Quote from HeathSmith >>

there's dozens and dozens of metal ores when you look from 1e-4e...if you start counting homebrew (and I do believe orichalcum is pure homebrew for D&D), then you have several hundred ores.   Even forgetting homebrew, there is no "this > that" hierarchy.

And ">" chain isn't really what I'm looking for, just looking for game lore to enrich the metallurgic veins of my game.  How celestial and lower planar and other high magic weapons (like Githyanki swords) are forged may become a thing in my game, so I'm curious to crib and pillage the past for ideas.  I think I may pull a copy of that Volo's guide from DMs Guild.'

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

And ">" chain isn't really what I'm looking for, just looking for game lore to enrich the metallurgic veins of my game.  How celestial and lower planar and other high magic weapons (like Githyanki swords) are forged may become a thing in my game, so I'm curious to crib and pillage the past for ideas.  I think I may pull a copy of that Volo's guide from DMs Guild.'

 if you feel like coughing up $3, you could try this https://www.dmsguild.com/product/321143/Armor-and-Weapons-Foehammers-Book-of-Secrets. It doesn't have all the legacy metal ores, but does include a good chunk of them and also includes 3 methods of crafting weapons based on novels.  Dwarven legendary weapons (based off of the chapter in The Cyrstal Shard where Bruenor crafted Aegis Fang), weapons enchanted with faezress (based off of the novel Sojourn), and darkblades (based off the 4th book in the Return of the Archwizards trilogy where it described the darkblade swords being crafted).

Chapter 15 of Evermeet Island of Elves also goes into great detail on the crafting of the moonblades (not discussed in that prior linked pub though).

Ok read thru both articles. Admantine and admantite as we use them in Comics and D&D are not ancient materials but a property at best. ( keep in mind that while diamond is incredibly hard , meaning it will scratch everything else, it is also incredibly brittle and if hit with a hammer will shatter. In addition it cleaves, breakers along planes of weakness in its crystal structure, very easily ( that’s how they rough shape diamonds to get the flawed sections out). I don’t think you want your armor or sword to be that sort of adamant. Orichalcum is already a fabled but unknown metal that has the name reused to claim qualities or describe unusual ores and alloys occasionally found by the ancient Greeks. It could be almost anything. There are indeed thousands of different minerals known (over 4000 the last time I looked) and over 2 dozen metals each with different properties that could be expanded into and used or altered somewhat for use as magical materials. You are free to invent additional powers for any or all of them just as the crystal power folk have done. Some already have supposed powers that the crystal power folks have already looked up for you.

the list I gave of metals is the list in order of their discovery/development/use over the last 6000 years here on Earth. I would add Alloy steels to the end of the list but they weren’t developed until the last half of the 20th century. Tolkien is the earliest I know of anyone using Mithril in stories. You might use something like iridium for the gith swords or maybe one of the other platinoid metals.

have fun.

For the “mystical” aspects of metals and minerals I can’t help you whole lot - that’s the area of the “crystal power” folks and as a geologist it’s simply bunk. It does have some application to D&D  in situations like your describing however. I’m not interested in doing the research myself but I would enjoy hearing what you find out.

Count them as silver and or magic

I feel like that mithral items should have their own special property like a mithral sword that you might find in the forest could have magic and shoot lasers out of the sword only at full HP or a mithral glaive should be able to be half the weight and strong yet always sharp.

Quote from soul_the_ancient >>

I feel like that mithral items should have their own special property like a mithral sword that you might find in the forest could have magic and shoot lasers out of the sword only at full HP or a mithral glaive should be able to be half the weight and strong yet always sharp.

 an individually enchanted sword that happens to be made of mithral that fires a laser or something, fine.

but mithral in and itself is not magical. It simply reduces the weight of things, removing penalties. you're not going to just get a laser *just* because your sword is made of mithral... or adamantine for that matter

I generally use more exotic materials like mythril as descriptions of the generic +1 type magic items. A mythril sword gives +1 to attack because it is lighter and more maneuverable, and it gives +1 to damage because its edge is unnaturally sharp. It counts as magical because mythril itself is magical by nature in my worlds. +2 armor might be made of orichalcum or darksteel or sand magically fused into a superhard type of glass. It gives a little character to the generic items and gives you a starting point for visualization.

That works fine since wizards has never really defined what Mithril, Admantine or magic weapons/armor are made of. The OP was looking for what Mithril would do as a weapon and we were all sort of looking for real world analogs to help flesh out what it does. The problem is that it only really shows up in Tolkien where only a few blades like Sting, Gandalf’s blade and Aragorn’s reforged blade and a blade one of the other hobbits have are clearly made of it. There it does seem to bypass magical wards/armour - the hobbit’s blade slices the sinews of the lead Ringwraith when nothing else will before the lady rider of Rohan stabs it through the face with a sword possibly of Mithril as well. Aragorn’s Blade is shattered cutting the finger and ring from Sauron’s hand but it does cut through all his defenses to do so. From this I can see allowing mithril weapons to be treated as magical for what can ignore magical damage immunities/resistances. If it’s thought of as being titanium then I can see corrosion resistance (but not immunity) and heat resistance (again but not immunity). It would probably be the favored material for things like flame tongue and Dragonslayer weapons as well as most elven magical weapons.
Because the heavy property in in 5e is not about actual weight but more about torque and wield ability of a large weapon by a small character I would not have it remove that property. To give yourself some practical experience with this try going down to Lowe’s/Home Depot and then take a 10-12’ long steel rod and try moving it and carrying it, then go do the same with a similar sized piece of wooden molding. The wood is lighter but just as unwieldy, and a 10-12’ section for us (near 6’) represents the same sort of problem a 3’ tall gnome would have with a 6’ greatsword.

