ex: Blacksmiths only work with iron and steel, Tinsmiths only work with tin, Brightsmiths (which is the most fantasy name ever) only work with silver, etc.
so what would you call a smith that only works with adamantine, mithral, and other similar metals?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
Mithral is often called "True Silver", so that could fall underneath Brightsmiths. Adamantine could fall under Blacksmiths, or could be its own thing ("Rendsmiths" or something like that)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
IRL, Blacksmiths work with any ferrous metals, and sometimes other metals like bronze.^1 Many other smiths (tinsmiths, silversmiths, goldsmiths, etc.) fall under the umbrella category of “Whitesmiths.^2” The term “blacksmith” stems from their work with “black iron.” The term “whitesmith” was originally applied to blacksmiths who worked with so called “white iron,” aka tin, but also often pewter as well. Since then, tinsmith & pewtersmith became more specified and the term “whitesmith” is used to describe any smith who works with “white” (light-colored) metals depending on geography.
They all fall under the parent category of “metalsmiths,” or simply “smiths.”
PS- A “brightsmith” is not actually a silversmith. A brightsmith was a blacksmith/whitesmith who worked with iron, steel, and tin but produced items with a highly polished finish.^3 The term is now no longer used much however.
Edit: You might also wanna read those articles again, because half of your statement was incorrect. Did you only read the top of the page or something?
Considering that adamantine and mithral are fantasy metals you should just make up a fantasy name for them. Another option would be a rank or title as a type of smith. As in only Grand Master Smiths know how to work with such metals.
Edit: You might also wanna read those articles again, because half of your statement was incorrect. Did you only read the top of the page or something?
No, I asked an actual blacksmith.
Him: “A blacksmith works with black metal, a whitesmith works with white metals.”
Me: “Aside from the obvious, what’s the difference?”
Him: “Mostly the temperatures and the tools.”
Me: “What about precious metals?”
Him: “Those are all white metals, you just need separate crucibles to keep everything clean, most of the rest of it is the same. Soldering silver or soldering tin is all still soldering, stuff like that.”
Me: “So in D&D terms…?”
Him: “There would inevitably be overlap, but Smith’s Tools would be mainly blacksmithing, iron/steel, bronze, etc., Tinker’s for whitesmithing. ‘Whitesmith’ and ‘tinsmith’ used to actually be the same thing just like ‘tinsmithing’ and ‘tinkering.’ Tin was called ‘white iron’ back in the day. Jewler’s would also be some whitesmithing for the gold/silver, but also cover gem cutting.”
Me: “Hunh, ‘white iron,’ never new. And ‘brightsmithing’…?”
Him: “They do finishing work, polishing and such to ‘brighten’ the metal. I do my own brightening.”
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Sposta: I'm a smith, and I've never heard about that. It's pretty cool, and I'll look into it more. <3
I've always heard that Blacksmiths were black smiths because they got covered in coal dust which would turn them black. Meanwhile, jewelery makers (goldsmiths, silversmiths and the sort) need to reduce contamination and wouldn't have so much debris floating around.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Adamantium is remarkably similar in strength and weight to Tungsten, while Mythril is fairly similar in weight and strength to Titanium... so Titansmith and Tungstensmkth would work... but Starsmith sounds better and is where Tungsten comes from.
It wasn’t helpful though. You never actually answered my question, you just corrected me. Also, if you asked an actual Blacksmith, than what was the point of posting the links? Something isn’t adding up here.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
He may have asked the smith after posting his initial response and before later ones. No let’s take another look at this - what are Admantine and Mithril normally used for? Armor and weapons ( at least as far as we are normally concerned) that means they would typically be trained as blacksmiths not white smiths. Further, to work both you have to have furnaces/forges capable of really extreme temperatures.the problem with a name like king smith or royal smith for a smith that works with ease “royal” metals is that its easy to think they work for the kings or royals. I can see them being called star smiths for the heat of the stars (keep in mind the fact that ALL metals come from stars). Good steel is pretty white in color as well don’t forget so blacksmith is something of a misnomer for weapon smiths and armorers. You might simply want to call them grandmaster smiths drawing from the old apprentice- journeyman-master tradition as you would have to already be a master to get trained in forging them. That might even cross over to white smiths where I can see master gold and silver smiths and jewelers also getting trained in handling Mithril especially but both for making jewelry out of.
Edit: You might also wanna read those articles again, because half of your statement was incorrect. Did you only read the top of the page or something?
