Real-life Starmetal

[Serpentine]

This may be common knowledge to other folks, but I just heard from a documentary (on the historical context/origins of Grimm fairytales, of all things) that the iron from meteorites was used in ancient times to make swords, knives, medallions, etc. What's more, the presence of nickel meant that it was very strong, more so than normal (though maybe not properly smelted) iron and certainly more than the bronze and other materials more commonly used when meteoric metal was first employed. Unfortunately I'm struggling to find any real source, but it is mentioned at the end of this (http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RnsJX1CB6egC&oi=fnd&pg=PT16&dq=meteorite+iron+swords&ots=tL70GYzkbi&sig=kN57FyJpmZ2FqOu1tZdxvu7fR0U#PPT23,M1) book.
Just a snazzy li'l tidbit...

[ABB]

True. To early cultures in the copper/bronze era, meteors were the only source of iron, and since meteors containing iron also contained nickle it was harder than normal iron.

The ancient egyptians believed nickel iron meteors came from the god's bodies, the gods being constellations, and that the gods had iron bones.

If you want to get really technical, ALL metal is "star metal", as all natural metals come from nucleosynthesis, the process by which stars take hydrogen and build up higher elements thru fusion. The only elemtns not made by thius process are hydrogen and helium. All others, carbon, nitrogen, etc, are made by nucleosynthesis in stars, and all elements higher up the periodic table than iron are created by novas.

[Chronos]

Technically, trace amounts of lithium were produced in the Big Bang, and hydrogen can also be metallic in the right conditions, so not all metal.

And it doesn't much matter that meteoric iron would be better than normal iron, before normal iron became available. What's more significant is that any iron at all is far superior to bronze, the best tool-and-weapon metal normally available at the time.

[hamishspence]

in context of D&D though, starmetal is a bit different. Its green in Complete Arcane, and if you eat enough, you (via the prestige class) transform into an intelligent construct.

Adamantine is, I think, also suggested to be found in meteorites in D&D. Though I suspect Roy's sword is starmetal, not adamantine under a different name.

[Isolder74]

One of the reasons that a tool/weapon made with 'starmetal' is stronger then a iron tool mined from the ground is that the meteorite already contains many of the trace metals often used today in making fine hard steels including stainless steel. Most importantly the entry into the atmosphere actually works carbon into the iron a very important part of making steel.

Chromium, Iridium, tungsten, Manganese, etc in the trace amounts to makes a very fine and strong steel after processing the Iron hot enough to forge it into something. It is often a mistaken assumption that Steel didn't exist in the antient world but with 'starmetal' it did by mere accident. The point is a man manmade Iron tool made with mined iron would be mainly inferior to the 'starmetal' version of the same tool. Traditions of adding prayer scrolls to iron as it is worked may also do a lot in inadvertently making steel.

So you can imagine that there might have become a mystic to the creation of something out of starmetal.

[ericgrau]

Stainless steel, which uses nickel, is actually weaker than mild steel. And adding carbon during entry would be extremely unlikely to give you steel. Most pig iron has too much carbon. The trick is to purify it all out then add just a tiny bit. IIRC most ancient metal smiths made better steel by removing as many impurities as possible; it takes a great deal of luck and living in a specific region for the elements to actually help. That's just for making alloys with impurities, disregarding temper.

The fanciest modern alloys use a hard brittle temper, useful only to racers and the like who inspect it constantly and replace it after the tiniest crack, before it shatters. Old smiths actually saw this as a problem to be removed from their weapons. The term "temper" originated from its emotional meaning. Thicker pieces require modern alloying elements like chrome and molybdenum to be tempered this way, but otherwise the strength of those alloys comes from the temper not from impurities and the techniques aren't new.

In Homer's Odyssey he spoke of iron as if it were some fancy material to make weapons and armor out of. Considering that it's now much cheaper than bronze, I assume that means they didn't know how to smelt it and the few pieces they could find seemed quite extraordinary to them.

Roy's sword is mostly steel with a little starmetal. It would make more sense if starmetal were some alloying element like tungsten. Even then it would just be a nice steel alloy, not something extraordinary. That combined with good balance, etc. might make it masterwork I guess.

[magic9mushroom]

Yes, we know about meteoric iron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoric_iron).

BTW, adamantine is not a metal, at least in RL.

[Stormthorn]

IIRC most ancient metal smiths made better steel by removing as many impurities as possible; it takes a great deal of luck and living in a specific region for the elements to actually help.

Most ancient smiths were unable to make steel. Bronze was the most common and probably most advanced things they forged for a looong time.



Yes. Iron from meteorites was used by ancient cultures. I believe i saw a referance in the old norse once and the eskimo dudes used a giant one for all there tools up until some navy explorer stole it "discovered it".