The Treasury of Hades (Fantastical Metals, Glog Edition)
Fantasy games have, for quite a while, had a thing for having too many metals to make your equipment out of. As someone with an interest in metals in general (thanks, Minecraft mods and Dwarf Fortress), I would like to continue this tradition in the GLOG realms. Stats will be given in the following format:
Name of Metal
Strength: This is the metal's equivalent strength compared to common metals. The ranking is unusable
Innate bonus: Many materials just have additional plusses, these will be listed here. Note that innate plusses and bonus for masterful smithing do not count towards the maximum enchantment of an item.
Banes: Creature types that are weak to this material. If a listed creature resists nonmagical damage or damage except from certain sources, this material counts as magical or one of said sources against them.
Description and abilities: This is where the metal is actually described and any qualitative abilities are listed. Obviously, varies greatly between metals.
Feel free to skip forward if you're only interested in metals usable in actual weapons and armor.
Weak Metals
Copper
Strength: Copper
Conductivity: 3
Innate bonus: None
Banes: None
Description and abilities: The first metal for tools and weapons, and of course it's also the weakest. Any fight in which copper gear is used causes it to take a notch afterwards. Luckily, its softness also makes it easy to re-sharpen, taking only around 10 minutes to fix a notch.
Silver
Strength: Unusable for edged weapons, copper for blunt weapons and ammunition.
Conductivity: 3, +1 for magic based on purity or light.
Innate bonus: None
Banes: Undead, corrupted/cursed beings
Description and abilities: A metal associated with the moon, light, and purity, silver cuts through corruption and the undead like butter. At least, it would if it could hold anything resembling a cutting edge. Silver is nigh-useless for weapons, with only expendable ammunition and blunt weapons being in any way usable, and even these notch after every major use as if they were copper.
Tin and Zinc
Strength: Unusable
Conductivity: 2, zinc gets +2 for healing magic
Innate bonus: None
Banes: None
Description and abilities: These metals are mostly only useful for alloys. Zinc has some ties to health, magically speaking, and so can have magical purposes, but it is much more useful when used to make...
Orichalcum
Strength: Copper
Conductivity: 4
Innate bonus: None
Banes: None
Description and abilities: Orichalcum, or brass, is an alloy of copper and zinc that holds almost as much magical power as gold and looks almost as shiny on top of it. Barely usable for weapons, unlike gold, but like copper it's still not ideal. It is stable under its own weight, unlike gold, and is in fact an excellent metal for machines and automatons.
Lead
Strength: Unusable
Conductivity: 0
Innate bonus: None
Banes: Magic, in general
Description and abilities: Heavy, soft, and magically dead. Lead cannot be enchanted and blocks magic entirely, with some adventurers applying a thin layer of lead to their armor as a magic deterrent while lead-cored manacles can restrain spellcasters. Also a long-term poison to pretty much everything except dwarves.
Gold
Strength: Unusable
Conductivity: 5
Innate bonus: None
Banes: Creatures directly harmed by the sun
Description and abilities: Heavy, soft, beautiful, and incredibly magically conductive. Gold may be effectively useless for tools, but it is so magically conductive that even gilding and gold etching can increase the conductivity of other materials if there's enough of it.
Electrum
Strength: Unusable
Conductivity: 4
Innate bonus: None
Banes: Surprisingly, none
Description and abilities: Electrum, sadly, cancels out the unique properties of its components due to their opposing sun-moon connection. At least, that's the leading theory among mages, no one's really sure why the conductivity averages but the properties don't work. Maybe they're just diluted.
If you skipped forward for weapon-grade metals, then this is where you want to start actually reading.
Useful metals
Iron
Strength: Iron, shockingly.
Conductivity: 2, +1 for enchantments related to blood
Innate bonus: None
Banes: Fairies, elves, and similar creatures
Description and abilities: This is assumed to be the default material for most gear in a given fantasy setting, with āiron good enough for weapons and armorā and āsteelā being a blurry line at best. Strong and reliable, though its high melting point means that most forges canāt recycle the metal of destroyed iron gear nearly as easily as other materials. Iron is also notable in that, while it is not directly magic resistant, it refuses direct magical alteration such as from transmutation spells. It is the "end point" of transmutation.
