Adamantine appearance vote!

[Notreallyhere77]

So, I'm getting ready to start a new campaign, and wanted to flesh the world out a little bit by deciding what adamantine should look like. The problem is, I've seen it portrayed a few different ways, depending on the artist, and I can find no concrete description in any books that is not contradicted in another artwork.
Should the system be relevant, It's going to be a Pathfinder game.

What I have seen so far is:

• Black
• Chrome
• Just-like-steel
• Bluish

...and the last world I made, I decided it looked like black iron with a layer of glass over it (the explanation being that the process that turns coal into diamonds is the same process that turns iron into adamantine). My usual DM imagines it as golden (though that's now the official appearance for orichalkum, which I always pictured as blue).

So, I turn to you guys (and gals) for inspiration. Please feel free to either vote on the appearances I have listed, or add a new description that I can add to the list. If you like, you can provide pictures to support your ideas. My next session starts during Thanksgiving break (that's November 23rd for non-US), so I have time to prepare and gather plenty of votes.
Thanks in advance!

Voting space:
Just Black: 9.5
Black subtypes:

• Blue-black: 3
• Silvery black: 0.5
• Red-tinted black: 1

Green: 3.5
Gold: 3
Grey: 3.5
Dark purple: 3.5
Ultraviolet/Infrared: 1
Dark diamond: 1
Like steel: 1
Cyan: 1
Bright pink: 1
Silver: 0.5
White: 0.5
Crystal: 0.5
Gunmetal blue: 0.5

[Ravens_cry]

Dark, dark grey, almost, but not quite, black. Why? To be in contrast with mithral which, according to source material, is a gleaming silver, as mithral is as strong as steel but lighter, adamantine is heavier than steel but stronger.
Besides, I like the look of dark heavy blade. It means business, like a closed fist held tight.

[Chilingsworth]

What's wrong with the book standard black?

If you really want something different, go with a "gunmetal blue" look

Whatever you do, don't go with chrome, since that would look too much like mithril.

[Prime32]

the explanation being that the process that turns coal into diamonds is the same process that turns iron into adamantine

...my chemistry teacher is crying.

I support blue-black myself.

[Notreallyhere77]

What's wrong with the book standard black?

Which book is this, and where is it referrenced?

Whatever you do, don't go with chrome, since that would look too much like mithril.

Too bad. Chrome was going to be my first choice, but I don't want it to get confusing. I kinda pictured mithral as being more pearlescent, but that's just me, I guess.

@prime32
I'm no chemistry student, I just figured the massive crushing forces of the elemental plane of earth, and some heat or whatever, could condense iron into adamantine. Diamonds have an adamantine luster, as your geology teacher can tell you, so the material should have a similar backstory.

[Chilingsworth]

Which book is this, and where is it referrenced?

Special Materials are discussed in the DMG, after the section on magic items.

[Notreallyhere77]

Oh. Well, I guess it's been a while since I've read that section. Is it in the SRD, too?

[Deth Muncher]

Personally, I see it as green...

[kieza]

Raw adamantine is matte black. It's almost useless, because it's insanely hard, but equally brittle. It snaps too easily to use it for weapons and armor.

Processed adamantine is an alloy, the exact composition of which is a lost secret. Depending on the exact process, it's either glossy black or blue-black, and it sacrifices a little bit of hardness for much-reduced brittleness.

[Crasical]

I like my Adamantine black and my Mithral chrome, my Orichalcum gleaming gold, and my women like I like my coffee: Covered in bees.

[Togath]

I usually imagine adamantine as either a crystal(sort of like a diamand) in it's natural form, and as a silvery black metal(in alloy form)

[Captain Six]

I played a lot of Runescape as well, and a mining specialist at that, so you have another green vote. Hours upon hours of digging that stuff up has burned that green into my head and nothing else will replace it.

[deuxhero]

Daggerfall style dark purple.


For what it's worth, that's what Neverwinter Nights uses (not sure if ToEE has the material) as well.

[Fendalus]

Special Materials are discussed in the DMG, after the section on magic items.

Only problem is that the color of Adamantine isn't listed in the DMG, nor the SRD.

I see it as a deep black with a slight red tint visible when it catches the light, with how shiny it is depending on exactly how it was forged (read: whatever looks better for the item in question).

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I always imagined it as more like a matte gold-like color, as my first exposure to the term "adamantine" came from Age of Mythology, when Athena explains that Zeus sealed the entrances to Tartarus with adamantine doors. The gates in question appeared to be made of wood and gold, so that literally colored my interpretation of adamantine until I later played Neverwinter Nights 2, which depicted it as black, and learned about Wolverine, Marvel depicting it with a silver color.

I still like the matte gold-like color, though. Something different than expected.

[Togath]

A red-gold coloured metal usually represents orichalcum(not sure if I’m spelling it right, damn spellcheck doesn’t know the word), which is often used(name-wise) interchangeably with adamant/adamantine/adamantium in video games and books, though it is a distinct metal in legends.
Adamant/adamantine/adamantium on the other hand has a different description depending on the writer, about any colour could be good, but a blue, green, purple, black, or grey color could fit with a lot of modern representations of it, while a white or silver colour, or it being a gem, could fit with greek and roman legends.

