Stats for weppons made out of Gloranthan metals?

[Belgath]

Are there any stats for RQ weppons using Gloranthan gold, copper, silver, quicksilver, led, tin, and iron? Other then the general description given in the Glorantha guide book.

[Peter Metcalfe]

The rules were given in Elder Secrets.

Enchanted Copper can be hammered very thin so that its armour has 1/2 encumberance with a cost of 2 armour points.

Enchanted Gold armour has twice the weight of bronze. It glows in the dark and doubles the effectiveness of any light magic cast on it. There is the comment that most people gild armour with enchanted gold instead.

Enchanted Lead armour has half-again the weight of bronze. It doesn’t detract from your sneak rolls (thus the Uz ninjas can wear plate armour and not get heard). Leaden crushing weapons do an extra 2 points of damage.

Enchanted Quicksilver armour has normal encumberance which vanishes if you are swimming.

There’s no special properties given for silver (other than being able to damage magical creatures) or for tin.

Thus far Elder Secrets.

[Peter Metcalfe]

My own comments and observations (which may deviate from canon)

SILVER: The idea of silver being effective against werewolves goes back to the (Real World) Beast of Gevaudan which was slain by a silver bullet made from holy objects that have been melted down. In other words, it was the holiness of the silver that slew the beast and not the silver in and of itself (if the bullet was made from ordinary silver ingots, they would not have worked)

I would instead like to make silver armour and weapons dependent on the phase of the moon i.e. dull and weak on dead and dying phases of the moon, strong and sharp when the moon is full. I would give raw silver weapons no special properties against creatures that can be harmed only by magic.

BRONZE: No special rules for enchanted bronze are given (which was I suppose due to a lack of time or imagination when writing the work). I would give enchanted bronze armour a reduction in weight when the wind is blowing (the streonger the wind, the lighter the armour) and enchanted bronze swords (and other slashing weapons) a bonus to damage also depending on the wind.

Elder Secrets does allude (actually it has a gloranthan alchenist saying two metals are different and the rules saying the alchemist is wrong) to an analog of Zinc, which mixed with Tin would make BRASS.
I would make enchanted Brass capable of retaining heat or to become stronger, the hotter it is.

COPPER: In early bronze age archaeology, there are bronze weapons that have been made using arsenic rather than tin. I think these exist in Glorantha and confer poison damage when enchanted.

[Belgath]

Thanks for the information and ideas. Both replies have been very helpful.

[Edan Jones]

One way to deal with brass, and how I plan on handling it IMG, is that Gloranthan Brass is actually an alloy of El-Metal and Ga-Metal, and known under different names across Glorantha such as Hu-Metal, Orichalcum, False Gold, High Bronze, and Dara Happan Bronze (After Corinthian Bronze).

Functionally identical to Bronze, it’s favoured in Dara Happa for weapons over the barbarian metal, and seen as sacred to Lodril or Turos. Elsewhere it’s more commonly used for artistic goods, due to its golden colour over the ruddy shade of bronze.

[Belgath]

Jest got my hands on a hard copy of Elder Secrets that is a cool book? But it was way costly getting it off Amazon. Other then drive-through RPG is there any other good places to get legal PDFs of a print Runquest-Glorantha books?

[Belgath]

For whatever reason it’s not let me edit my post but I meant to say.”Jest got my hands on a hard copy of Elder Secrets, that is a cool book!”

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