Cold Iron Sand?

[janusmaxwell]

Mostly related to Changeling the Lost, from the World of Darkness game, but I figure this question can apply to other settings where Cold Iron a necessary thing.

In environments similar to Japan, mineral-wise, where the only steady source of iron is from Iron Sand, which has to be melted down before you can do ANYTHING with it; would that mean it is impossible to make a Cold Iron weapon out of iron sand?

Cause my thought is that since it HAS to be heated before you can even start to forge it properly, that places which only have access to iron sand for metallurgy are, "Proper f**ked," when the Fae, demon's or other creatures which are weak to cold iron roll into town.

[5ColouredWalker]

You would be mostly right. You might be able to cheat a little by using it like diamond dust on tools, embedding it into something in such a way the cold iron can cut and scratch at fey/etc, but I'm not able to think of any other ways to use it without magic or the like.

That said, I'm now imagining a cold iron sap.

[Gildedragon]

Depends what the meaning of cold iron in your system is. IIRC IRL cold-iron is a poetic term for wrought iron as opposed to cast iron or steel.
It still needs to be smelted and refined from ore though; so if the ore is sand or hematite or pyrite.

[Knaight]

IRC IRL cold-iron is a poetic term for wrought iron as opposed to cast iron or steel.

It also tends to show up in the context of arms heavily. The comparison that usually gets made is that it's the "hot lead" of pre-firearm iron and steel weaponry.

[kieza]

Depends what the meaning of cold iron in your system is. IIRC IRL cold-iron is a poetic term for wrought iron as opposed to cast iron or steel.
It still needs to be smelted and refined from ore though; so if the ore is sand or hematite or pyrite.

That's the real-world meaning, but I've toyed with having "cold iron" mean iron that hasn't been worked using fire. So, basically the only source is meteorites--the heat of atmospheric entry doesn't count as being worked, since it has no intent to it. You can't work the metal, not without heating it up again, but you can strap the meteor onto a haft and use it as a club--that's how a lot of ancient cultures used to deal with sidhe and trolls and other fey.

Of course, modern wizardry can smelt and work metal without using heat--so these days, the sidhe are running scared, because anyone they antagonize can go out and buy a cold iron knife the very next day.

Anyways, cold iron sand could be...maybe produced by putting a meteorite into a rock tumbler? Or just by having a wizard disintegrate it? And you could also use the sand as some sort of grenade-like weapon--toss a bag of it at the fey, and then collect it again with a magnet afterwards.

[Coidzor]

If you count iron sand as cold iron, does that mean that in other parts of the world you'd need to make a warclub out of hematite, limonite, bog iron, or banded iron ores to beat fae to death with?

You don't really find Native Iron deposits, especially on the surface. Not with the way that iron rusts like hell when exposed to the atmosphere.

Or if the requirement is meteoric iron, then, well, is there anything that makes it so this area has less access to meteoric iron than other locales?

[Ashtagon]

Or if the requirement is meteoric iron, then, well, is there anything that makes it so this area has less access to meteoric iron than other locales?

Well, nothing except the fact that the OP is specifically asking about how areas that lack natural meteoric iron deposits would handle the problem.

[JAL_1138]

Well, nothing except the fact that the OP is specifically asking about how areas that lack natural meteoric iron deposits would handle the problem.

Generally, meteoric iron was useful to ancient peoples precisely because it fell out of the sky as metallic iron that could be hammered into shape and didn't need to be refined from ore. It also doesn't necessarily need forged with fire--for example, the Inuit cold-forged pieces of the Cape York meteorite into lance-heads, arrowheads, jewelry, and small knives by stamping and hammering, without applying heat. The resulting metal isn't very strong, but it takes an edge of sorts.

[Regitnui]

Well, cold iron sand could essentially be burning coals, depending on how badly it hurts the creatures in question. Perhaps a ring of it around dwellings or worked into the walls prevents fae and spirit teleportation or phasing through said ring/wall.

[janusmaxwell]

Lots and lots of really helpful and good ideas here. The meteoric iron could be used in a lot of ways for the purposes of what I'm writing, because as of this point, I'm pretty much set on the reaction to cold iron = fey weakness being "Oh S**t..." due to Iron sand.

However, I would love to know about the "Modern Wizardry" used to make cold iron. Especially because of the added caveat for True Fae only taking nasty wounds from weapons that weren't factory made. Not a big deal in medieval/fantasy settings, but really inconvenient regarding modern or futuristic settings.

[Beleriphon]

The other option is that cold iron is any worked iron weapon that isn't nickled iron (ie. high carbon steel).

