Adamantine

Adamantine, also called Darksteel, is a jet-black metal, usually found in the Lune Mountains, Aerbs Mountains, areas of Ten Horns, or other sources of rock fallen from the sky, such as meteorites. Usually black in color, Adamantine will have a green sheen when viewed by candlelight or a purple-white sheen when viewed by magical light.

Adamantine, when smelted is ultrahard but it is a costly procedure. Adamantine weapons are useful for damaging the weapons and armor of your opponents. A set of adamantine armor or a shield is nearly impenetrable to normal weapons.

Adamantine is used often by Drow, and their adamantine weapons are usually swords that are magically blessed.

History


Pre Moonfall

The only occurrence of adamantine on the planet was from random meteorite Falls.

The Shi'imti used portals to travel to the Moon and mine at amantine there.

Post Moonfall

Adamantine is most found in Ten horns and Scattered throughout the near world.

Properties


In either case, adamantine would likely not require refining, since it doesn't rust or corrode like other metals. (Its kind of like gold in this regard). Of course, unlike gold, adamantine is harder than diamond, yet flexible, being a metal, and not brittle the way crystalline substances are. Of course, using diamond formation as a guide, I'd say adamantine has a melting point of roughly 5,630 degrees Fahrenheit, which would only occur thousands of feet underground, in a volcano's mantle, or a vortex between the Plane of Earth and the Plane of Fire.

So an adamantine mine wouldn't probably exist, or look like some kind of magically formed, metallic diamond nugget found only in the deeper caves, in a crater or, like you said, a melting between Earth and Fire plans.
I guess it depends on your setting's availability for adamantine.

adamantine is a skymetal and therefore probably not mined in the conventional sense at all.

I'd say there is likely to be less than 300 tons of adamantine on an entire planet that is recoverable without doing something crazy like planar binding xorns or magma elementals.

For comparison, the roman empire was mining over 200 tons of pure silver every year.

No Adamantine in streams though — it doesn't erode.

Platinum exists in higher abundances on the Moon and in meteorites. Correspondingly, platinum is found in slightly higher abundances at sites of bolide impact on Earth that are associated with resulting post-impact volcanism, and can be mined economically; the Sudbury Basin is one such example.

Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isolated as a metal in 1783. Its important ores include scheelite and wolframite, the latter lending the element its alternate name.

The free element is remarkable for its robustness, especially the fact that it has the highest melting point of all known elements barring carbon (which sublimes at normal pressure), melting at 3,410 °C (6,170 °F; 3,683 K). It also has the highest boiling point, at 5,930 °C (10,706 °F; 6,203 K). Its density is 19.30 grams per cubic centimetre (0.697 lb/cu in), comparable with that of uranium and gold, and much higher (about 1.7 times) than that of lead. Polycrystalline tungsten is an intrinsically brittle and hard material (under standard conditions, when uncombined), making it difficult to work. However, pure single-crystalline tungsten is more ductile and can be cut with a hard-steel hacksaw.

However, tungsten interferes with molybdenum and copper metabolism and is somewhat toxic to most forms of animal life.

In its raw form, tungsten is a hard steel-grey metal that is often brittle and hard to work. Purified, monocrystalline tungsten retains its hardness (which exceeds that of many steels), and becomes malleable enough that it can be worked easily. It is worked by forging, drawing, or extruding but it is more commonly formed by sintering.

Of all metals in pure form, tungsten has the highest melting point (3,422 °C, 6,192 °F), lowest vapor pressure (at temperatures above 1,650 °C, 3,000 °F), and the highest tensile strength. Although carbon remains solid at higher temperatures than tungsten, carbon sublimes at atmospheric pressure instead of melting, so it has no melting point. Tungsten has the lowest coefficient of thermal expansion of any pure metal. The low thermal expansion and high melting point and tensile strength of tungsten originate from strong metallic bonds formed between tungsten atoms by the 5d electrons. Alloying small quantities of tungsten with steel greatly increases its toughness.

Tungsten exists in two major crystalline forms: α and β. The former has a body-centered cubic structure and is the more stable form. The structure of the β phase is called A15 cubic; it is metastable, but can coexist with the α phase at ambient conditions owing to non-equilibrium synthesis or stabilization by impurities. Contrary to the α phase which crystallizes in isometric grains, the β form exhibits a columnar habit. The α phase has one third of the electrical resistivity and a much lower superconducting transition temperature TC relative to the β phase: ca. 0.015 K vs. 1–4 K; mixing the two phases allows obtaining intermediate TC values. The TC value can also be raised by alloying tungsten with another metal (e.g. 7.9 K for W-Tc). Such tungsten alloys are sometimes used in low-temperature superconducting circuits.

Tungsten is a mostly non-reactive element: it does not react with water, is immune to attack by most acids and bases, and does not react with oxygen or air at room temperature. At elevated temperatures (i.e., when red-hot) it reacts with oxygen to form the trioxide compound tungsten(VI), WO3. It will, however, react directly with fluorine (F2) at room temperature to form tungsten(VI) fluoride (WF6), a colorless gas. At around 250 °C it will react with chlorine or bromine, and under certain hot conditions will react with iodine. Finely divided tungsten is pyrophoric.

Its density, similar to that of gold, allows tungsten to be used in jewelry as an alternative to gold or platinum. Metallic tungsten is hypoallergenic, and is harder than gold alloys (though not as hard as tungsten carbide), making it useful for rings that will resist scratching, especially in designs with a brushed finish.

Because the density is so similar to that of gold (tungsten is only 0.36% less dense), and its price of the order of one-thousandth, tungsten can also be used in counterfeiting of gold bars, such as by plating a tungsten bar with gold, which has been observed since the 1980s, or taking an existing gold bar, drilling holes, and replacing the removed gold with tungsten rods. The densities are not exactly the same, and other properties of gold and tungsten differ, but gold-plated tungsten will pass superficial tests.

Gold-plated tungsten is available commercially from China (the main source of tungsten), both in jewelry and as bars.

It was at first believed to be relatively inert and an only slightly toxic metal, but beginning in the year 2000, the risk presented by tungsten alloys, its dusts and particulates to induce cancer and several other adverse effects in animals as well as humans has been highlighted from in vitro and in vivo experiments. The median lethal dose LD50 depends strongly on the animal and the method of administration and varies between 59 mg/kg (intravenous, rabbits) and 5000 mg/kg (tungsten metal powder, intraperitoneal, rats).

People can be exposed to tungsten in the workplace by breathing it in, swallowing it, skin contact, and eye contact. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a recommended exposure limit (REL) of 5 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday and a short term limit of 10 mg/m3.

Uses


List of notable objects made of adamantine


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