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[Harry Baldman]

Give them a culture, make the players feel a sense of loss that the Lizardfolk and kobolds lost something.

An inscribed stele that lizardfolk used to gather around, listening to it recount a thousand and one ancient stories of their people in a time before time? The drum of the lizardfolk shaman, still in perfect shape, audible for dozens of miles around as it sends immediately comprehensible messages to those attuned in understanding them? The sword of an ancient human explorer, unenchanted and unadorned, but sung into legend by the beliefs and hopes of the lizardfolk believing in its mystical properties? An ornate, but amazingly light boat of gold fashioned for the chief to undertake his final journey in when he grows old and weary of ruling? If they figure it out, you might even have the chief thank them all ghost-like and relate to them the secrets of the necropolis (as told to him by his father, and to him by his father, and to his father, and [27 more iterations ensue]) if they do actually manage to lay him to rest in it all ghost-like.

[SOLDIER First]

Lizardfolk hunted and ate kobolds to extinction?

[scriver]

An intricate, golden egg, detailing the creation of the world or the rise of hero-king.

A beautiful, silvern egg, lying in the centre of a king-sized tomb, which opens up to reveal the undead skeleton of an infant lizardman, still dressed in princely regalia and jewelry.

An unhatched, petrified dragon egg on the altar of a great temple room.

A armour made out of lizardman scales, as strong and protective as metal.

A ceremonial plate/bowl that when eating you enemies' heart from it you gain some of their power.

[NullForceOmega]

Yeah Japan both had very little iron... and the iron they had was typically of low quality.

The folding technique was absolutely necessary to turn that low quality iron and turn it into high quality steel.

Later on the Europeans would invent a way that would completely outdate any need to use the folding technique and create high-grade steel at a uniform level at higher grades then even the folding technique... Yet this process would come at the very end of the medieval period.

---

Honestly the more interesting part about Japan and its lack of metal isn't really the Folding technique or Katanas... but rather how armor evolved.

For example they would sometimes forgo shields and instead use smaller weapons for deflection (Something that goes FREEKISHLY unheard of in fiction).

Helmets often had metal bits instead of being completely armored.

And their armor was often thick layers of cloth.

From Shub-Nullgurath:  This really is historical revisionism. Japanese used ironsand to make their steel and that has a huge amount of impurities because it's sand.

Your knowledge of metal deposits must not be very complete, the iron sands have exceptionally high purity.

1 ) I told people to get this steel discussion out of my thread, then you immediately post something flatly fallacious and that displays no actual knowledge of Japanese historical smithing.

2 ) That statement is flatly fallacious and shows no actual knowledge of Japanese historical smithing, a subject that I actually do know more than a little about as I have and do study the subject.  Also, you'll forgive me if I take the word of my wife, who is a geologist, chemist, geochemist, and is currently earning a PhD in soil science over internet noise based on false data.  The iron sands of Japan are one of the best deposits of iron on the entire planet.  End of line.

Now get this uninformed discussion out of my thread.  LAST WARNING.

[Neonivek]

One thing I don't quite like about Oriental Adventures in Japan as for as dungeons and dragons is concerned is they super DUPER inflate the price of metal, and often horses, to ridiculous degrees.

To the point where you can have a chest filled with gold and still not be able to afford a Katana and a horse.

By the by in Dungeons and dragons terms if you fill an entire chest with gold coins... Typically you would put about 8000 coins inside.

Now I know gold is worth FAR less money in dungeons and dragons then it does in real life (Then again dungeons and dragons is FAR more gold rich then our world is)... But goodness...

And don't get me wrong horses are expensive... But goodness... I shouldn't think it is cheaper to just boat to fantasy China to get some horses.

Which come to think of it... Quite a few Fantasy Japan settings don't have a China... Which is a lot like having a Fantasy Texas without the USA. Then the ones that do, often don't include how much of a monolithic presence China was for basically all of Asia... That peace was only maintained because China just didn't FEEL like conquering you that day (and peace was VERY Tenuous... China didn't really want to go to war, but it could be very easy to attract their ire)

[NullForceOmega]

I have updated the first post with a new addendum, please respect it and the other rules when posting, on my part I will try to invoke this newest rule only when it appears that an argument is brewing.

If you feel that I am abusing any of the rules, tell me immediately so that I can avoid turning into a tyrannical douche.

[SOLDIER First]

found the chinaman

[My Name is Immaterial]

Can we please just drop it? Take it to PMs.

[kilakan]

Trouble is, I've already set up a bunch of undead kobolds and lizardfolk guarding the necropolis. Story so far is that lizardfolk kept the kobolds as slaves. Mainly went with this since we have a gnome in the group, and that means he gets to add his racial bonus against reptilian subtype creatures.