Bronze
Strength: Bronze, iron if enchanted
Conductivity: 2, +1 for defensive enchantments
Innate bonus: None
Banes: None
Description and abilities: Nearly as effective as iron, bronze was the metal of the ancient world that had yet to figure out how to extract the much-harder-to-smelt iron from its ores. It responds particularly well to enchantment, with enchanted bronze hardening to the level of iron.
Bone Steel
Strength: Iron
Conductivity: 2, +1 for enchantments related to the bones used
Innate bonus: +1 damage only for the bones of large, dangerous beasts
Banes: As iron
Description and abilities: A special steel forged ritually using the bones of animals in the process, this steel draws strength from the animal used to make it.
Dwarven Steel
Strength: Dwarven Steel
Conductivity: 1
Innate bonus: +1
Banes: As iron, plus non-metal creatures whose resistance comes from hardness
Description and abilities: Immaculately forged steel using the hidden dwarven methods, it is superior to all other mundane metals for all purposes aside from enchanting, as sadly the magic was forged away through melting and re-melting.
Fantasy Metals
Ironwood
Strength: Bronze, oddly enough
Conductivity: 3, -1 for fire and death magic
Innate bonus: None
Banes: None
Description and abilities: Not a metal, but a wood magically grown and hardened by elven treesingers. Notably lighter than most metals, weighing a fraction as much, though this does make it rather poor for blunt weapons.
Alchemical Silver
Strength: Iron
Conductivity: 3
Innate bonus: None
Banes: As silver
Description and abilities: An alchemical alloy of iron, silver, and mercury, designed to maintain the strength of iron on a weapon that can burn through unholy creatures like silver. It is, of course, pricier than either silver or iron, and only counts as silver for the purpose of weaknesses, not iron.
Starmetal
Strength: Iron
Conductivity: 3
Innate bonus: +1
Banes: As iron, plus anything from the deepest depths of the world
Description and abilities: Iron forged from meteorites, this dark, sparkling steel is stronger than any steel except that made by the dwarves, and the sky itself calls to it. Anyone wearing or wielding equipment of starmetal can always tell the fastest way to the surface when underground. Note, fastest is not always safest.
Dragonsteel
Strength: Dwarven Steel
Conductivity: 3, +1 for enchantments associated with the source dragon
Innate bonus: +1
Banes: None
Description and abilities: Any item of iron or steel (including bone or dwarven) soaked in dragon's blood can absorb its power, becoming dragonsteel. Stronger and more magical than any mortal steel, it is one of the best materials a weapon can be made of. Items specifically enchanted against dragons such as a blade of dragonslaying are unable to be transformed into dragonsteel, as the blood refuses to bond with such creations.
Viridium
Strength: Bronze, iron when attuned
Conductivity: 3, cannot be enchanted with death magic
Innate bonus: +1 when attuned
Banes: Creatures not from this world
Description and abilities: A pulsing, living, green metal thought to be part of the world's own lifestream, Viridium seems inferior to iron at first. However, when attuned to its wearer, it physically bonds with them, empowering and repairing itself with their strength. This does come at a cost, as the wearer needs to consume significantly more food when attuned to viridium gear, though weapons can be satiated by the blood of others instead.
Adamantine
Strength: Higher than everything else
Conductivity: 0, utterly unenchantable
Innate bonus: +1 with an extra +2 damage on top of that
Banes: Anything with resistance that comes from hard bodies, such as constructs
Description and abilities: This heavy, black metal is not found as an ore, but as fallen divine scrap. This invincible metal is what the gods use for their own weapons and armor, and only they can enchant it, as it is otherwise utterly immune to all magic. Nothing is harder, nothing is stronger, nothing can be made sharper. Of course, it is also highly difficult to forge, requiring the hottest temperatures and the strongest tools, but only the most powerfully enchanted items can match those masterfully forged from adamantine.