Re: (TFT) cold iron (again)

[srydzews@ix.netcom.com]

cas liber wrote:
> [If cold iron is basically non-molten iron], the problem is that 
> saying something is vulnerable to cold iron would be pointless, 
> as just about all weapons would be able to harm the creature.
> Presumably, cold iron was something different to normal steel 
> otherwise it wouldn't have been listed as a special defence of 
> Wolweres and other thigns.

The "authentic" meaning of cold iron is probably derived from the idea that the touch of iron, just any old iron, would hurt faerie creatures.  In D&D that's clearly NOT the idea, but they never (to my knowledge) made it clear what they really meant it to be.

My personal take on it was that cold iron was iron that had *never* been heated to a molten temperature, at least not in some lowly mortal's smelter.  So that leaves "found" iron, not requiring smelting.  Such iron is of course rare in any useful amounts, most of it coming from meteorites.  You could heat the lump of iron and beat it into a cold iron dagger or shortsword, so long as you didn't actually melt it.

Of course the resulting weapons are merely low-quality iron weapons for most purposes, but since they are uniquely effective against certain creatures a few are made.  Since the iron is so rare the weapons are quite costly, and especially so with larger weapons.

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