One thing you could do, is have some of the regular corpses enchanted with a permanent speak with dead spell.  Turn the entire necropolis into an unliving repository of ancient knowledge, spoken purely in lizardspeak/draconic so the chances of the party getting any more than 'hissssss HIIIIISSSS' out of any questions they ask is minimal!  Heck, make hissing sounds anytime any of the party askes a question at all, whether they want it or not heheh.

[Shub-Nullgurath]

Your knowledge of metal deposits must not be very complete, the iron sands have exceptionally high purity.

1 ) I told people to get this steel discussion out of my thread, then you immediately post something flatly fallacious and that displays no actual knowledge of Japanese historical smithing.

2 ) That statement is flatly fallacious and shows no actual knowledge of Japanese historical smithing, a subject that I actually do know more than a little about as I have and do study the subject.  Also, you'll forgive me if I take the word of my wife, who is a geologist, chemist, geochemist, and is currently earning a PhD in soil science over internet noise based on false data.  The iron sands of Japan are one of the best deposits of iron on the entire planet.  End of line.

Now get this uninformed discussion out of my thread.  LAST WARNING.

From Wikipedia (you can check the sources over there):

Tamahagane, as a raw material, is a highly impure metal. Formed in a bloomery process, the kera of sponge iron begins as an inhomogeneous mixture of wrought iron, steels, and pig iron. The pig iron contains more than 2% carbon. The tamahagane has about 1 to 1.5% carbon while the hocho iron contains about 0.2%. Steel that has a carbon content between tamahagane and hocho iron is called bu-kera, which is often resmelted with the pig iron to make saga-hagane, containing roughly 0.7% carbon. Most of the bu-kera, hocho iron and saga-hagane will be sold for making other items, like tools and knives, and only the best pieces of tamahagane, hocho iron, and pig iron are used for swordsmithing.

The various metals are also filled with slag, phosphorus and other impurities. Separation of the various metals from the kera was traditionally performed by breaking it apart with small hammers dropped from a certain height, and then examining the fractures, in a process similar to the modern Charpy impact test. The nature of the fractures are different for different types of steel. The tamahagane, in particular, contains pearlite, which produces a characteristic pearlescent-sheen on the crystals.[22]

During the folding process, most of the impurities are removed from the steel, continuously refining the steel while forging. By the end of forging, the steel produced was among the purest steel-alloys of the ancient world. Due to the continuous heating the steel tends to decarburize, so a good quantity of carbon is either extracted from the steel as carbon dioxide or redistributed more evenly through diffusion, leaving a nearly eutectoid composition (containing 0.77 to 0.8% carbon).[23][24] The edge-steel itself will generally end up with a composition that ranges from eutectoid to slightly hypoeutectoid (containing a carbon content under the eutectoid composition), giving enough hardenability without sacrificing ductility[25] The skin-steel generally has slightly less carbon, often in the range of 0.5%. The core-steel, however, remains nearly pure iron, responding very little to heat treatment.[25] Cyril Stanley Smith, a professor of metallurgical history from MIT, performed an analysis of four different swords, each from a different century, determining the composition of the surface of the blades:[26]

( Emphasis Mine )

You can't post something wrong and then make up rules to justify ending the conversation. That's not how forums work.

I don't care what you or your wife are or are not, you're horribly misinformed and posting revisionist history.

[scriver]

"Stay on topic" is not a new rule. You have been asked repeatedly and by several people not to continue this line of discussion. This thread is not the place for it.

[Shub-Nullgurath]

"Stay on topic" is not a new rule. You have been asked repeatedly and by several people not to continue this line of discussion. This thread is not the place for it.

He could've chosen to drop it after someone else posted something "ignorant" but he didn't.

If I'm guilty of it, then so is he.

[Jimmy]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just because someone's wrong, doesn't mean you gotta make a big deal over it.

Speaking of samurai, our group's samurai sword saint is seriously wiping the floor with anything I throw at him. Gonna have to figure out a way to keep it challenging without risking wiping out the rest of the party. He made mincemeat out of my skeletal champion gallowdead last night, though technically skeletons don't have any meat so I suppose the simile doesn't really make a huge amount of sense. Then again, neither does walking skeletons wielding spiked chains like they're helicopter blades.

[Shub-Nullgurath]

Speaking of samurai, our group's samurai sword saint is seriously wiping the floor with anything I throw at him. Gonna have to figure out a way to keep it challenging without risking wiping out the rest of the party. He made mincemeat out of my skeletal champion gallowdead last night, though technically skeletons don't have any meat so I suppose the simile doesn't really make a huge amount of sense. Then again, neither does walking skeletons wielding spiked chains like they're helicopter blades.

Reflex or Will saves. Have a caster use a dominate spell of some sort on him.

[NJW2000]

If it's that important, start a new thread over it.