away and thus you can imagine them wearing more in the past than what they wear in the present, time travel scenes show them looking like cosplayers still...




I feel games, rather than the whole 'Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Magic metal 1, magic metal 2...' progression, really aught to take lessons from lower fantasy games where the design of the armour takes priority over the material. DnD isn't perfect, but it's really nice that it's got a gamut of completely mundane armours from ac 11 to ac 18. I think Mount&Blade is the real MVP, where you've got a load of historically inspired armours and weapons that range from cheap to excellent, and then you've got modifiers like 'rusty' or 'tempered' that adjust effectiveness and value. Fantasy materials can take up that those rusty,temprered, heavy, balanced etc modifiers.

[The Jack]

I mean, obviously malachite and corundum and moonstone and ebony and all the others aren't actually the same thing as what we call them in this world. Quicksilver in particular is, as I recall, both liquid at or just above room temperature and in fact rather toxic to handle with bare skin. If we can say ebony ore is just called that because its dark, why cant we say malachite or is called that because its a similar color to the actual gem? Heck, even in real life there are lots of things that are named because they look similar to other things and the people doing the naming didn't know they were unrelated.

Glass and ebony get the pass because
1-They don't exactly look like the material in question.
2-They're not trying to pass as the material in question, there's books and stuff saying 'yeah nah, not the same thing bro'


The other materials don't get the pass because
1-Unrefined, they look exactly like the material in question (except for quicksilver)
2-They are trying to pass as the material in question; They look the part and there's nothing to say otherwise.

[Keltest]

Glass and ebony get the pass because
1-They don't exactly look like the material in question.
2-They're not trying to pass as the material in question, there's books and stuff saying 'yeah nah, not the same thing bro'


The other materials don't get the pass because
1-Unrefined, they look exactly like the material in question (except for quicksilver)
2-They are trying to pass as the material in question; They look the part and there's nothing to say otherwise.

Isnt Corundum a crystal, not a metal? In what way is it trying to pass? The game even has rubies and sapphires in it, so theyre clearly not using that meaning for it. Ditto with moonstone, and quicksilver is definitely not mercury.

[Eldan]

It's a crystal, yes. Ruby and Sapphire are two forms of corundum. Interestingly, it is aluminum oxide with titanium, vanadium and chromium impurities, which are all metals one might alloy with steel to make it stronger. Perhaps that's the reason they decided to use it in Skyrim?

[Xyril]

I feel games, rather than the whole 'Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Magic metal 1, magic metal 2...' progression, really aught to take lessons from lower fantasy games where the design of the armour takes priority over the material. DnD isn't perfect, but it's really nice that it's got a gamut of completely mundane armours from ac 11 to ac 18. I think Mount&Blade is the real MVP, where you've got a load of historically inspired armours and weapons that range from cheap to excellent, and then you've got modifiers like 'rusty' or 'tempered' that adjust effectiveness and value. Fantasy materials can take up that those rusty,temprered, heavy, balanced etc modifiers.

Blame early video games. Without sophisticated graphics, the vague spectrum of materials was a shared language that could be used to communicate how good some equipment was in about 4 to 8 characters of text. Nowadays, most people can just look at their character and imagine that the well-articulated plate mail is better than a steel plate held up by suspenders, but anyone who wasn't a huge fantasy or HEMA geek probably couldn't tell you the difference between a ring mail and a chain mail. In games that cared slightly less about being accessible to a wider audience (tabletops, MUDs and single player text games, Roguelikes), you generally see at the very least an attempt to portray armors and weapons that are distinguished by design more so than by material.

[No brains]

But if you want to talk about terrible smithing practices, the nords all seem to have forgotten how to make chainmail except for the sleeves of their guard armors.

Oh boy, I could go on a separate rant about how I can't really wear a hauberk while burninating in my viking game. It might be best if I let sleeping draugr lie for now.

The Khajiit army sends two thousand of it's crack troops to reinforce Riverhold, they spend their occupation giggling on the floor.

Those pun troopers will split their sides and knock em dead!

I think a thing that tells with skyrim is that to make daedric you need ebony and daedra hearts. The Daedra heart is an alchemical ingredient, but you can also do this stuff with a ritual under the college of winterhold. It's one example where I think they actually considered the lore (but somehow it feels cheap that there's two ways of doing this stuff. The smithing route feels gamey because it's the only arcane/alchemical practice in the smithing skill)

I liked smithing hearts into ebony weapons because it takes into account the bizarre properties of what ebony is and what daedra are. It's like you're adding a little bit of otherworldly life force back into the god blood and making ti stronger and also apocryphally sentient/ evil.