No, I asked an actual blacksmith.
Him: “A blacksmith works with black metal, a whitesmith works with white metals.”
Me: “Aside from the obvious, what’s the difference?”
Him: “Mostly the temperatures and the tools.”
Me: “What about precious metals?”
Him: “Those are all white metals, you just need separate crucibles to keep everything clean, most of the rest of it is the same. Soldering silver or soldering tin is all still soldering, stuff like that.”
Me: “So in D&D terms…?”
Him: “There would inevitably be overlap, but Smith’s Tools would be mainly blacksmithing, iron/steel, bronze, etc., Tinker’s for whitesmithing. ‘Whitesmith’ and ‘tinsmith’ used to actually be the same thing just like ‘tinsmithing’ and ‘tinkering.’ Tin was called ‘white iron’ back in the day. Jewler’s would also be some whitesmithing for the gold/silver, but also cover gem cutting.”
Me: “Hunh, ‘white iron,’ never new. And ‘brightsmithing’…?”
Him: “They do finishing work, polishing and such to ‘brighten’ the metal. I do my own brightening.”
No. I typed “all of that” (🙄) to try to be helpful. But don’t worry, my right hand to God ✋, you have my word it will never happen again.
A wee bit of research later and I'm not confidant in my findings, but it seems to back up your research. The earliest written instance of Tinsmith appears to be during the Age of Exploration... and while it had to do with iron, it seems to have evolved into tin work... similar to how goldsmiths made jewelery, but by 1700 generally meant "banker".
I still stand by Star Smith for Adamantium, and Titan Smith for Mythril.
If you read some of the old Adamantium lore, it's specifically from meteors (as in the Dwarves don't just find it in the ground). That's why I say Star Smith.
According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, "Mithral, also spelled mithril and known as truemetal among the dwarves," so I think that could lead to a truesmith;
Also, "Adamantine was a jet-black alloy of adamant and other metals. Usually black in color, adamantine had a green sheen when viewed by candlelight or a purple-white sheen when viewed by magical light.
It was found only in veins of ore near earth nodes and areas of faerzress in the Underdark. Occasionally, small meteorites consisting of some adamantine would fall to Abeir-Toril as well," so I think starsmith or faerzessmith.
tl:dr truesmith = mithral; starsmith or faerzessmith = adamantine
Edit: You might also wanna read those articles again, because half of your statement was incorrect. Did you only read the top of the page or something?
Wow. You're rude.
Sposta wrote only 136 words. Not a third of page of text by any reckoning, so I despair if our civilisation has reached a such a state where a few sentences tied together is seen as a large amount of text. And you decided to react like this because he was contributing to the conversation.
That sure makes me want to help you solve your non-problem. Treat people better.
The problem with naming the type of smith after the metal for Admantine and Mithril is that more than one broad group of smiths would probably have worked with them. Smiths were typed not only by the type of metal they worked in (tin smiths, silversmiths, goldsmiths) but also by the types of products they produced (armorer, blade smith, weaponer, blacksmith). All were part of a craft tradition we have almost lost seeing it today only in some of the trades (plumbers, electricians, etc). In all of these you started at the bottom as a beginning apprentice learning the basic skills, later advanced apprentices who might have their products/work approved by a master or journeyman and could be sold as acceptable materials. Once you had learned all the basic/essential skills and consistently turned out an acceptable to quality product you progressed to journeyman and could leave and work on your own building your skills. To me come a “master” you had to produce a product of exceptional quality (your “masterwork”) to prove your skill. This generally had to be approved by the masters of the guild to gain their recognition and acceptance. This is where the idea of the grandmaster comes in - someone so skilled and knowledgeable that they are allowed to work with these metals of exceptional value and rarity. Because of their value the people that work on them must be of such skill that they can be pretty well guaranteed to at worst not destroy the valuable materials and at best create masterwork products from them. Something we have lost is the recognition that blacksmiths don’t normally work in steel - they worked with wrought iron primarily - horse shoes, door latches, nails, hinges, pots, pans, etc. could they work in steel? Of course, but it wasn’t their primary metal. Weaponers, blade smiths, armorers did work consistently in steels. Similarly jewelers might know some silver/gold smithing but their primary focus was in cutting and crafting the gemstones to be added. For this there are 3 broad types of stones and techniques: decorative stones, semi-precious stones and precious stones; carving/sculpting, cabachoning and faceting and while some jewelers also learned smithing techniques it was normally an adjunct to their stonework to help them set the stones. Back 40-50 years ago I was initially trained as a cabachon jeweler. Only slightly later did I take lessons in silversmithing. Was I any good? Probably no better than advanced apprentice.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Most smiths have names for what they do.
ex: Blacksmiths only work with iron and steel, Tinsmiths only work with tin, Brightsmiths (which is the most fantasy name ever) only work with silver, etc.
so what would you call a smith that only works with adamantine, mithral, and other similar metals?
