Mithril
Heavy Metal Legend
Mithril is the stuff of legend. Literally. How many legends of mystery metals are there in history. Of strange, eldritch weapons wielded by champions of both good and evil? Those weapons are almost all described the same - silvery blue and bright and shining. Sharp and unbreakable. Never rusting and never dulling. No chipping or breaking. Armor and shields of the same silver metal abound in folklore, tall tales, and fantasy stories of every culture, muggle and magical. The word mithril even entered muggle parlance in the 1950s when a British writer who had befriended a wizard during the second world war learned way too much.Properties
Material Characteristics
Mthril is a silver-white metal with incredible hardness. It always feels cool and smooth to the touch, and despite it's weight and density, always floats.
When used to craft items, it is a bright silver white, but is a poor reflective surface.
Physical & Chemical Properties
It doesn't nick, rust, or break. Items made from mithril can last thousands of years, and are highly coveted. While it is beautiful and useful, mithril is considered special because:
- It collects and stored raw ambient magic, concentrating it in physical form - and this magic cannot be discharged or taken from it
- Items made of mithril can block spells and reduce their effect on the wearer
Compounds
When made by an alchemist or artificer, mithril is technically an alloy of rhodium and iron, but this alloy does or means nothing unless it is created by a Loremaster. Without their use of ambient magic to transform the alloy from something useless into a magical metal, it means nothing.
Alchemical mithril is more pure and stable and can be infused with more ambient magic than natural mithril. It lacks the impurities of the metal found in nature, which while makes for stronger items, but once the item is 'sealed' and finished, it cannot be melted down and reforged into something new.
The exact process used to create mithril is not somthing alchemists or artificers have shared, though some theories indicate both platinum and mercury are used in the preparation.
It is the alchemy that makes it possible - only someone capable of using alchemical lore can create mithril. While alchemists can create raw mithril, only an artificer can shape and forge it.
It is the alchemy that makes it possible - only someone capable of using alchemical lore can create mithril. While alchemists can create raw mithril, only an artificer can shape and forge it.
Sufficiently powerful artificers - those with enough of the alchemical lore of their own - are able to create mithril of their own. (Though, there is some speculation that artificers who encounter mithril are able to replicate it on their own, assuming they have the appropriate talent.)
A muggle or even a witch or wizard could blend the two metals together into an alloy that just the normal physical properties of such an alloy.
Geology & Geography
Mithril is found all over the world in small quantities, usually far beneath the earth. It is usually found in veins of raw iron and rhodium, but it has been found separate from both. Mithril is found and tested via alchemy and/or potions, and is only considered mithril if it hold a significant quantity of ambient magic.
Origin & Source
Mithril is an alloy of rhodium and iron, and can be created either by natural heat and pressure, or by alchemy used either by an alchemist or and artificer. The alloy becomes mithril when it collects and stores ambient magic in high enough quantities it adds magical characteristics to the metal.
Life & Expiration
Naturally ocurring mithril will last a couple thousand years before it starts to degrade. This either occurs because the ambient magic slowly leaks out of the metal. Alchemical mithril will never degrade or lose its magic, but unlike natural mithril, alchemical mithril cannot be melted down and reforged.
History & Usage
History
MIthril was discovered long before it was useful to humanity. Ingots of it were traded amongst magicians, despite it having no apparent use.
During the iron age, when alloys and the creation of steel were first being explored, naturally occurring mithril became even more coveted because of what could be created from it. Weapons, armor, and jewelry made of mithril became status symbols as much as tools.
At some point in history, alchemists and/or artificers discovered how to create mithril, making it much more common, but only the most skilled artificers were able to forge it into anything useful.
During the Enlightenment and Rennaisance, mithril became almost common as more alchemists and artificers were working with the metal, creating tools, jewelry, day to day items, and weapons with it, but this fad passed quickly as most magicians couldn't afford it and too many mithril items were ending up in the hands of muggles.
Discovery
The discovery of mithril is lost to history, as is when it became an alchemical preparation. It is known that mithril tools, weapons, and armor came into use very early after steel started appearing, though these were incrediby rare and were almost always used by Grand Sorcerers, Dark Lords, and Dueling Masters.
Mithril fell out of fashion somewhere around the time the Ministry of Magic was formed, likely because they attempted to regulate its creation and use - and who could and could not own mithril items.
As more and more lore was replaced by high magic, there were fewer and fewer people who could create and craft with mithril, and it fell into the realm of myth and folklore.
Everyday use
While the most well known examples of mithril are weapons, armor, and jewelry, most mithril items are either household items - cups, goblets, flatware, etc - or tools. Healers, potioneers, alchemists, artificers, and many other magicians favored mithril tools for their work because it would have no effect on what they were doing - and because the tools were all but indestructible and required very little maintenance.
Mithril tools and jewelry are still common, even if the knowledge of mithril iteself is very limited and almost unknown to many, they are aware of tools and items made of 'wizarding silver' that are not just highly expensive, but relatively rare.
While there are a few artificers left in the world creating mithril and crafting with it, they are almost always from countries and regions where lore is not as heavily restricted or outlawed, and are rarely imported as special orders by magicians in the know.
Refinement
The alchemical process of creating mithril remains a mystery to those without the lore of alchemy, but hopefully one that will not be lost forever - alchemy is a dying art, and the secrets of making mithril may be lost with it.
What is known is that alchemists who create mithril tend to need both platinum and mercury for the process. There are other compounds which are theorized to be a part of it - powdered pumice stone, purified water, and other minerals have historically been associated with the process, but these can be used for many different kinds of alchemical preparations, leaving a lot of doubt about what is needed to turn rhodium and steel into mithril.
Manufacturing & Products
The most common mithril items are not the well known examples of weapons and armor (and occasionally jewelry), but tools. Mithril tools are incredibly useful for artificers, healers, potioneers, enchanters, and alchemists.
Artificers are also able to imbue mithril items with magic effects and spells that are a part of the creation instead of being enchanted - or magic added to or imposed on an item. These magical items are incredibly enduring, potent, and useful.
And a commensurately rare.
One of the lesser known limitations of mithril items is that it cannot be enchanted by high wizardry - any magical effect put into a mithril item must be done by an artificer at the time of creation.
The process of crafting a mithril item must be done all at once. Once the process is begun, if it is stopped, the item cannot be finished.
Reusability & Recycling
Natural mithril can be melted down and reused and reforged.
Alchemical mithril cannot be - however, it can be, through a special alchemical process - be turned back into its components and re-formed into mithril.
Type
Metal
Taste
Like steel
Color
Silver white
Boiling / Condensation Point
6,686 F
Melting / Freezing Point
3567
Common State
Solid ore
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