The Resurgence of History - part 1 by Blacksmith Bartholemue Garwinter
I believe that such things are cyclical, that our history becomes important to us only after we have ignored it for long enough. Sometimes that history is revived in architecture.
| It starts with someone in Freeport rebuilding his home to look like something he saw in a book about his ancestors and it ends with King Thex in Neriak rebuilding his palace to remind him of his boyhood (ok, bad example there, but you get the idea).
This time it seems to be
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armor that is bringing our past back to life. I've seen copies of several texts, written in a variety of languages that artfully remind people that their culture is important to them.
Me, I'm just a blacksmith. I don't know that much about history, for me it's
| a hobby. I know people that are actually historians and I hear what they have to say about it, then I form my own ideas. My wife says that I'm special, a blacksmith that can write and think. I suppose I can do both of those things, but that doesn't make me special. The armor that comes from
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my shop makes me special.
Anyway, I wanted to write about the new armor I've seen around, most of it built around old ideas but improved with modern techniques. It's very impressive. I'm still learning the process, but I plan to put it to use full time in my shop. Let me
| outline the basics for you, then you can work that into your own ideas about your own culture (since not all of you reading this will be Human, like me).
I guess the first thing you'll need are some materials to work with. A small brick of high quality ore and, of course, your
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Antonican Smithy Hammer (though I suppose others have their own hammers). The trick here is to add a bit of mammoth tusk (use the small ones, the larger, older ones don't grind down properly) into the metal as you work it in the forge. If you want to work with larger volumes of ore, just add a larger volume of tusk
| (again, stick with the smaller tusks). Of course this won't work in any ordinary forge, you'll need to work in the special forges in Freeport of Qeynos. With some practice you'll be able to meld the tusk powder into the metal to give it a unique white coloration. The color isn't what we're after,
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though, it also allows the product to harden a little stronger. I suppose I should list the blend material that I've heard others use, though I can't figure out why anyone would use some of this stuff.
Barbarians and Half Elves use permafrost crystals. The Elves like to blend in
| mistletoe powder, while the Dwarves and Gnomes use chips of bone from Warbone skeletons. Trolls, Ogres and Frogloks also use bone chips, but from Barbed skeletons. The Dark Elves use russet oxide, lends the metal a sinister look I must admit. Halflings grind ivory into their metal. I still believe bones will
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work the best. Erudites use shark bones, but the Vah Shir use some sort of porous mineral block. The Iksar have found that loose scales they find hunting work for their blending.
I suspect that as we work on this process we will discover materials that make better blends. For
| now let's call this our journeyman's blend.
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