Special Materials: Who has them?

[Gan The Grey]

The DMG lists six special materials: Adamantine, Cold Iron, Alchemical Silver, Darkwood, Dragonhide, and Mithril. Aside from telling you that Cold Iron comes from deep underground and Dragonhide comes from...dragons, they don't really give you any background on the materials.

So, playgrounders, how do you treat the rarity of such materials in your campaigns? Who has them? How do they get them? Does every lowly blacksmith have access to them?

EDIT Treat this question almost as from a fluff perspective. Can you only get Cold Iron from the dwarves, and only with written permission from the king? And so on...

[Defiant]

You can easily apply the principle of "not every small village will have +5 magic weapons" to these special materials, as well as the principle of "any sufficiently-sized metropolis (i.e. Sharn) is bound to have some sort of high-value goods merchants".

And ultimately, in the end it's all a principle of "what the DM will allow his or her players to have, at what price".

[Gan The Grey]

You can easily apply the principle of "not every small village will have +5 magic weapons" to these special materials, as well as the principle of "any sufficiently-sized metropolis (i.e. Sharn) is bound to have some sort of high-value goods merchants".

And ultimately, in the end it's all a principle of "what the DM will allow his or her players to have, at what price".

Yes, yes. But when your players say to you, "Who mines Cold Iron, and what sort of value do they place upon it? Is it a commodity readily available to King and Commoner alike?" How do you answer this question?

[Saph]

Cold Iron, Alchemical Silver, Adamantine, Darkwood, and Mithril are just special minerals/materials. I don't really bother to do anything special with them, any more than I work out where the iron, lead, and copper in the kingdom comes from. You can buy them in any city that's wealthy enough.

Dragonhide is an exception. It's difficult to get, partly due to the moral issues of wearing the body parts of an intelligent creature, and partly due to the very practical issues of how other dragons react to it. (How would you treat someone who wore clothing made out of human skin?)

[Zen Master]

Personally, I like to go by the unit of 1 (one) slave.

It could also be the unit of 1 (one) dose of [generic proscribed substance]. Doesn't matter.

This, of course, isn't a question of exchange rates. It's a question of availability. How available would we consider one slave for sale to be in:

A) A nation that has legal slavetrade, and legal use of slaves
B) A nation that doesn't allow ownership of slaves, but allows trade to take place as long as they are bound for other countries
C) A nation, that forbids both trade and ownership of slaves

Mithril is neither slaves nor drugs, but it is in limited supply, and those who have it might want to control where and at what price it is available. Those who do not have it might want to close their markets for those who do, in order to force reasonable prices. And so on.

Lets say the kingdom of Generia (no mithril) lies next to the dwarfhold of Mithrilium (has mithril). If the king of Generia sends an envoy to the dwarves with the message 'planning invasion of random third country, and will buy any and all mithril produced for arms and armor,' will adventurers be able to buy any?

As might be gleaned from this, I make rare materials rare. You don't get them unless you work to find them.

[Gan The Grey]

Cold Iron, Alchemical Silver, Adamantine, Darkwood, and Mithril are just special minerals/materials. I don't really bother to do anything special with them, any more than I work out where the iron, lead, and copper in the kingdom comes from. You can buy them in any city that's wealthy enough.

Dragonhide is an exception. It's difficult to get, partly due to the moral issues of wearing the body parts of an intelligent creature, and partly due to the very practical issues of how other dragons react to it. (How would you treat someone who wore clothing made out of human skin?)

I actually had a player running a minotaur leather-worker that treated humans like cattle, secretly murdering and skinning them, using their 'hide' to make a very supple, high-quality leather that he then sold right back to the townspeople.

So I'm strangely comfortable with it.

[Darcand]

I really like the idea of Cold Iron only coming from a few very specific mines controlled by a very specific group of strip mining dwarves. I'm adopting it.

I like to think that darkwood trees originated on the Plane of Shadows and were carried here accidentally. The alien plants only grow in areas with prolonged indirect sunlight such as near the mouths of caverns and the bottom of deep canyons.

