Peek: Learning Damanascus

Hrunter can admit when he lets his passion get away from him. Running around the town yelling about mythril and orichalcum in just his forgeclothes was not his most dignified moment. If he was drunk, he might have had an excuse, but he was stone sober at the time.

Luckily, most of the town doesn't care too much, and his skill as a smith affords him a bit of eccentric leeway. People will tolerate a lot of weirdness if you have solid skill to offer. It's probably why everyone is fine with how weird Thedeim is.

The latest bit of weirdness he's been given from the dungeon is this damanascus stuff. The first adventurer to offer it to him, he gave raw rates for steel and orichalcum. He'd never seen someone forge weld the two materials like that, and at the time, he was convinced it'd fall apart under a bit of forging.

The bands of steel and orichalcum are too distinct for it to be an alloy, or even a solid solution! Yet it behaves in every way like an alloy, which makes him grumble about dungeon nonsense. He should definitely pursue the process of its creation later, but first, he needs to figure out just how useful it is!

He could probably manage a smithing breakthrough if he figures out how its made, but nobody will care if the damanascus isn't actually useful. With his tests so far, it has a lot of promise.

Orichalcum on its own can be incredibly difficult to work with. It needs high temperatures to be worked, but the range between malleable and burnt is rather narrow. He burnt the first sample while chasing that sweet spot. It's a lot wider than ordinary orichalcum, but the burning phase is at a much lower temperature, thanks to the steel.

But just because the strength is compromised doesn't mean he can't still experiment with it. Orichalcum is notoriously difficult to enchant. While this makes it a great foil against magical attacks, the metal on its own can be rather brittle. It makes it great for carving runes, thanks to the hardness and magical resistance, but it makes it difficult to make weapons and armor.

This damanscus, however, isn't too bad for enchanting. He'd rate it a little worse than ordinary steel at accepting runes. If that was it, he'd still have a worthwhile material on his hands. It's significantly lighter than steel, yet has very similar physical properties for hardness and durability. It's not the top of the line, but Hrunter might have a perfect stepping stone for adventurer armor.

And as he gets more, the material shows it has great potential for blades in particular. It's a bit light for a good hammer or axe, but daggers, short swords, and rapiers look like natural fits for the metal. Further experiments tell him a rapier is probably a bit too ambitious. While the metal is strong and hard, a proper rapier needs a certain amount of flex to it. The damanascus will flex some, but it's definitely more rigid than ordinary steel.

Spears and arrows should work well though, in addition to the smaller blades of daggers and shorter shortswords. He smirks as he starts working on a series of blades, confident enough in knowing how the material works to make some pieces for sale. Sometimes the difference between a spear and a dagger is just a really long handle. And sometimes the difference between a dagger and a shortsword is marketing.

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Inspired by Blake McGowan, who wanted to see the crafters making use of Thedeim's unique nodes and materials. There's certainly more than metal on offer, so we might see other professions adjusting to their new toys eventually, too. Thanks for the suggestion, Blake, and I hope everyone has a good day.

Khenal