Materials#

What a material does

Everything made is made of something, and the material decides how well it hits, how well it holds and how long it lasts. Each material comes in five tiers, and the better tiers need a higher level.

What the numbers mean#

A material has an amount for each of the five kinds of damage, its MDTA (material damage type amount). Armor made of it adds the amount to its AC against each kind of damage, so a material strong against slashing makes armor that turns blades. Twenty is the most any material may ever reach.

Durability is how many points of wear an item of it takes before it’s worn away, and a third of its wear is the chance that a blow wears it at all. Defending has when a blow does.

Five tiers#

Each material comes in five tiers. A tier opens at a level, and an item of that tier needs that level to use. A higher tier hits and holds harder, takes more wear and sells for more. Some materials carry a gift as well, listed with their top tier.

The tables give every material’s first and top tier. Pick a material to see all five.

Where materials come from#

Most materials come from the ground or from something that lived, and a trade brings them in. Some are made from others: steel from iron, linen from flax fiber, every leather from a skin.

Mining

Ores and the mundane elements, dug out of rock. 46 materials

Prospecting

Gems and rare stones, found by miners who know where to look. 42 materials

Smelting

Metals, melted out of ore at a forge. 49 materials

Felling

Wood, cut and seasoned by fletchers. 18 materials

Gathering fiber

Wool, cotton, flax, hemp and silk, taken where they grow. 14 materials

Weaving

Cloth, woven from those fibers. 21 materials

Skinning

Skins and furs from what the hunters bring in, and every leather tanned from them. 13 materials

Gathering

Shell, coral, pearl, ivory and bone, picked up where the sea or the dead leave them. 4 materials

Firing

Stoneware and earthenware, fired from clay. 3 materials

Glassblowing

Glass, blown from sand. 1 material

Assembly

Sequins, beads and scales, put together from other materials. 8 materials

The materials#

By kind, lowest level first. Each row shows the material’s first tier, and its MDTA at its top tier.

Metals#

Iron and steel for most work, bronze and brass where it’s cheap, silver and gold where it shows, and alloys most smiths have only heard of.

Wood#

Timber for bows, hafts, staves and shields.

Leather#

Skins and the leathers tanned from them, from soft nappa to boiled leather stiff enough to turn a knife.

Cloth#

Fiber and the cloth woven from it. Light, cheap and warm, and what casters live in.

Gems#

Cut stones. Many of them carry an element, and jewelers set them where it counts.

Stone and ore#

Ores and minerals as they come out of the ground. Most are smelted or ground into something else; a few, like granite and marble, are worked as they are.

Clay#

Clays and the stoneware and earthenware fired from them.

Exotic#

Bone, shell, coral, pearl, ivory, glass and scale. Hard to come by and hard to work, and many of them strike at an element or at the spirit.

Sizes#

A material comes in sizes, and a recipe counts in the smallest. An iron ingot is five fragments’ worth and a block a hundred. Each material’s sizes are listed with its tiers.