Magical Materials

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Koumei
Serious Badass
Posts: 13871
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: South Ausfailia

Magical Materials

Post by Koumei »

Building shit out of magic metal or stone is a pretty old thing, and makes sense given that in the real world, you'd much rather build a car out of metal than marshmallows. In a less silly example, building materials for houses can really make a difference.

Can we get a good list going, of both "real metals/rocks with supernatural traits attributed to them" and "new fancy made-up ones that seem to stick"?

I'll start:
Adamantine/Adamantium/Adamant/Diamond/Dragonforce: the HARDEST metal! It's extra-strong, extra-durable, and either extra-heavy or incredibly light.

Brass: apparently it's immune to fire and also channels fire particularly well. Is often seen wielded by fire creatures like Efreeti and Salamanders.

Iron: usually the "cold" variety, which can mean all sorts of things. It's super-effective against Ghost and Fairy Type Pokemon.

Meteoric Steel: sometimes just a variant of cold iron. It's a piece of a meteor, and is usually extra strong/hard, and "radiates magic". Might actually be cosmic gamma radiation. At least one source makes it the bodies of dead gods, as if people didn't have enough reasons to kill them.

Silver: kills werewolves dead. Possibly kills some demons, various undead. Consult your Cleric before use. Presumably the "it never rusts/stains" thing denotes purity, and this purity (and resistance to change?) fights the unholy. Sometimes it's magically fast/flexible because mercury is quicksilver.

Mithril/Mithral: as far as I can tell, it's totally titanium - it's really light for it's strength.

Bone: making things out of bone is often awesome for necromancy.

Thinaum: is this just a D&D one? It eats souls. Necromancers love this shit. A type of metal?

Onyx: pretty much the same as Thinaum, except it's also known for being razor sharp and fire-attuned because of the volcano thing, and is definitely not a metal.

Emeralds/Rubies/Sapphires/Topaz: we can totally thank Diablo and Friends for this, but socketing a shiny gem into a weapon, or making the whole fucking weapon out of it, gives it (Poison/Fire/Cold/Lightning) powers.

Jade: I don't actually know what Exalted does with it, just "generically strong" or something, but usually we look to Asian lore for this one, and they assure us that it's Super Effective against Ghost Type Pokemon. Which is good to know! Possibly also fucks demons.

Orihalcum/Orichalcum: a magical stone (metal?) that does magical stuff. Sometimes it's generically superior to normal stuff, sometimes it's extra hard/strong, sometimes it actually has magical powers.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
Surgo
Duke
Posts: 1924
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Surgo »

Obsidian: In real life it's really, really sharp. That sharpness could carry over into the metaphorical (aka: magical) realm as well, so it would make a good component for vorpal swords.
Last edited by Surgo on Tue Jul 23, 2013 1:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
Koumei
Serious Badass
Posts: 13871
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: South Ausfailia

Post by Koumei »

...I think I merged onyx (traps spirits) and obsidian (volcanic, extra-sharp) together there. Whoops.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Glasteel: Clear as glass, strong and hard as steel! Or harder!

Looks awesome.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
User avatar
Wiseman
Duke
Posts: 1402
Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2012 4:43 pm
Location: That one place
Contact:

Post by Wiseman »

In the dungeonomicon there was this sort of Mage Stone which gave you +1 to caster level checks and save DCs. I suppose it would be the kind of thing a wizard would build their house out of.
Last edited by Wiseman on Tue Jul 23, 2013 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
Keys to the Contract: A crossover between Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kingdom Hearts.
Image
RadiantPhoenix wrote:
TheFlatline wrote:Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".
The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".
hyzmarca wrote:Well, Mario Mario comes from a blue collar background. He was a carpenter first, working at a construction site. Then a plumber. Then a demolitionist. Also, I'm not sure how strict Mushroom Kingdom's medical licensing requirements are. I don't think his MD is valid in New York.
Orca
Knight-Baron
Posts: 877
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:31 am

Post by Orca »

Just metal/rocks? You've got bone in the list already ...

Magically living wooden items sometime show up as sprouting thorns, moving or bending (wrapping around creatures) on command or changing shape.

Iron in fiction often has anti-magic properties. Sometimes aggressively so.

Jade is protective from what I remember, blocking possession or corruption.

If there was a long-past golden age with impressive enchantments which can no longer be reproduced, odds are they used bronze.
User avatar
Wiseman
Duke
Posts: 1402
Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2012 4:43 pm
Location: That one place
Contact:

Post by Wiseman »

Come to think of it, there's a whole lot of interesting building materials in the dungeonscape sourcebook.

