Iron Armour

[Blackyinkin]

Hi All,

What has happened to Gloranthan Iron armour? It seems to have been downgraded in the rules, it only does extra damage to trolls and elves, whilst hindering magic. What happend to the armour points being increased and the weight reduced? Tempered Iron did not reduce magic point loss and halved again the armour points, whilst untempered iron hindered magic use. Thus a full suit or iron plate protected for 9 points but did not increase its ENC. Is this still the rule or has it been removed?

I personally will stick to the older rulings

Simon

 

[weasel_fierce]

Its gone, though you might want to examine the rules for steel items in the arms&equipment book

 

[Blackyinkin]

Hi,

If it has gone then it is an error. The gifting of iron armour to a rune lord has been a strong tradition in Glorantha. The whole point of the material is that it has a semi-magical nature in a bronze age society, the enchantment of Iron has been a secret of the Mostali, which on a few have learned, whilst it was invented for the killing of Elves and Trolls, it is the other properties that made it so coveted. The fact that the Seshnelans wore full iron plate, was always a thing that made them feared.

Simon

 

[Voriof]

Hi,

If it has gone then it is an error. The gifting of iron armour to a rune lord has been a strong tradition in Glorantha. The whole point of the material is that it has a semi-magical nature in a bronze age society, the enchantment of Iron has been a secret of the Mostali, which on a few have learned, whilst it was invented for the killing of Elves and Trolls, it is the other properties that made it so coveted. The fact that the Seshnelans wore full iron plate, was always a thing that made them feared.

Simon

I had noticed the segment's removal from CoG, probably because it might have been thought to conflict with the steel rules Arms and Amour. However, the gifting of Iron as a part of the cult activities is more of a RQII artifact and its not seen as much in HQ or RQ3, both games where it is not nearly as prominent.

Jeff

 

[RosenMcStern]

The MRQ core rulebook states that a Rune Lord is given an iron weapon (or a steel weapon or a magic one, I do not have the printed book here), so a part of the RQ2 construct has continued till modern (sorry, second age ) years.

This should be adjusted for the cult, of course. A Karrg's Son should receive a lead weapon, not a steel one. But the idea is that a Rune Lord receives the appropriate magic equipment from the cult, and if iron is appropriate then he should receive iron.

 

[Voriof]

Good. I knew I had seen it somewhere so I wasn't too worried at the time. Certainly my fairly well tuned Gloranthan Continuity Sense* didn't trigger over the matter.

Jeff

* It's rating around 6W3 these days, more if I use my library to augment.

 

[Slytovhand]

Still on the Iron topic... Gloranthan Iron (and other metals) are not the same as our Earth Iron (and other metals).

So... would Gloranthan Iron also alloy and forge into an equivalent steel? (given steel is made from a combination of elements).

That being the case - let's just say it does forge the same, what about it's other properties? MP reduction, spell casting? Elves and Trolls??


Slyt

 

[captrooper]

Still on the Iron topic... Gloranthan Iron (and other metals) are not the same as our Earth Iron (and other metals).

So... would Gloranthan Iron also alloy and forge into an equivalent steel? (given steel is made from a combination of elements).

That being the case - let's just say it does forge the same, what about it's other properties? MP reduction, spell casting? Elves and Trolls??


Slyt

Good question!
MRQ Glorantha does not always match RQ1/2/3/HQ Glorantha on things. I'm with Simon Bray on iron. I don't remember off hand steel being in Glorantha (except maybe as a mostali thing). Remember, bronze is not an alloy, but god bones (same as iron) IIRC... It's late and I should be in bed so I'm prepared to be correctied on this (probably by someone who doesn't bother to read this caveat either).

 

[Voriof]

Still on the Iron topic... Gloranthan Iron (and other metals) are not the same as our Earth Iron (and other metals).

So... would Gloranthan Iron also alloy and forge into an equivalent steel? (given steel is made from a combination of elements).

That being the case - let's just say it does forge the same, what about it's other properties? MP reduction, spell casting? Elves and Trolls??


Slyt

Good question!
MRQ Glorantha does not always match RQ1/2/3/HQ Glorantha on things. I'm with Simon Bray on iron. I don't remember off hand steel being in Glorantha (except maybe as a mostali thing). Remember, bronze is not an alloy, but god bones (same as iron) IIRC... It's late and I should be in bed so I'm prepared to be correctied on this (probably by someone who doesn't bother to read this caveat either).

On many occasions in the past, Greg and Sandy referred to enchanted iron as "steel" but this may be an anachronism.

Jeff

 

[Sinisalo]

I expect it's gone the same way as Cuirboilli and lamellar - ie, not seen as relevant.

 

[Slytovhand]

Well - after thinking a bit more about it...

MRQ has a comment on steel having 1 more pt of AP/hit location (for armour) and being lighter (about half I think... - not sure).

but... Iron is listed as -1 Enc per location, but x.5 in AP. (thus, 6 pts goes to 9... but as per above, 6 would only give 7).

Presumabley, steel is actually stronger than Iron.. so what's the deal? So why would I effectively lose a stack of armour when I'm actually making it stronger??

Also, in Elric, all armour values are the same as MRQ, yet Elric is in a 'late medieval' society - so steel should be fairly common.


Oh - as for the other RQ's and metals, Elder Secrets has the different metals - Za-metal, Ga-metal, etc* In that book, and others, it says that although there is a bronze ore naturally, you can also smelt tin and copper to produce bronze as well - same as on Earth here...


*there is also Nu-metal. It is totally soft, and does nothing for anyone. It does, however, make Iron [Maiden] and other similar metals appear 100 times harder when put near it. Nu-metal also has very little value. It is, however, toxic, causing a Poison-like affect.

 

[khazwind]

Remember, bronze is not an alloy, but god bones (same as iron) IIRC... It's late and I should be in bed so I'm prepared to be correctied on this (probably by someone who doesn't bother to read this caveat either).

Firstly, GO TO BED! No, we don't care about the monsters in your closet! Just get in bed NOW or so help me I'll ... oops, channeling my inner parent there.

Joking (and caveats) aside, IIRC of old, Gloranthan bronze can be mined but can also be made by mixing the Gloranthan equivalents of tin and copper.

However, this is from the old RQ2 days and could have been Gregged.

 

[Voriof]

Joking (and caveats) aside, IIRC of old, Gloranthan bronze can be mined but can also be made by mixing the Gloranthan equivalents of tin and copper.

However, this is from the old RQ2 days and could have been Gregged.

Nope. Still canonical. It can be an alloy OR a naturally occuring metal.

Jeff