Metal State

[Nysan]

Now that titanium has returned to the fold, which is very much appreciated, I find another topic coming up during metal based discussions.

Far as I can tell from conversations, any race can mine "a piece of mithril ore" these days, which obviously smelts into mithril. Now, this has created some confusion because some think mithril was one of the rare, restricted metals on the same lines as elven metal or adamantite.

Are some people confusing mithril's place in the FR/FK world mindset? Or is mithril supposed to be rare but was opened up for some reason? Help us settle the metal state!

[Kelemvor]

Mithril ore should be a possible ore type for dwarves and gnomes only.

I'll run this by Mask to see if we can re-visit the code we fixed.

In the meantime, I'd take it kindly if any other races who stumble upon a mithril ore vein do not make use of this temporary bug.

[Selveem]

I'd say I love you, but I'm Tempurian.

[Nysan]

Oh, so it is a bug. Good to know. I was all ready to accept mithril as a no-restriction metal like steel or platinum. Thanks for the quick response.

[Boe]

In light of a recent discussion I would like to ask three questions. One has been answered already however I would like to post it to hopefully generate conversation.

1) Mithril, can it be mined anywhere?
Now this question has been answered already for me once, and that is yes it can be.

2) Is a grandmaster is a grandmaster?
How I mean by this is, if you compare a human grandmaster and a Dwarven grandmaster are they equal in skill level?

3) Why is Mithril a race limited metal type?
I don't know, what is actually limiting humans or any race really from mining Mithril?

[Lathander]

With there being no further posts beyond Kelemvor's most recent, his statement remains the rule of the day...

In the meantime, I'd take it kindly if any other races [non-dwarf, non-gnome] who stumble upon a mithril ore vein do not make use of this temporary bug.

Please adhere to this rule. Other, larger issues are taking precedence at the moment and this one will be addressed in due course. Since not everyone is following Kelemvor's rule, we may have to address this situation sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, doing so takes time away from our other FK work and sets those projects even further back.

[Horace]

What is the official policy answer for why mithril is race limited? It's never made sense to me.

[Oghma]

Let me state first that THIS IS NOT THE OFFICIAL POLICY ANSWER this is simply a reasoning of why mithril is probably the way it is.

In all works of fiction related to Mithril it has always been limited by geography, rarity or the ability to mine it by only a select few races. I believe in FR's earliest works it was established for the most part that only dwarves could mine mithril sufficiently and therefore were the best crafters of it.

In Tolkien works, Mithril is limited by location vs availability. Most of it is mined by determined dwarves delving too deeply into the bones of the world. It vanished once the dwarves lost their mine, and the world supply of new mithril was stymied.

I would equate this to fk, that generally mithril is only mined by dwarves to maintain the rareness of the metal as well as the impression that the dwarves have the most abundant supply based on their locales.

[Horace]

Fair enough.