[Elxir_Breauer]

In much of the fiction that I've read, Cold Iron is just another term for Iron in general, even Steel tends to do the same or similar damage to Fae. It may come with the assumption of being unenchanted Iron, as I don't think any of the weapons I've read of in these stories have actually been magical in any way. It could refer to the Iron "Burning like ice" and causing instant frostbite/gangrene in Fae, despite whatever they may normally be immune to. I'd think Drop-forged Iron/Steel items would make excellent weapons against the Fae in most cases, or even Stamped Steel weapons like show-piece swords and the like.

[BayardSPSR]

Mostly related to Changeling the Lost, from the World of Darkness game, but I figure this question can apply to other settings where Cold Iron a necessary thing.

In environments similar to Japan, mineral-wise, where the only steady source of iron is from Iron Sand, which has to be melted down before you can do ANYTHING with it; would that mean it is impossible to make a Cold Iron weapon out of iron sand?

Cause my thought is that since it HAS to be heated before you can even start to forge it properly, that places which only have access to iron sand for metallurgy are, "Proper f**ked," when the Fae, demon's or other creatures which are weak to cold iron roll into town.

It's one of those funny things where folklore from some places doesn't apply well to other places.

[Coidzor]

Well, nothing except the fact that the OP is specifically asking about how areas that lack natural meteoric iron deposits would handle the problem.

The OP that I read does not specifically address meteoric iron. The emphasis is more that they don't have large deposits of economically exploitable iron ore and so the only source of iron is iron sand, which they seem to think is heated past some threshold that ordinary iron ore is not, or, possibly, imported.

It's one of those funny things where folklore from some places doesn't apply well to other places.

Indeed. Maybe some of the traditional mythology and folklore might be able to be adjusted to the purposes you seek in order to explain why Not!Japan isn't openly ruled by faeries to this day. Or actual Japan, as the case may be.

[5ColouredWalker]

Indeed. Maybe some of the traditional mythology and folklore might be able to be adjusted to the purposes you seek in order to explain why Not!Japan isn't openly ruled by faeries to this day. Or actual Japan, as the case may be.

Because they have Kami instead, who beat the everloving sh*t out of any fey who so much look at Japan funny and have different weaknesses they fall to if they get too cocky around mortals.

However, I would love to know about the "Modern Wizardry" used to make cold iron. Especially because of the added caveat for True Fae only taking nasty wounds from weapons that weren't factory made. Not a big deal in medieval/fantasy settings, but really inconvenient regarding modern or futuristic settings.

To do this, you have to define what makes Cold Iron into Iron. The most common definition I know of would be heating it.
Given you're working with WOD, Mages could, with a rudimentary understanding of chemistry, create a spell that shifted the iron molecules of the ore somewhere. This somewhere for me would be into a container who's contents would allow for the immidiate reaction of the iron and something else to make a soluble ferrous salt, which I could then convert into solid iron with a source of electricity, creating a layer of cold iron over something else (Probably normal iron.)

I'd then cut off the layer of iron (Exactly how would vary, but if you made enough you could use a saw, but you'd be working on an almost industrial scale.) and beat the iron into shape. Voila, cold iron!

[BayardSPSR]

Indeed. Maybe some of the traditional mythology and folklore might be able to be adjusted to the purposes you seek in order to explain why Not!Japan isn't openly ruled by faeries to this day. Or actual Japan, as the case may be.

Or you could just... make Not!Japan openly rules by faeries, which could be cool.

[janusmaxwell]

Or you could just... make Not!Japan openly rules by faeries, which could be cool.

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Holy crap...for the purposes of the story, I thought it would be appropriate to say the native colloquialism for the Fae is "Oni".

But then the Kami were brought up, and my first thought was "Wouldn't they just be Fey too? Like the ones who were caught on a good day?"

But just now, ruled by the Oni...holy mother of crap, the Oni are the True Fae, but the so-called Kami are Changeling's! Japan's guardian gods are people who escaped the Fae and went "F**k those guys!"

I need to start working on that, I feel like I struck gold...

[BayardSPSR]

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Holy crap...for the purposes of the story, I thought it would be appropriate to say the native colloquialism for the Fae is "Oni".

But then the Kami were brought up, and my first thought was "Wouldn't they just be Fey too? Like the ones who were caught on a good day?"

But just now, ruled by the Oni...holy mother of crap, the Oni are the True Fae, but the so-called Kami are Changeling's! Japan's guardian gods are people who escaped the Fae and went "F**k those guys!"

I need to start working on that, I feel like I struck gold...

Glad that worked out for you.

[Nifft]

I was going to suggest putting Cold Iron Sand in a sock and bopping the Fey on the head with it, but it seems like you've reached a better conclusion already.

[5ColouredWalker]

I already mentioned that, the problem is that you're not hitting the fey with the cold iron, but with the sock filled with it. The way you'd get something like that to work is to find some way to embed the sand into a club, gluing it on if you're really desperate and think you can bring it down with a handful of good hits.