[Tvtyrant]

I vote blue black, though I always thought it was green...

[Mr.Bookworm]

I'm no chemistry student, I just figured the massive crushing forces of the elemental plane of earth, and some heat or whatever, could condense iron into adamantine. Diamonds have an adamantine luster, as your geology teacher can tell you, so the material should have a similar backstory.

Overused meme? Morbo?



Thank you, Morbo.

But yes this is D&D, so it doesn't really matter. If any of your players are chemistry/science nerds, though, don't actually tell that to them unless you particularly want a lecture.

On the actual topic, I've always personally favored making it look like an incredibly dark diamond. It's kind of unique and actually references (one of) the original meanings.

[Sith_Happens]

I like my Adamantine black and my Mithral chrome, my Orichalcum gleaming gold, and my women like I like my coffee: Covered in bees.

EDIT: One more vote for green. Silly Runescape.

[Tvtyrant]

Crystaline iron is very real, it appears in asteroids. It is also very ugly.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Crystaline iron is very real

Crystallinity is the degree of order in a solid. Crystalline iron is plain old regular iron.

it appears in asteroids. It is also very ugly.

Iron asteroids/meteorites are composed of a nickel-iron mix.

You can't make iron like a diamond, at any rate. It can't form the proper molecular pattern or covalent bonds to get the strength.

[Eldan]

I ignore the part that says "metal" and make it just naturally occuring carbon-nanothingies.

Yes, they are sharp in my world. In my fantasy world, no one can hear your science scream.

[Dimers]

I ignore the part that says "metal" and make it just naturally occuring carbon-nanothingies.

Yes, they are sharp in my world. In my fantasy world, no one can hear your science scream.

As I understand it, something that's good at holding its shape despite being one molecule wide would indeed be pretty sharp. Maybe I've just read too much bad sci-fi. The nanoconstruction idea is also good in other ways, like making adamantine immune to metal-affecting spells and giving it outlandishly good saves against transmutation and other such debasement. And you could make adamantine cloth, adamantine staves, adamantine rope ...

I've now stolen this idea for an endgame across-the-board equipment upgrade in my current campaign.

OP: I've always favored a low-shine black or dark grey for adamantine, and for the raw ore, a sort of pearlescent version of anthracite. Mild coloration in the finished product doesn't bother me but doesn't attract me either -- very dark purple and very dark green are both decent. I think I actually get the dark purple thing from the old Sid Meier's Civ / Magic The Gathering crossover, Master of Magic.

[Fouredged Sword]

A very thin bundle of carbon nanotubes would cut through iron like a cheeze wire. Very, very sharp. Most aplications of nanotubes therorise useing them as the weave in a composite becuse they are to sharp to use effectivly without a covering.

It is literaly a dimond edged wire.

The trick is getting them to be long enough to be useful.

[Mustard]

A few takes on the matter where I didn't consider its "traditional" appearance.

• Raw or unpolished, it's gray, very likely confused with other metals. When worked and polished, it reflects light of the opposite color (e.g. as with film negatives).
• Does not look special at all. Looks exactly like iron, except under certain lighting conditions. To discern it from iron visually, you need an expert on the matter, or some form of chemical test. For example, acid tarnishes it non-permanently.
• Black, with a slight hue of some other color. The secondary color reflects some sort of special property inherent to the metal, or the way it was smithed.

Picking from the specific list you have, though, I'd go with: Black.

[Eldan]

The trick is getting them to be long enough to be useful.

Tiny earth elementals are collecting carbon and sticking it into tubes.
Moradin did it.
A wizard did it.
Fantasy carbon grows by itself, like roots.

[Knaight]

You can't make iron like a diamond, at any rate. It can't form the proper molecular pattern or covalent bonds to get the strength.

Basically any transfer from a series of "layers" stacked upon eachother (iron, graphite) to a crystalline structure that extends in three dimensions (diamond) would work. Iron can't do that however, or if it can there is no data that points to it, and our theories regarding the behavior of metals are incredibly wrong.

[Fouredged Sword]

You can get amophus Iron to work though. That goes the other way though. You get very sharp blades, but it is very very brittle.

In theory you could get iron to form a crystalin structure rather than grains. Such a item would be very brittle and shear if struck along the crystalin lines as well, but the surface hardness would be very high.

Iron gets a good deal of it's toughness and hardness becuse it forms little crystals that stick together into a solid mass. Any break continuosly gets directed through new crystals and there is no direction with a tendency to shear like you see in dimonds.

[Notreallyhere77]

Okay, chemistry discussions aside (my players don't care where it comes from unless it affects the price), I have gotten a lot of good input so far.

As the edited voting space shows, black is in the lead, and with the subcolors is doing far better than any other color.
Green is second, and equal to blue-black.
Keep it up, I want to see where this goes!

[dsmiles]

I've always used: "a purple so dark that it looks black in anything less than direct sunlight," as the description for my adamantine items.