Elementium (or something): Melee attacks deal an extra 1d6 of an energy type determined by the stone, however, whoever's standing on it takes 2d6 of that energy type.

I think there was another one that dealt negative levels and healed undead.
Keys to the Contract: A crossover between Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Kingdom Hearts.
Image
RadiantPhoenix wrote:
TheFlatline wrote:Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".
The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".
hyzmarca wrote:Well, Mario Mario comes from a blue collar background. He was a carpenter first, working at a construction site. Then a plumber. Then a demolitionist. Also, I'm not sure how strict Mushroom Kingdom's medical licensing requirements are. I don't think his MD is valid in New York.
Surgo
Duke
Posts: 1924
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Surgo »

I'm so sick of shit that gives you +1 or +1d6 to damage. Anyone who writes that here can eat a barrel of cocks.
User avatar
shadzar
Prince
Posts: 4922
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 6:08 pm

Re: Magical Materials

Post by shadzar »

Koumei wrote:Mithril/Mithral: as far as I can tell, it's totally titanium - it's really light for it's strength.
it doesnt burn unto the point where it cant be extinguished so not titanium.

obsidian is what the mesopo... machu pi... THOSE people used for swords right? glassy and black? if not, then what was it?

cant find my encyclopedia of rocks but there are a great number of "properties" of stones in mythology. hematite, quartz, onyx, herkimer diamonds, this is pretty much i think where the idea of Iuon stones came from. each of them even spinel has some associated property other than astrological birthstones.
Play the game, not the rules.
Swordslinger wrote:Or fuck it... I'm just going to get weapon specialization in my cock and whip people to death with it. Given all the enemies are total pussies, it seems like the appropriate thing to do.
Lewis Black wrote:If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.
good read (Note to self Maxus sucks a barrel of cocks.)
User avatar
Sigil
Knight
Posts: 472
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2013 4:17 am

Re: Magical Materials

Post by Sigil »

shadzar wrote:obsidian is what the mesopo... machu pi... THOSE people used for swords right? glassy and black? if not, then what was it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl
Koumei
Serious Badass
Posts: 13871
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: South Ausfailia

Post by Koumei »

Obsidian as a material for weapons dates back to the stone age, and has therefore been used pretty much all over the world, yes. Not just ancient Middle-East and ancient Central America, though.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Obsidian makes for just about the sharpest edge that can be. It seriously gets used in the very finest surgical scalpels. It's also really brittle and doesn't keep the edge that well.

It's a volcanic glass--same stuff as pumice, essentially, only minus the air bubbles.

-geology mode on-
There's three classes of volcanic glass, which is what happens when it cools so fast it doesn't have a chance to form any kind of coherent crystal structure (just a soup of silicate and so on, floating around and all mixed up)

Obsidian is solid.

Scoria is <50% air bubbles by volume

Pumice is >50% air bubbles by volume

-geology mode off-

I've a stated fondness for chalk: It's the bones of little bitty sea critters. And therefore makes for a nice necromantic material.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Parthenon
Knight-Baron
Posts: 912
Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:07 pm

Post by Parthenon »

Did you just say silver never stains? The one that blatantly tarnishes and goes black?

And fantasy building materials- you've completely forgotten Food. There has to be a reason witches made houses out of sweets. And for the gingerbread man.

And then theres Glass- obvious examples are the glass slipper from Cinderella and from Elder Scrolls.

In fact Elder Scrolls has more awesome building materials. Houses made of mushrooms and building things from insect shells.

Hmmm... you could make basic bricks and concrete more interesting by sacrificing people within the walls or building the walls around them so they starve to death inside.
Surgo
Duke
Posts: 1924
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Surgo »

Yeah but brittleness doesn't mean shit when you forge a magic sword carved out of the stuff.
Koumei
Serious Badass
Posts: 13871
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: South Ausfailia

Post by Koumei »

Parthenon wrote:Did you just say silver never stains? The one that blatantly tarnishes and goes black?
Shit, that's right, that's why you polish it with rhubarb.
And then theres Glass- obvious examples are the glass slipper from Cinderella
That was a mistranslation. The actual thing was squirrel fur. No really.
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Surgo wrote:Yeah but brittleness doesn't mean shit when you forge a magic sword carved out of the stuff.
Well, of course not.

And animal parts is about right.

One of the coolest weapons in Dark Souls is the Dragon's Tooth

Skyrim has chitin armor and insect-claw swords and bone weapons are always pretty creepy/cool.