[Kami2awa]

It also tends to show up in the context of arms heavily. The comparison that usually gets made is that it's the "hot lead" of pre-firearm iron and steel weaponry.

Yep it's a slightly more old fashioned way of saying "cold steel". "Cold iron" being a special material is a modern invention - not sure if it originated with D&D, but it's not folkloric. In most legends, any iron (especially iron with a cutting edge) was effective. They don't like it up 'em.

[Ashtagon]

Yep it's a slightly more old fashioned way of saying "cold steel". "Cold iron" being a special material is a modern invention - not sure if it originated with D&D, but it's not folkloric. In most legends, any iron (especially iron with a cutting edge) was effective. They don't like it up 'em.

In traditional folklore, cold iron referred specifically to edged weapons (D&D's slashing and/or piercing weapons). Iron/steel bludgeons (such as the sand-filled sap suggested upthread) were no more effective than wooden bludgeons in the folklore.

[Barhandar]

Adding to it, Japan's general inability to stave off the Faerie if you take "cold iron" to mean literally "iron not heated while working it" could explain their folklore's extreme monster density and weirdness.
Like anything coming alive and sentient if it managed to last a hundred years - lanterns, umbrellas, cats, sandals... can't really manage that if every village has some cold iron around.

[ATHATH]

Question: Could a Fey that was immune to heat avoid its vulnerability to Cold Iron by living in an environment that is so hot that any Cold Iron that is transported there is "smelted" by the sheer heat of the place? How "smelted" does a chunk of Iron have to be in order to not be Cold Iron?

[The Glyphstone]

At that point, it'd be irrelevant because nothing who wasn't also immune to heat would be able to survive there, let alone carry cold iron there.

[Coidzor]

I suppose you could have some kind of incongruous Fey palace inside a magma reservoir or the throat of an active volcano.

I imagine it might be within their abilities to keep the place from going up like a light.

It'd require quite a lot of finely tuned wards to have mortals be capable of surviving there and have them lose any metal goods they had. Which then raises the question of why fey palaces in other places can't similarly screen for such contraband without needing a bunch of magma around.

[Xuc Xac]

In traditional folklore, cold iron referred specifically to edged weapons (D&D's slashing and/or piercing weapons). Iron/steel bludgeons (such as the sand-filled sap suggested upthread) were no more effective than wooden bludgeons in the folklore.

No, it was specifically any iron. Gamers always seem to think it has to be some hard to obtain material, because fae would be too easy to defeat if it was just normal iron/steel, but that's exactly the point! The folklore explains why you don't see fairies anymore. Even the really poor rural farmers with wooden pegs holding their barns together could carry an iron nail in their pocket. Fairies are a solved problem.

[Ashtagon]

No, it was specifically any iron. Gamers always seem to think it has to be some hard to obtain material, because fae would be too easy to defeat if it was just normal iron/steel, but that's exactly the point! The folklore explains why you don't see fairies anymore. Even the really poor rural farmers with wooden pegs holding their barns together could carry an iron nail in their pocket. Fairies are a solved problem.

Francis Grose's 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue defines cold iron as "A sword, or any other weapon for cutting or stabbing."

http://www.archive.org/stream/1811di...ut/dcvgr10.txt

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Because they have Kami instead, who beat the everloving sh*t out of any fey who so much look at Japan funny and have different weaknesses they fall to if they get too cocky around mortals.



To do this, you have to define what makes Cold Iron into Iron. The most common definition I know of would be heating it.
Given you're working with WOD, Mages could, with a rudimentary understanding of chemistry, create a spell that shifted the iron molecules of the ore somewhere. This somewhere for me would be into a container who's contents would allow for the immidiate reaction of the iron and something else to make a soluble ferrous salt, which I could then convert into solid iron with a source of electricity, creating a layer of cold iron over something else (Probably normal iron.)

I'd then cut off the layer of iron (Exactly how would vary, but if you made enough you could use a saw, but you'd be working on an almost industrial scale.) and beat the iron into shape. Voila, cold iron!

Hmm, there's the root of an idea in that.

What about reacting the sand with various chemicals so that eventually you're left with a solution that will either precipitate out pure iron when the last reagent is added, or can be used to plate a normally manufactured sword (say by rudimentary electroplating with something like a Baghdad battery)?

[5ColouredWalker]

Hmm, there's the root of an idea in that.

What about reacting the sand with various chemicals so that eventually you're left with a solution that will either precipitate out pure iron when the last reagent is added, or can be used to plate a normally manufactured sword (say by rudimentary electroplating with something like a Baghdad battery)?

I'd need to know the composition of the sand to know for sure, and you'd need to be careful with the electricity that it didn't heat the iron, but I believe you could do it all chemically with the right acids etc.

That said, I imagine it being well beyond the knowledge/abilities of people until very recently.