Orichalkum stuff

[Notreallyhere77]

So, now that the adamantine discussion is more or less over, we can talk about the various physical and aesthetic properties of the fabled Orichalkum, and the variances from system to system, setting to setting, book to book, and table to table.

So, apparently it's found in Exalted, Immortals handbook, Age of Mythology (Titans expansion), and Pathfinder.
Anywhere else?

[Eldan]

Greek Mythology, if that counts, and potentially the real world.

[flumphy]

RIFT uses it. So do some of the Final Fantasies, iirc. I don't think WoW has yet, but if it hasn't it will have to soon.

EDIT: Ooo. Looky here.

[Starshade]

In the old Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis adventure game, it's an mystical and powerfull metal, look here, you see it in this gameclip, at the end:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg47A...eature=related
It's powering ancient machines, and seem to have close to supernatural potential in the game.

[Arbane]

It's in Shadowrun, too, I believe - a magic alloy of copper, silver and gold that's very good for making magic foci.

[Xefas]

EDIT: Ooo. Looky here.

An excerpt from the article:
"In 'Yu-Gi-Oh! GX', Jim Crocodile Cook lost his right eye while trying to save a crocodile named Shirley who was caught in a hunter's trap."

I feel like Yugioh has changed since I last watched it back in the day.

[Anderlith]

Orichalcum is magical bronze. It had all the properties of "mithral" before Tolkein was even born

[dsmiles]

Well, the BESM: The Slayers d20 book has orichalcum as granting spell resistance the way adamantite grants damage reduction. (A certain amount of SR for light armor, a higher value for medium armor, and another higher value for heavy armor.) It also weighs (IIRC) 1.5x normal weight for the listed armor.

Here, too.

[comicshorse]

It's in Shadowrun, too, I believe - a magic alloy of copper, silver and gold that's very good for making magic foci.

It is. It's useful for making any sort of magical gear and is insanely expensive

[DeadManSleeping]

It's worth noting that, while there is a material called "orichalcum" in Exalted, it is gold in appearance rather than reddish-bronze.

[DoctorGlock]

It appeared in Golden Sun as well. It was a bright gold color and IIRC had holy properties and was a form of starmetal (I played the game well over7 years ago)

[Quietus]

I don't remember where I picked this up, but I seem to remember something about Orichalcum being 'perfected gold', while Mithril and Adamantite/Adamantium were other perfected metals. I'm sure it was in a game somewhere, I think it was Mage : The Awakening. They had at least a half-dozen of them.

[Andreaz]

They also exist in exalted and, befitting their wielders' "niche" of being better at everything, orichalcum equipment tends to be better at almost everything compared to more specialized materials.

[Seb Wiers]

It's in Shadowrun, too, I believe - a magic alloy of copper, silver and gold that's very good for making magic foci.

"Magical Alloy" in this case basically meaning "new element." I say this because it also exists naturally in later Shadowrun editions, and the natural stuff isn't an alloy.

Actually, it always did exist naturally in Shadowrun - dragons had stashes of it, and several used lumps of it as seed money for their financial empire building.

Earthdawn also makes use of Orichalcum as a game element, which is pretty much the reason the dragons in SR have such nice stashes of the stuff. Some high level ED characters can actually make orichalcum in a manner similar to SR mages, but it seems much harder in ED (and somewhat pointless, when you can just mine it).

[caden_varn]

It exists in Nephilim too. Can't remember exactly what is does there though - I think it gets round just about al;l resistances, but I cannot really be sure.

[Xuc Xac]

Just like the threads asking "which book describes 'eldritch'?" or "what does 'adamantine' look like?", the answer is "check a dictionary or encyclopaedia". They were not invented by game designers. They're real words.

"Orichalcum" is Greek for "mountain copper". It's described by Plato as having a reddish color and he claims that the walls of Atlantis were decorated with it. It's basically a really fancy grade of bronze. The Romans transliterated it as "aurichalcum" and (mistakenly) introduced the idea that it was "gold copper". Things snowballed from there. It was specifically described as being less valuable than gold, so it's not a superior or perfected form of gold (although game settings that have such a thing as "perfected gold" could easily use the term "orichalcum" for it).