“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
Mithral is often called "True Silver", so that could fall underneath Brightsmiths. Adamantine could fall under Blacksmiths, or could be its own thing ("Rendsmiths" or something like that)
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
IRL, Blacksmiths work with any ferrous metals, and sometimes other metals like bronze.^1 Many other smiths (tinsmiths, silversmiths, goldsmiths, etc.) fall under the umbrella category of “Whitesmiths.^2” The term “blacksmith” stems from their work with “black iron.” The term “whitesmith” was originally applied to blacksmiths who worked with so called “white iron,” aka tin, but also often pewter as well. Since then, tinsmith & pewtersmith became more specified and the term “whitesmith” is used to describe any smith who works with “white” (light-colored) metals depending on geography.
They all fall under the parent category of “metalsmiths,” or simply “smiths.”
PS- A “brightsmith” is not actually a silversmith. A brightsmith was a blacksmith/whitesmith who worked with iron, steel, and tin but produced items with a highly polished finish.^3 The term is now no longer used much however.
^1(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacksmith)
^2(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitesmith)
^3(https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/brightsmith)
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
You typed all of that just to correct me?
Edit: You might also wanna read those articles again, because half of your statement was incorrect. Did you only read the top of the page or something?
“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
Considering that adamantine and mithral are fantasy metals you should just make up a fantasy name for them. Another option would be a rank or title as a type of smith. As in only Grand Master Smiths know how to work with such metals.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I actually had an idea for that. What do you think of “Legendsmith”?
“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
Also, go to the metal smith Wikipedia entry and go to silversmith on that page. What does it say right next to it?
^(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalsmith#Types_of_smiths)
“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
I would dub them a Finesmith.
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXVIII?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature
Okay, you got Wikipedia as a source reference, I got the Oxford English Dictionary as mine.
^(https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/brightsmith)
I dunno ‘bout you, but I know which one I usually go to for the official definition of a word. 🤨
No, I asked an actual blacksmith.
Him: “A blacksmith works with black metal, a whitesmith works with white metals.”
Me: “Aside from the obvious, what’s the difference?”
Him: “Mostly the temperatures and the tools.”
Me: “What about precious metals?”
Him: “Those are all white metals, you just need separate crucibles to keep everything clean, most of the rest of it is the same. Soldering silver or soldering tin is all still soldering, stuff like that.”
Me: “So in D&D terms…?”
Him: “There would inevitably be overlap, but Smith’s Tools would be mainly blacksmithing, iron/steel, bronze, etc., Tinker’s for whitesmithing. ‘Whitesmith’ and ‘tinsmith’ used to actually be the same thing just like ‘tinsmithing’ and ‘tinkering.’ Tin was called ‘white iron’ back in the day. Jewler’s would also be some whitesmithing for the gold/silver, but also cover gem cutting.”
Me: “Hunh, ‘white iron,’ never new. And ‘brightsmithing’…?”
Him: “They do finishing work, polishing and such to ‘brighten’ the metal. I do my own brightening.”
Me: “Cool, thanks.”
No. I typed “all of that” (🙄) to try to be helpful. But don’t worry, my right hand to God ✋, you have my word it will never happen again.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Bruenor Battlehammer
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
"Talented". 🙃
(I couldn't help it.)
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Dwarvish
Sposta: I'm a smith, and I've never heard about that. It's pretty cool, and I'll look into it more. <3
I've always heard that Blacksmiths were black smiths because they got covered in coal dust which would turn them black. Meanwhile, jewelery makers (goldsmiths, silversmiths and the sort) need to reduce contamination and wouldn't have so much debris floating around.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: Adamantium is remarkably similar in strength and weight to Tungsten, while Mythril is fairly similar in weight and strength to Titanium... so Titansmith and Tungstensmkth would work... but Starsmith sounds better and is where Tungsten comes from.
kingsmith - only the smith of king would be in a position to not have to work with common metals. (imo)
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
It wasn’t helpful though. You never actually answered my question, you just corrected me. Also, if you asked an actual Blacksmith, than what was the point of posting the links? Something isn’t adding up here.