Weird varieties of stone are also cool: http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6018/620 ... 305c_b.jpg

I really ought to take another crack at the Manual of Making Things. Look up various aligned types of critters and explain how you can use their parts to enchant weapons--quenching swords in Gelugon Blood, and polishing holy swords on angel feathers and so on.
Last edited by Maxus on Tue Jul 23, 2013 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

I've always been partial to organic items, ie- vat grown swords and shit.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
Corsair114
Master
Posts: 282
Joined: Fri Jun 14, 2013 6:07 am

Post by Corsair114 »

In my experience, Cobalt is popular for pretty much anything having to do with ice magic in quite a few games.
Last edited by Corsair114 on Tue Jul 23, 2013 3:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
The rules are the game, without them you're just playing cowboys and indians with a side of craps. Image
User avatar
Josh_Kablack
King
Posts: 5318
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Online. duh

Post by Josh_Kablack »

Cavorite has pretty good memetic traction - starting in HG Wells and continuing into Venor Vinge and Alan Moore. It's an anti-gravity material. Alternate names for this sort of thing include Last Exile's Claudia and Rocky and Bullwinkle's upsy-daisium

There's also Phlogiston, which has a neat history despite it's use in Spelljammer and WoW.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
User avatar
erik
King
Posts: 5861
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by erik »

We're still missing some staples!

Gold! The favorite malleable, corrosive-resistant, shiny metal of the sun gods. And alloy it with whatever and to increase that whatever's awesome factor.

Copper to channel lightning.

Mercury for dowsing.

Lead with the classic shielding powers.

If we're including organics like bones then perhaps unbreakable silk merits inclusion.

On to fantastic stuff. It's more fun.

Thunder stones. Like the alchemical items of DnD, except they are instead a special material that can be mined. The catalyst rather than being crushed is exposure to salt water. No sweating in the mines!

Hell stone. Dense coal infused with infernal energy for that extra oomph.

Primal Ice. A clear crystalline form that can be carved. Always cold and it never melts, and is as hard as granite.

Primal Fire. A metal that can be worked by mystic means. It is constantly putting out heat. If exposed to air or combustibles it will quickly heat up and ignite.

Crystal trees. Crystalline trees whose branches can be harvested to create spears or other pokey things.

Life vein. A soft greenish-grey metal which softly glows in the presence of living entities. Basically another handy lighting mechanism.

Moon rock. Pieces of the moon which glow at night and attract fey.

Soul glass. Tinted glass made from volcanic sand. When made into bottles are ideal for capturing spirits. Incorporeal entities cannot pass through this material.

Iron bane. A strangely reactive stone that when abraded against most metals causes rapid corrosion, causing equal amounts of metal and stone to be turned to rust flakes which fall off.
User avatar
Vebyast
Knight-Baron
Posts: 801
Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:44 am

Post by Vebyast »

Wikipedia's List of fictional elements, materials, isotopes and atomic particles. TVTropes' pages on unobtainium and green rocks may also be useful. Have a field day.
Last edited by Vebyast on Tue Jul 23, 2013 6:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
DSMatticus wrote:There are two things you can learn from the Gaming Den:
1) Good design practices.
2) How to be a zookeeper for hyper-intelligent shit-flinging apes.
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Ice Nine, a room-temp stable polymorph of ice which melts at 35.8/114.4 degrees C/F, instead of 0/32 degrees C/F, and which, when introduced to a body of normal water (or anything containing water, such as humans) under 114.4 degrees becomes effectively super cooled and acts as a seed crystal, freezing the entire body and turning it into Ice Nine.

Unless your world runs on different/no scientific principles, magic or technological shielding would be necessary to prevent Ice Nine from freezing all the water in the atmosphere.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Rubies for fire, sapphires for ice. Except they're both corundum and only colored because of impurities.

A while back, I was thinking about a vampiric tree. So the wooden sword you just carved out of it is not actually dead, and absorbs blood to repair itself. And the splinters you just left in that dude? They're gonna suck and suck and suck and keep growing and kill him and turn him into something freaky.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
User avatar
Prak
Serious Badass
Posts: 17340
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Prak »

Huh, makes me think of vampiric melons and gourds.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.

You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
User avatar
Maxus
Overlord
Posts: 7645
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Post by Maxus »

Those are mostly cute. They actually make an appearance in Digger.

They're nothing to be afraid of because they don't actually have teeth--or even mouths. So the most they can do is crawl around and growl at people via unspecified means.

Which makes them the Most Adorable Necromancer Familiar Evar.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
Post Reply