"Adamantine" is a real word that means "as hard as a diamond". D&D uses "adamantine" as a material because the "-ine" ending makes it sound like a mineral. Marvel uses "adamantium" because most new elements are named with the suffix "-ium". The various "adamantines" and "adamantiums" out there share a common name because "adamant" and "adamantine" are real words, not because those things are the same material. That's like saying your house is nuclear because it has a fuse box and hydrogen bombs also operate by fusion.

[Anderlith]

Just like the threads asking "which book describes 'eldritch'?" or "what does 'adamantine' look like?", the answer is "check a dictionary or encyclopaedia". They were not invented by game designers. They're real words.

"Orichalcum" is Greek for "mountain copper". It's described by Plato as having a reddish color and he claims that the walls of Atlantis were decorated with it. It's basically a really fancy grade of bronze. The Romans transliterated it as "aurichalcum" and (mistakenly) introduced the idea that it was "gold copper". Things snowballed from there. It was specifically described as being less valuable than gold, so it's not a superior or perfected form of gold (although game settings that have such a thing as "perfected gold" could easily use the term "orichalcum" for it).

"Adamantine" is a real word that means "as hard as a diamond". D&D uses "adamantine" as a material because the "-ine" ending makes it sound like a mineral. Marvel uses "adamantium" because most new elements are named with the suffix "-ium". The various "adamantines" and "adamantiums" out there share a common name because "adamant" and "adamantine" are real words, not because those things are the same material. That's like saying your house is nuclear because it has a fuse box and hydrogen bombs also operate by fusion.

Don't forget Adamantite!

[Arbane]

It exists in Nephilim too. Can't remember exactly what is does there though - I think it gets round just about al;l resistances, but I cannot really be sure.

IIRC, it's the Nephilim's Kryptonite.

[dsmiles]

I still like the uses from The Slayers. It supresses magic. It was a crappy gray color in the series, though. I usually go with the "gold tinged metal" description (similar to electrum, since DnD stopped using electrum as currency).

[Ravens_cry]

The only time I've seen it used personally outside of mythology was when I played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Well, the demo anyway. In that, it was basically gold coloured.
Of course, that was with 256 colours in 320x200 VGA graphics, but dag nammet we liked it!

[Ashram]

So far, all Paizo has mentioned about Pathfinder's orichalcum, otherwise known as "horachalcum" (More on that in a second) is that it's one of the campaign setting's seven rare "skymetals", of which adamantine is a member, and the most common.

Horachalcum is the most rare of the skymetals, and all that's known about it is that it supposedly has the ability to warp time around it, either to slow down or speed up (Hence the first part of the name, "hora", which is Spanish for time; pronounced correctly, you'd never hear the "H" in the name anyway). No stat blocks have been made for it, although it was scheduled to be in Pathfinder's Inner Sea World Guide and then cut. Paizo said they're toying with the idea of releasing the metals one at a time in different books.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Also, apparently these "skymetals" are actually from space. Specifically they're the salvaged metals from a giant crashed spaceship.

[Ashram]

Also, apparently these "skymetals" are actually from space. Specifically they're the salvaged metals from a giant crashed spaceship.

Most of the rarer ones, yeah. Adamantine is usually still found in meteors, as is noqual, which isn't really a metal but a crystal.

[ScionoftheVoid]

The Dragon Quest series has orihalcum as a light blue metal, and (one of) the hardest substance(s) in existence. Used in alchemy for many of the most powerful items.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Orichalcum also appears in the expansion pack to the city-building game Zeus: Master of Olympus. The expansion, Poseidon, allows the player to build Atlantean cities, and in that game, the mineral is called Orichalc. It can by mined by the player for two main purposes: Many large Atlantean building projects (mostly pyramids) require Orichalc as a sort of decorative trim to the marble. It also may be transported to towers or frigate wharfs to allow your guard towers and ships to use Atlantean Fire.

In Poseidon, Orichalc is a bright reddish color.