Re: [Fwd: Steel tech and weapons]

["leads metal products inc." <leadsmetal.products@MCIONE.com>]

----------
> Jevan Furmanski wrote:
> >
> > In response to the hub-bub about steel, the problem with steel isn't the
> > working of it, but the making of it.  The planet hasn't even developed
> > coke technology, which is essential to steel production, and I would
> > attribute this to the planet's lack of dried up swamp land.  Steel
> > production is the tricky part, and for the most part wasn't as we know it
> > until the first world war, and yielded cool new ways to kill eachother.
> > If someone wanted to have a group of super artisans like the Japanese
> > swordsmiths, who overcame their technological limitations I could back
> > that.  Steel as a raw material is hundreds of years away though.
>

Being someone that works with steel every day, I know a lot about it. For one
theres other ways to make it without coke, the main thing that is needed is the
high heat to purify it, plus a few other things. So making steel at a blacksmith
shop can't be done but working it there can be done. But there are other ways
 to get the heat needed that are withing the bond of jaren, using nonmagical means.
It can be done, it still won't be cheap but a technolgy change from iron to mostly
steel has to happen. It may take a few year game time before things are all aviible, but
it's already been happening. When kerions watch was taken over many years ago
by us advantures, Kerion made a deal with the dwares to make steel for him, and dutch has
kept that same deal going since.

What a character has to find is a good heat source. One adventure I ran I had people
use the heat of a volcano to purify steel.

Aaron K. Alexander