Underwater Equivalents of Various Items/Materials?

[TyckTock]

Hello, I'm a relatively new DM and I need help, I'm running a campaign for a friend who's playing a triton, and a solid portion of the game is going to be in Triton cities, entirely/mostly underwater. Having checked and found methods of underwater forging (Which sadly wouldn't work due to location specifics). So to those with more experience than me here who may have come across this before, are any good alternative materials then metal for aquatic equipment? Thank you greatly for the help in advance, and if more details are needed, I am happy to provide them.
Pardon the short post, but hopefully I at least got to the point quickly enough.

[JNAProductions]

Orichalcum? Mithral? Other fantastic materials?

There are dragons and wizards. Reality has, at best, a loose connection.

[JackPhoenix]

Do those underwater forging methods take magic into account? Because magic is a thing in D&D. Making metal items underwater isn't a problem with magic.

Otherwise, depends on the use of the metal objects you're replacing. Shells and scales may serve for armor, coral can make weapons (not in real life, but we aren't talking about real life), but not vice versa. Stone tools work too... obsidian is fragile, but it can make much better edge than steel.

[Lord8Ball]

Instead of struggling to find underwater equivalents the easiest thing to do would be to say that this underwater community trades with surface dwellers for their goods in exchange for safe passage in the waters or ease of access to pearls or exotic aquatic cuisine.

[Knaight]

Phosphor bronzes are pretty typically used for things that one would use steel for above water, having extremely good corrosion resistance even to rapidly flowing salt water while also being strong. Among other things they get used for submarine propellers. If forging is totally out though, it's out as well. Still, if Tritons can surface at all they might have some island forges or similar, where any metal is a much bigger deal than it would otherwise be because of this.

Stone still works for stone, bone still works for bone (though there's enough shells and coral to mix that up a fair bit), wood is something that can be done without. Fire is obviously out, so I'd expect some level of agriculture around bioluminescence.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about the ocean that would be worth observing is that the biomass distribution is basically reversed from land. On land there's a huge amount of plant mass, vastly less herbivore mass, vastly less carnivore mass, so on and so forth up the trophic pyramid (which is an oversimplification, but a pretty workable one). In the ocean this is almost completely reversed, with tiny plants getting eaten quickly and the biomass congregating on huge predators.

This suggests that you simply wouldn't see much in the way of farming or gathering (though bioluminescence might still be worth it). Instead, you'd see large hunting parties going for large prey, which is going to affect the sort of items seen dramatically. A boat equivalent of some sort is pretty likely, lighter than water and with ballast. This gets into water sealing, and might be another thing they'd need islands for. Woven bone and pitch might do it, and while the plants used for ropes are pretty much all out kelp and similar can work, though they're clearly much weaker.

There's also the possibility of heavy glass use. You need sand (plentiful in the ocean) calcium carbonate (plentiful in the ocean, just crush shells, the organics will burn), and sodium carbonate. Sodium carbonate can be produced by burning kelp, or through a little something known as the Solvay process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_process). The short version is that you need calcium carbonate (ground seashells), ammonia (lots of ways to get this), and salt water. It's a bit of a modern process, but Triton salt water chemistry is probably a bit more advanced than human salt water chemistry, and they could easily have towers for this.

Once you have glass, there's a lot that can be done with it. It holds an edge well, and glass knives and spearheads can work just fine. Glass is also an alternative to the bone and pitch for boats, potentially a major structural material, etc. Some of the major weaknesses of glass are also ameliorated, ocean temperatures vary far less than land temperatures in terms of both weather and climate effects, which makes using glass with other things potentially a better option. Stone and glass might substitute for brick and mortar to some extent, particularly if localized heat creation allows for powder-glass welding.

[TyckTock]

Thank you all greatly for the help with this, and once I finish up this post, I'll try to see if I can close this myself. Long story short, I'm a fool, who forgot Tritons have magic too. These were all great suggestions that I'll keep in mind for the future, thank you all greatly, and best of luck.

[Fayd]

If I recall, the word orihalcum was originally "Atlantian Steel" so go with that? Maybe it's to the sea-folk what mythril is to elves/dwarves?

[Unoriginal]

D&D 5e makes no difference between metal weapons and stone/bone/ivory ones. The Volo's and some modules indicate that.

[Vogie]

It is a game with magic involved, so perhaps using:

Structures made with large-creature bones for beams, with fast-growing coral acting like cement.
techniques with underwater volcanoes rather than traditional forges for smelting metal
Sandbenders and Cryomancers being able to mass produce cheap things quickly, but that fade fairly quickly
Giant clams being used to make giant pearls, which can then be converted to various things, either through magic or sculpting.


The main issue I'd have with an underwater setting isn't the crafting, but rather the lack of ranged capabilities... or the amount of mental gymnastics required to make ranged things work.

[saucerhead]

Steven Erikson's novels there were battles now and again with an underwater race called stormriders. They used armor and weapons that looked like ice and burned to the touch they we so cold. Just an idea for your campaign, that underwater doesn't have to mean tropical.