Witch Iron

== Witch Iron== "I found the bracelet encircling the root of an aged willow tree along the river's bank. It had clearly been there for many years, for the root had grown and bulged up around it for many hands' lengths. In chopping through the root with my axe, I accidentally struck the bangle with my axe's blade. I shouldn't have worried; it knocked a chunk out of the blade the width of my thumb! And when I finally cut the bracelet loose, I sold it for enough to buy a hundred fine axes!"

- Ismar the Daft, woodcutter, on finding a witch iron trinket

The mysterious black metal called "witch iron" by most is in fact an unknown alloy from an ancient age, and the secrets of forging it or even affecting it are long lost to all but a very few. Superficially it resembles adamantine, the glossy black alloy forged by master Dwarven and Aelfirr smiths; witch iron is a deep and impenetrable black in color, and is remarkably hard and weighty. Yet that is where the resemblance ends; where adamantine shines with a gloss that cannot be hidden, witch iron is a sooty black that swallows light, more akin to blackened steel than adamantine's burnished gleam. Further, witch iron radiates an eerie dark purple glow when touching mortal flesh - this radiance increases if the witch iron object is enchanted, with the mightiest relics bursting into heatless aubergine flame when grasped.

A second difference is, where adamantine is exceedingly hard, witch iron is seemingly indestructable - a ring of witch iron may be cast into a forge and plucked out an hour later, white-hot...yet undamaged and pristine. A blade of witch iron may be hammered for days by a score of smiths and show not a single mark. Likewise, it is incredibly dense and heavy, weighing half again as much as steel. Sages of the past theorize the metal itself is imbued with some fundamental enchantment, hence its faint glow even when seemingly untouched by magic. Some hypothesize that in its ancient crafting the molten alloy - whatever it is made of - was infused with some alchemical reagent now lost. The divinely inspired propose that the stuff is touched by one god or another, who has made its form inviolate as a sign of that deity's power. Which deity this would be is, of course, a subject of much argument, good-natured and otherwise.

As one would imagine for a material of such rarity and puissance, objects of witch iron are incredibly rare and are worth a great deal: a ring or brooch plowed up in a farmer's field can be worth more than all his land and holdings combined. There are many stories of simple folk stumbling onto a long-forgotten trinket of witch iron and becoming rich overnight, but most are apocryphal - witch iron is rare beyond rare, and is often found only in the most dire of resting places, such as ancient tombs, time-lost ruins and the deep caverns of the Aelfirr. Nevertheless, every so often, a piece is found - an ornate ewer or statuette in the shape of some fantastical beast. These sell for a princely sum to collectors and nobility, who prize witch iron as a sign of prestige.

Rarest of all are weapons and armor forged of witch iron - such pieces are always thick with decoration; dire runes, glowing sigils, engravings of unfamiliar beasts, and flaring barbs or spurs are all common. None can say what ancient race forged such tools of war, but these objects are prized above all others - an ancient witch iron sword will never dull or shatter against a foe's shield, and a coat of overlapping witch iron scales will turn aside arrow and spear as if they were hurled flowers. As one would expect, such relics are closely guarded treasures, and there are very few reputable records of such objects being sold in the open market. Perhaps the most well known is the dagger called "The Fang of Kahvozein", a curved, single-edged blade the length of a man's hand, discovered in the ruins of the city whose name it bears. It was sold to the Royal House of Ferradar by its finder in exchange for title, lands and gold sufficient to make him a lord. As an interesting note, that family, the Kholar, still display a curved dagger on their coat of arms, in honor of their founding.

Game Properties
In game, anything that can be crafted of metal can conceivably be made of witch iron. Arms and armor made of witch iron have several traits in common:

- Witch Iron is heavy; items made from witch iron weigh 1.5 times their normal listed weight. Armor made from witch iron has its armor penalty increased by -1. Light armor crafted from witch iron is treated as medium armor, and medium witch iron armor is treated as heavy. No suits of heavy armor crafted from witch iron have ever been found. Furthermore, because of its resistance to magic (see below), arcane spell failure chance for witch iron armor is increased by 10%.

- Witch iron is extremely resistant to magic. Items made from witch iron are immune to spells that would physically change their composition or shape other than Wish or Miracle. The side effect of this is that witch iron is difficult to enchant. Enchanting a witch iron item costs twice the normal amount of gold and 150% of the normal experience cost.

- Witch iron is incredibly hard - for purposes of sundering attempts, it has a hardness of 50. It is immune to rust and acid, and witch iron edged weapons never need sharpening.

- The value of individual objects made of witch iron vary wildly, based on their usefulness, but all are worth a great deal. Because of its extreme rarity, witch iron should never be included in randomly rolled treasures, but should be placed appropriately.