Dragonhide is a misnomer as the armor of young dragons is too soft to provide protection, and the scales of older dragons too large as to be effectively workable. Dragonhide actually comes from adult behirs, who shed scales as they slither through their rocky habitats.

[Eldan]

The only time I have actually heard of Darkwood trees is in the backstory of Duke Rowan Darkwood (guess what he was named for). He's a major player in Planescape, originally from Greyhawk. His family was rich because they had a grove where sometimes a few darkwood trees grew.
I'll see if I can find the story again and extract any more details from it.

[SilverStar]

Most special materials are not that difficult to find in my campaign worlds- mithral can be obtained whereever dwarves mine, darkwood in elven settlements, adamantine at the mines, etc.

I have several material types I use that are nonstandard, though- those are the hard ones.

Diamond-edged blades, etc...

[Curmudgeon]

The players just need to find an item crafter. It's the crafter's job to have access to special materials. I don't sweat the details more than that, unless the PC is the crafter. (Then I wing it.)

[Melayl]

In the world I'm building:

Cold Iron is normal Iron specially refined and forged (higher DC craft check), slightly harder to come by, usually from the Dwarf kingdoms, but other sources exist.

Mithril is Truesilver, mined mainly by the Dwarf kingdoms (using special rock-eating giant grubs that refine and excrete the metals). Has additional special properties from "regular" 3.5 mithral. Harder to aquire than Cold Iron and steel, usually sold only as stock through certain clans/dealers.

Adamantine is Trollsilver, originally mined from special veins of ore by the Trolls (major ancient magical powerhouses in my world) using magic. Has additional special properties from "normal" 3.5 adamantine. Now mainly available through the Dwarf kingdoms (they stole the secret from the Trolls), occasionally from the Trolls (they drive dangerous bargins, though). Very few clans/dealers have access to it from the Dwarf kingdoms.

[arguskos]

In my private setting:

Darkwood grows wild on three out of five continents. It's not rare in any way, and is frequently used in elven and illithid architecture, weapons, armor, and tools. Elves sometimes even use darkwood as clothing accoutrements (belt buckles, glasses frames, etc).

Mithril is mostly found in the mountains separating the human and goblinoid nations, meaning it's a fairly rare material in the surface world. Dwarves and Kobolds though, both having large holds in those mountains, make heavy use of it.

Adamantine, being an alloy between adamant, silver, and electrum, can be produced by anyone who can find and mine adamant. Luckily, adamant is VERY common in almost every nation of the world for unclear reasons. Though adamant itself is utterly useless for basically anything combat related, it's proliferation means it shows up in a lot of architecture and decorative materials, while the superior alloy shows up in weaponry, armor, decorative works, and basically everywhere.

Dragonhide doesn't exist, due to setting limitations.

Cold Iron and Alchemical Silver are both highly prized formulas of the illithid nation, making them expensive and not wide-spread at all.

There are a number of other materials as well, but they're not relevant to this thread.

[Hurlbut]

I like to think that darkwood trees originated on the Plane of Shadows and were carried here accidentally. The alien plants only grow in areas with prolonged indirect sunlight such as near the mouths of caverns and the bottom of deep canyons.

Actually growing deep in ancient forests work as well since hardly any sunlight get through the canopy down to the floor below (this is what kill off any potential seedlings there so the floor's generally clear unless you have plants that thrive in total shade)

[Irreverent Fool]

I do what Saph does. The rarity of these metals is already considered in the price. D&D is generally designed to allow player characters to purchase whatever their funds allow within the limits imposed by settlement size/etc.

Of course, since these materials are valuable, mines tend to be contested and/or jealously guarded and so usually fall into the hands of the powerful. Dwarves, of course, have a significant advantage on acquiring anything that needs to be mined, but so do kobolds. Darkwood is valuable as well and I can't see anyone other than druids having a monopoly on the stuff. That having been said, even adamantine isn't so powerful as to make hoarding it profitable. Instead, it's traded. Those with a surplus may get the items cheaper and the materials may even cost less closer to the source due to a lack of mark-ups.

I don't see any reason to limit availability. In my experience, this just makes players ignore the material rather than value it.

obnoxious
sig