Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Oliolli]

First off, if this has already been brought up, just say so.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Recantly, I have been reading The Lord of the Rings, and once I got to the part where the fellowship is reaching Moria, I noticed something.

Mithril is described. It is much more valuable than gold, harder than steel, extremely light, can be worked with ease. It can only be found in Moria, deep underground. A chainmail made of it is worth more than The Shire. The dwarves dug it, too greedily, too deep. They awoke a great evil.

This instantly rang a bell.

Has adamantine been designed on the basis of mithril, or is it simply a coincidence? I want to know!

[Il Palazzo]

Don't you know already?

[tomas1297]

Don't you know already?

[Oliolli]

I must admit, I didn't know/hadn't realised it before.

[KurzedMetal]

The dwarves dug it, too greedily, too deep.

Average dwarves, i say "Good Job"
My PC's hostname is Khazad-dum

[kotekzot]

DF adamantine is a combination of the desirable qualities of regular fantasy adamantine (hard, sharp) and mithral (light).

[Fireborn]

Pretty much every mythical metal has similar properties... Or at least in the popular conscience.  Though, it is kinda odd that we don't have Mithril in DF vanilla.

Though, I prefer Orichalcon.

[BronzeElemental]

I like my unobtainium to be a gold and green kinda colour, like oxidised brass.

[Lagslayer]

LotR is the quintessential fantasy story. Everything rips it off. Also, I heard a theory that mithril was in turn based off of titanium. Seems to make sense.

[Footkerchief]

First off, if this has already been brought up, just say so.

It was in fact discussed prior to DF's first release ever:

Well, if people have preferences about what they want things to be called, I can just stick many of the common words in a file.  Human, elf, whatever.  I don't want to use the words balrog or mithril myself, although this game is certainly Tolkien inspired.

Nah, I was just working on the dook "game" at the time that we were talking about copyright infringement.  So mithril became Dookstar.  On the other hand -- Angband has mithril AND "scruffy looking hobbits", though I think they changed out the balrog.  I thought the H word was particularly bad, and I know ADOM got nailed for it.  Was that only after Thomas Biskup started selling the ADOM deluxe for actual money?

It is in the last core thing I'm going to do, the init file.  Dookstar, of course, a silly name...  but, well, if mithril isn't being enforced or is unenforceable, then I might just do it that way.  Does somebody have an email for the Tolkien estate?  I could just ask them which words they are claiming.

That said, I can change it to adamant/adamantine, which has way older roots.  For instance, "In Greek mythology, Cronus uses an adamantine sickle to castrate his father, the Titan Uranus."

[RabidAnubis]

Well, you see adamentine is the Supports to the WORLD.  It is hard by nature.  Made through forges and does not need magic to help it.

Mithril I think is more magical when it is described normally.  It takes energy to charge it. 

That is what I think the difference is.  Perhaps he should include both.

[Quarynn]

Well, you see adamentine is the Supports to the WORLD.  It is hard by nature.  Made through forges and does not need magic to help it.

Mithril I think is more magical when it is described normally.  It takes energy to charge it. 

That is what I think the difference is.  Perhaps he should include both.

As mithril is forged by magic derivatives, we may need to get Toady One to add that

[GreatWyrmGold]

Maybe mithril can be made by forging steel in a magical manner, but the reaction can only be learned via secret. If the mithril-makers are not dwarves, this will spark trade.

Awesome!

[eataTREE]

I always presumed that this game was more or less directly inspired by Moria from LoTR.

Adamantine is there to give you a reason to dig too deep and awake the slumbering evil. You can mod the raws to call it "Mithril" instead if it makes you feel better

[Jake]

There are also numerous mods that incorporate mithril as a separate metal, be it an ore or an alloy, but oddly enough I don't think anyone's done a full-on Lord Of The Rings mod.