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Hey don't leave im gonna rant to you about Iron
6 months ago
Its good for you, eat your veggies, get your iron.
But I wanna ramble about it in the DragonScape as, while the lore is generally settled. I tend to fistfight myself in the shower about the topic every now and again and those fistfights get pretty bloody... well not really but regardless!
For at least since the canon shifted sometime around chapter 2 of The Long Hike, when the setting shifted to more of a Chalcolithic state with regards to the material culture of the dragons, moving away from the scraps of the canon that started The Long Hike. There have been folks who fairly argued with me on the question of "Why drekir don't smelt iron"
And the answer is mostly that, while iron is logistically easy, especially considering all the rusted, powdered steel around American ruins, its a pain in the ass to smelt. It requires a lot of technical knowhow to make the furnaces, bellows, etc. to get the temperatures to smelt iron. It requires carbon for the process of separating oxygen from iron. Though granted, charcoal is an easy solution to that.
So my argument is that coldworking copper just comes more naturally, needs less work overall and melted chunks of copper in the Americas during the Awakening are abundant, something that can be found slightly buried under the surface near any ruined pile of concrete at least in some amount. The wider transition to bronze of course stems from the development of metal casting in order to better preserve decreasing amounts of copper scrap, and due to its metaphysically accepting qualities.
But over time, what about iron?
Basic, wrought iron is not really that much better than bronze. Its the reason why the transition through to the Iron Age of Europe and North Africa, and the Levant was filled with a mix of bronze, iron and even limited lithic tool assemblages that are found a lot in similar contexts. To make iron great, you need to add carbon and make it something more in the vein of steel, which is an alloy of iron and carbon. Low carbon irons like wrought iron, which is likely what dragons would make, is a pretty soft metal overall
But.
It is very logistically sound.
Bronze is logistically very complicated, Copper isn't too hard to find, though isn't as abundant as iron. But alloy metals like tin are very difficult to find in abundance and so to support it, complex trade routes are almost necessary unless a community happens to live on or near a great supply of such metals. There are logistically easier bronzes one can make like Arsenical bronze, but regardless it is a logistically painful metal.
Bronze can also be made with copper and a mana based metal, stãl. Something I've written about a fair bit on the lore site. Which does ease a lot of the logistical strain of bronze. Though Mana comes and goes, you can likely always find it within 50 miles of where you are at any given time. but its specific location will come and go as mana pools phase in and out of reality chaotically.
So even though the competition is fiercer, one could argue that Iron is still logistically easier. There is certainly an at least decent source of iron somewhere in a broader region. From ores to iron eating bacteria. It is a very easy metal to find and, if you know how to smelt it and work it, provided the time and manpower and effort you could form it... Again provided you know how to do so.
So is there an argument for Iron?
...Yeah! There is an appeal towards iron. While drekir and ormer do establish complex trade ties, they are still loose, not entirely solid and not entirely reliable. They are far flung but are dependent on dozens if not hundreds of small independent communities passing forward trade. So being able to source a metal entirely locally has great benefits for communities that want a metal, but don't want to rely on traders from regions that have copper or alloy metals who may or may not show up every few months.
Likewise, once iron is smelted, much like coldhammering copper, not a whole lot of tools are needed to work it. Stone anvils have long been popular for working small iron work pieces amongst nomadic people and people with low infrastructure. Smithing forges in many videos I've seen are little more than pits of burning charcoal with rudimentary bellows. Likewise as seen in West Africa and South Africa, Iron smelting relies almost entirely on temporary structures, built on site and destroyed once the iron smelting is done. So it is something perfectly viable to make for communities with little infrastructure...
Again, if they know how, its difficult but very doable.
There are also writing reasons
As the lore I write reflects writing reasons! And frankly, We do iron, its not like iron is some alien thing, it dominates every aspect of our life and has for almost 3000 years. Bit it an iron farming hoe in Yayoi Japan or a steel beam for a skyscraper in New York. Frankly I think we've seen about as much as we reasonably can from a technologically extended timeline of Iron.
So I think pushing bronze and copper is a bit more interesting, at least personally.
But the lore for now isn't changing
Copper is still gonna reign over Iron at least currently, I just wanted to ramble about a thing i argue with myself a lot, be well
But I wanna ramble about it in the DragonScape as, while the lore is generally settled. I tend to fistfight myself in the shower about the topic every now and again and those fistfights get pretty bloody... well not really but regardless!
For at least since the canon shifted sometime around chapter 2 of The Long Hike, when the setting shifted to more of a Chalcolithic state with regards to the material culture of the dragons, moving away from the scraps of the canon that started The Long Hike. There have been folks who fairly argued with me on the question of "Why drekir don't smelt iron"
And the answer is mostly that, while iron is logistically easy, especially considering all the rusted, powdered steel around American ruins, its a pain in the ass to smelt. It requires a lot of technical knowhow to make the furnaces, bellows, etc. to get the temperatures to smelt iron. It requires carbon for the process of separating oxygen from iron. Though granted, charcoal is an easy solution to that.