I allow mithral weapons with the two handed property to be used one handed and any heavy weapons are light enough to be wielded by anyone.

Quote from Semones >>

I allow mithral weapons with the two handed property to be used one handed and any heavy weapons are light enough to be wielded by anyone.

I don't think mithral weapons have done that in any edition of the game.  In 3.5 (and therefore Pathfinder 1), the weapon weighed half as much, and because only a masterwork weapon could be mithral (doing shoddier work with mithral would ruin the weapon), it intrinsically got the same masterwork bonus of +1 to hit as a masterwork steel weapon would.  I can't find concrete rules for D&D4E or PF2E on Mithral weapons.

The Heavy and Light properties are explicitly about weapon size, not weapon weight.  I think it makes little sense to manipulate them when weapon weight changes.  I think Finesse and Thrown make more sense to manipulate as a homebrew, because neither of these explicitly is about anything in particular.  You might try this on for size:

• A Mithral version of a melee weapon that hasn't got Finesse gains Finesse.
• Mithral Daggers, Darts, and Whips gain nothing beyond weight reduction.
• A Mithral Rapier gains Thrown (20/60).
• A Mithral Net is AC 20 and requires a DC 20 Strength check to burst.  It weighs as much as a normal Net.

I know this conversation went nap nap a while ago, but I had an idea I wanted to run past anyone who cared:

• Mithral Weapons count as silvered.
• Heavy weapons lose that property.
• Non heavy weapons that are not light gain the light property.
• Light weapons that are not finesse gain the finesse property.
• Weapons that are already both light and finesse only cost half as much to make mithral as t would cost to make other weapons mithral.

Thoughts?

Quote from IamSposta >>

I know this conversation went nap nap a while ago, but I had an idea I wanted to run past anyone who cared:

• Mithral Weapons count as silvered.
• Heavy weapons lose that property.
• Non heavy weapons that are not light gain the light property.
• Light weapons that are not finesse gain the finesse property.
• Weapons that are already both light and finesse only cost half as much to make mithral.

Thoughts?

 I can see a lot of merit in this set of rules, but I don't think I can go with the last one.  While it is up to everyone to decide how their group works, I look at Mithril as an exotic material that requires special training and techniques to use, like making things with titanium instead of carbon steel.  Therefore I don't see any chance the cost of things made from mithril as less expensive; both the base materials and the techniques would raise the price.

Likewise, the second to last item runs the risk of adding to the belief that Dexterity is the God Stat, because now many new weapons could gain the finesse property which grants bonuses to dexterity builds.  It may be that the list of non-finesse weapons that are already light weapons is small, but I would have a look at that.  Don't get me wrong, I play Dexterity builds all the time so having more finesse weapons would help my builds.

I would consider mithril weapons as being better quality and the base material allowing the weapon to maintain it's edge better.  Therefore, I would consider all Mithril weapons as being +1 versions of their matching steel/iron counterparts and I would price them accordingly.  Now, it would be interesting to hear what people thought about this being non-magical damage, so the creatures that have resistance/immunity to non-magical damage would still have resistance to these unenchanted/mundane mithril weapons.

Interesting discussion.

I meant less expensive compared to other mithral weapons, like a dagger or a Shortsword would cost less to make of mithril alloy than a longsword, rapier, or Greatsword would.

OK.  That's not what I was thinking.

Most of the mods could be done by manipulating the  weapons directly on the character sheet. That is convenient, as creating each weapon would be a pain in the arse.

Didn't they do that for Silver and Adamantium?

Quote from Wysperra >>

 

Mithral Armor has special properties, but Mithral Weapons do not.

 

 Aside from being a "strong as steel but lighter" material, Mithril has also functioned as silvered does in 2nr and 3rd If I remember correctly. So a mithril longsword could be given light and finesse if the DM chose, and work on silver vulnerable lycanthropes and such creatures. I believe its always been seen as "magical silver" essentially.

Quote from Wyrmwrath >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

 

Mithral Armor has special properties, but Mithral Weapons do not.

 

 Aside from being a "strong as steel but lighter" material, Mithril has also functioned as silvered does in 2nr and 3rd If I remember correctly. So a mithril longsword could be given light and finesse if the DM chose, and work on silver vulnerable lycanthropes and such creatures. I believe its always been seen as "magical silver" essentially.

 In my homebrew I always have the item go down a weight class (normal becomes light, and heavy becomes normal, so a halfling has no issie with a Mythril Maul). Then the Versatile items gain finesse, and the thrown items gain 30ft to each distance.