I never got around to doing the college version of making daedric armor, but I think that's more like inter-dimensional trading rather than smithing. IIRC, you put stuff in a box/ on an altar and then get a product for it, right? Even if it is an alternate way to assemble daedric arms, magic has always just done what hard work can do but quicker.

Though I do have to say that while alchemy and smithing are presented as different skills, there should be some way they practically overlap. I know one is more depending on hammers and the other bottles, but understanding how stuff is mixed is important to both. Having ability scores might have helped that, but I give Skyrim at least a little credit for trying to make an RPG without those.

I mean, obviously malachite and corundum and moonstone and ebony and all the others aren't actually the same thing as what we call them in this world. Quicksilver in particular is, as I recall, both liquid at or just above room temperature and in fact rather toxic to handle with bare skin. If we can say ebony ore is just called that because its dark, why cant we say malachite or is called that because its a similar color to the actual gem? Heck, even in real life there are lots of things that are named because they look similar to other things and the people doing the naming didn't know they were unrelated.

What gets me here is that ebony = dark thing. Moonstone = rock that somehow reminds me of the moon. Quicksilver = silver, but somehow more expedient (The book Light Armor Forging brings up that their quicksilver has a lower melting point than at least moonstone, possibly lower than normal silver). So all that basically lines up.

Now I looked up where we get the word malachite from and wikipedia says it comes from how the ore looks like the leaves of mallow plants. I guess some other mineral could remind people of mallow leaves, but that's an oddly specific descriptor as opposed to 'dark, hard, moony, or melty'. Now real malachite has the fuzziness and striation to pull this off, but skyrim malachite really just looks like broken glass. Real malachite can look pretty close to broken glass, but that's after it's cut and polished.

Also now I'm thinking about casting marshmallow armor. It'll be great if that drug sword gives someone the munchies.

[Eldan]

Colour, also. If you have 3 by 4 pixels to show your character's cuirass, you probably can't make it look very much like different kinds of plate, but you can make it red, blue or yellow, for bronze, steel and gold.

[The Jack]

[QUOTE=No brains;23724634]

I liked smithing hearts into ebony weapons because it takes into account the bizarre properties of what ebony is and what daedra are. It's like you're adding a little bit of otherworldly life force back into the god blood and making ti stronger and also apocryphally sentient/ evil.

I never got around to doing the college version of making daedric armor, but I think that's more like inter-dimensional trading rather than smithing. IIRC, you put stuff in a box/ on an altar and then get a product for it, right? Even if it is an alternate way to assemble daedric arms, magic has always just done what hard work can do but quicker.

Though I do have to say that while alchemy and smithing are presented as different skills, there should be some way they practically overlap. I know one is more depending on hammers and the other bottles, but understanding how stuff is mixed is important to both. Having ability scores might have helped that, but I give Skyrim at least a little credit for trying to make an RPG without those.

I don't think it's a trade, I think you're conjuring a daedra through the heart to be shaping the ebony. You're doing a permanent 'bound item' spell. Daedric stuff (not artifacts) is daedra-refined ebony, that I'm pretty sure of.
Daedra aren't demons the way we think of them and all the daedric princes have their good points and bad points (though some definitely have more of one than the other; Molag Bal's just a prick, but even Mehrunes dagon has his selling points and 'good' daedra like Meridia and Azura have their horrifying attributes)

Attributes weren't a great system but skyrim was totally wrong to get rid of them rather than improve them.

See, I've felt like a big problem with skyrim's/fantasy's smithing is that it's forges are so plain: A smelter, a grinder, a forge. Even the skyforge is positively banal. If you read a book like the armourer's challenge (An argonian smith gives a dude some lizard skin so he can beat an ebony knight) it provides notions of super-awesome smith places. I'm imagining huge working areas, giant chimneys, firepits of blue flame, runed anvils coated with ebony, industrial alchemical sets, bound daedric assistants, the aprons are replaced by enchanted hazmat suits of dragonscale with Glass (the strong kind) eye protection and potions of fire resistance line a shelf...

What we get is way too mundane. Be it the fire-salt forge, the moon forge or the skyforge, it's all extremely boring.

[Keltest]

As far as daedric gear goes, it literally has the soul of a daedra bound into it, which is what you need the heart for. So its not just a feeling, youre literally actually doing that whenever you craft items.