“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”
He may have asked the smith after posting his initial response and before later ones. No let’s take another look at this - what are Admantine and Mithril normally used for? Armor and weapons ( at least as far as we are normally concerned) that means they would typically be trained as blacksmiths not white smiths. Further, to work both you have to have furnaces/forges capable of really extreme temperatures.the problem with a name like king smith or royal smith for a smith that works with ease “royal” metals is that its easy to think they work for the kings or royals. I can see them being called star smiths for the heat of the stars (keep in mind the fact that ALL metals come from stars). Good steel is pretty white in color as well don’t forget so blacksmith is something of a misnomer for weapon smiths and armorers. You might simply want to call them grandmaster smiths drawing from the old apprentice- journeyman-master tradition as you would have to already be a master to get trained in forging them. That might even cross over to white smiths where I can see master gold and silver smiths and jewelers also getting trained in handling Mithril especially but both for making jewelry out of.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
A wee bit of research later and I'm not confidant in my findings, but it seems to back up your research. The earliest written instance of Tinsmith appears to be during the Age of Exploration... and while it had to do with iron, it seems to have evolved into tin work... similar to how goldsmiths made jewelery, but by 1700 generally meant "banker".
I still stand by Star Smith for Adamantium, and Titan Smith for Mythril.
If you read some of the old Adamantium lore, it's specifically from meteors (as in the Dwarves don't just find it in the ground). That's why I say Star Smith.
According to the Forgotten Realms wiki, "Mithral, also spelled mithril and known as truemetal among the dwarves," so I think that could lead to a truesmith;
Also, "Adamantine was a jet-black alloy of adamant and other metals. Usually black in color, adamantine had a green sheen when viewed by candlelight or a purple-white sheen when viewed by magical light.
It was found only in veins of ore near earth nodes and areas of faerzress in the Underdark. Occasionally, small meteorites consisting of some adamantine would fall to Abeir-Toril as well," so I think starsmith or faerzessmith.
tl:dr truesmith = mithral; starsmith or faerzessmith = adamantine
Wow. You're rude.
Sposta wrote only 136 words. Not a third of page of text by any reckoning, so I despair if our civilisation has reached a such a state where a few sentences tied together is seen as a large amount of text. And you decided to react like this because he was contributing to the conversation.
That sure makes me want to help you solve your non-problem. Treat people better.
The problem with naming the type of smith after the metal for Admantine and Mithril is that more than one broad group of smiths would probably have worked with them. Smiths were typed not only by the type of metal they worked in (tin smiths, silversmiths, goldsmiths) but also by the types of products they produced (armorer, blade smith, weaponer, blacksmith). All were part of a craft tradition we have almost lost seeing it today only in some of the trades (plumbers, electricians, etc). In all of these you started at the bottom as a beginning apprentice learning the basic skills, later advanced apprentices who might have their products/work approved by a master or journeyman and could be sold as acceptable materials. Once you had learned all the basic/essential skills and consistently turned out an acceptable to quality product you progressed to journeyman and could leave and work on your own building your skills. To me come a “master” you had to produce a product of exceptional quality (your “masterwork”) to prove your skill. This generally had to be approved by the masters of the guild to gain their recognition and acceptance. This is where the idea of the grandmaster comes in - someone so skilled and knowledgeable that they are allowed to work with these metals of exceptional value and rarity. Because of their value the people that work on them must be of such skill that they can be pretty well guaranteed to at worst not destroy the valuable materials and at best create masterwork products from them. Something we have lost is the recognition that blacksmiths don’t normally work in steel - they worked with wrought iron primarily - horse shoes, door latches, nails, hinges, pots, pans, etc. could they work in steel? Of course, but it wasn’t their primary metal. Weaponers, blade smiths, armorers did work consistently in steels. Similarly jewelers might know some silver/gold smithing but their primary focus was in cutting and crafting the gemstones to be added. For this there are 3 broad types of stones and techniques: decorative stones, semi-precious stones and precious stones; carving/sculpting, cabachoning and faceting and while some jewelers also learned smithing techniques it was normally an adjunct to their stonework to help them set the stones. Back 40-50 years ago I was initially trained as a cabachon jeweler. Only slightly later did I take lessons in silversmithing. Was I any good? Probably no better than advanced apprentice.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.