[Rq-rules] [OT][General FRP]Riddle of Steel

[Sven Lugar]

Spot on my friend, you get the picture precisely! Steel was increasingly 
available, in widely varying quality, but not common until later periods 
even in the very late Bronze Age to bronze poor areas (heck probably 
even as a nice rock for an club in the neolithic). This is a great thing 
for the Roleplayer as it provides a logical progression of blade 
qualities (see my original post) from common to Runic. I feel, as to 
other archaeologists, that the famous blades (Excalibur, Tyrfing, 
Joyeuse, Curtana, etc), usually attributed to the Smith-God 
Weyland/Volund, were in fact early period weapons that came from a smith 
or family of smiths who happened across a large find of meteoritic 
nickel-iron steel. Because of the innate quality of the blend they 
would, as legend tells us, cut through ordinary weapons without dulling. 
Probably a matter of a better than average smith with a superior supply 
of raw material. Imagine gaming a quest for some "Star Stones" to make a 
Runic weapon.
BTW, I really appreciate your knowledge of this topic. My apologies if I 
seemed in any way to strident or condescending. I really try not too in 
my emails but it's one of my favorite topics even back with Steve when 
he was writing RQ. I confess to showing off the blades I made to the 
gaming group back then.
Good Yule!
Sven

Bjorn Stolen wrote:
> It's so difficult to be brief and still get all the nyances through. 
> I'm beginning to suspect that you know more on this topic than me. 
> What I believe on this topic is that the knowledge of making good 
> quality steel weapons emerged pretty early, but (apart from during the 
> semi-industrialized roman era) the knowledge was distributed pretty 
> randomly from smith to smith. I base this wiew on the fact that we 
> have fantastic swords from early times that shows pattern welded 
> blades (from x-rays) far earlier than the late medieval times. Iron 
> from ores from the ruhr valley had a reputation of beeing of very good 
> quality, and that was probably where the modern industrialized 
> iron-processing started in the late medieval times (1400-) In fact, 
> frankish swords were in high esteem as early as viking-age, and the 
> frankish issued a ban on sword-export to the vikings. Steel quality 
> probably started getting better and better on averidge from 1400 and 
> onwards, and as emphasis moved from flexible blades to reliable 
> firearms, different qualities in the steel allso emerged.
>  
> That beeing said, I don't think that all blades were of high pattern 
> welded steel quality. In fact, several vikingswords found in 
> Norway, is little more than a banged out blade and whatever"steel" you 
> find in the blade is on the surface that was in contact with the iron. 
> Not only norwegian king-sagas from 1200 mentions blades bending in 
> combat, and having to be straightened during battle, allso the 
> longsword-manual Fior di Battaglia from 1410 mentions a technique 
> where you step on your opponents blade, and that this often vill 
> result in the blade breaking (too brittle) or bending (too soft)
>
>
> ...snip...
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