So my argument is that coldworking copper just comes more naturally, needs less work overall and melted chunks of copper in the Americas during the Awakening are abundant, something that can be found slightly buried under the surface near any ruined pile of concrete at least in some amount. The wider transition to bronze of course stems from the development of metal casting in order to better preserve decreasing amounts of copper scrap, and due to its metaphysically accepting qualities.
But over time, what about iron?
Basic, wrought iron is not really that much better than bronze. Its the reason why the transition through to the Iron Age of Europe and North Africa, and the Levant was filled with a mix of bronze, iron and even limited lithic tool assemblages that are found a lot in similar contexts. To make iron great, you need to add carbon and make it something more in the vein of steel, which is an alloy of iron and carbon. Low carbon irons like wrought iron, which is likely what dragons would make, is a pretty soft metal overall
But.
It is very logistically sound.
Bronze is logistically very complicated, Copper isn't too hard to find, though isn't as abundant as iron. But alloy metals like tin are very difficult to find in abundance and so to support it, complex trade routes are almost necessary unless a community happens to live on or near a great supply of such metals. There are logistically easier bronzes one can make like Arsenical bronze, but regardless it is a logistically painful metal.
Bronze can also be made with copper and a mana based metal, stãl. Something I've written about a fair bit on the lore site. Which does ease a lot of the logistical strain of bronze. Though Mana comes and goes, you can likely always find it within 50 miles of where you are at any given time. but its specific location will come and go as mana pools phase in and out of reality chaotically.
So even though the competition is fiercer, one could argue that Iron is still logistically easier. There is certainly an at least decent source of iron somewhere in a broader region. From ores to iron eating bacteria. It is a very easy metal to find and, if you know how to smelt it and work it, provided the time and manpower and effort you could form it... Again provided you know how to do so.
So is there an argument for Iron?
...Yeah! There is an appeal towards iron. While drekir and ormer do establish complex trade ties, they are still loose, not entirely solid and not entirely reliable. They are far flung but are dependent on dozens if not hundreds of small independent communities passing forward trade. So being able to source a metal entirely locally has great benefits for communities that want a metal, but don't want to rely on traders from regions that have copper or alloy metals who may or may not show up every few months.
Likewise, once iron is smelted, much like coldhammering copper, not a whole lot of tools are needed to work it. Stone anvils have long been popular for working small iron work pieces amongst nomadic people and people with low infrastructure. Smithing forges in many videos I've seen are little more than pits of burning charcoal with rudimentary bellows. Likewise as seen in West Africa and South Africa, Iron smelting relies almost entirely on temporary structures, built on site and destroyed once the iron smelting is done. So it is something perfectly viable to make for communities with little infrastructure...
Again, if they know how, its difficult but very doable.
There are also writing reasons
As the lore I write reflects writing reasons! And frankly, We do iron, its not like iron is some alien thing, it dominates every aspect of our life and has for almost 3000 years. Bit it an iron farming hoe in Yayoi Japan or a steel beam for a skyscraper in New York. Frankly I think we've seen about as much as we reasonably can from a technologically extended timeline of Iron.
So I think pushing bronze and copper is a bit more interesting, at least personally.
But the lore for now isn't changing
Copper is still gonna reign over Iron at least currently, I just wanted to ramble about a thing i argue with myself a lot, be well
I don't think that many or, any of the first generation were black smiths by trade or skill sets. If they were and survived, they were too valuable to the communities for travel. They would be in permanent settlements and from what I have read and seen so far, there is not that many of those.
But if someone knows how to smelt copper/bronze, they can usually ramp that up to smelt iron. Its more difficult but its doable is the argument I tend to find myself in. that and logistics.
Of course pure copper need not be smelted at all, and with a basic wood fire and some time you can work it perfectly well.
But you are wrong about the blacksmiths.
1) Various nomadic people developed very complex blacksmithing cultures, particularly when we look at central Asia and central Africa we seed a variety of highly mobile iron workers that regularly produced iron goods from very limited infrastructure and tools. Once the iron is smelted its not that hard to work with regards to tools.
2) Ironworkers in preindustrial societies were very often traveling workers. We see this of course with Bronze too! But Iron carried on that tradition. There are examples in Medieval China, Europe, India, and in the Post contact Americas. It was actually pretty common for blacksmiths to travel into an area, do some detailed blacksmithing work for the community for something in return, pack up and move on to the next opportunity.
So nomadism and metallurgy, or in this case blacksmithing are very far from separate but have actually been very closely tied together for thousands of years.
We see a similar thing with bronze of course, though it is again, more logistically complicated. The advantage of iron is very much in logistics. If you know what to look for in the same general area you can probably find it.
Of course 1st gens? No, blacksmithing would likely die for some time but this is more an argument for longer stages on the timeline. The Awakening likely wouldn't change much but I am more looking out into a matter of a few thousand years into the future. Especially across a scope of a much larger setting at this point.
1st gens and the drekir of the awakening would likely not be cranking out iron. Its just too complicated. But their descendants in some cases might in a few thousand years