For the Scarred Lands RPG Campaign, in the City of Mithril soruce book, it is noted that it is tradition for each of the Mithril Knights to be able to forge his own sword, since Corean is a forge god.

I got to thinking about this as I was working on my latest novel, and wondering just how much skill it took to create a sword in a forge. Keep in mind that we are not just talking about a length of steel that has an edge, which can be made and then hung on the wall, we are talking about a sword that this knight, is going to be placing his life, and the life of his fellow knights on the line with. If that blade breaks, if there is a flaw, if it won’t hold an edge, that blade is going to fail.

So I scoured the web looking for a description of what is involved, and what kind of time someone would need to spend in learning the art of steel and forge, in order to make a real sword. I found one good web site and a few good YouTubes which I’ll link up here.

The web site is (here), and the author goes into detail regarding the art of forging a sword as well as giving some insider-tips which I didn’t find anyone else willing to pass on.

This first video is the Japanese sword forging.

This one is on the same topic but gives some historic information on the forging of the Japanese swords

The reason I put this next one in here is that it talks about Making Damascus Steel, which was legendary in its time.

This is a titanium knife being forged, to show the difference between working with a normal steel, and something much different.

What I really liked in this video, is how he shows us that the titanium has to be white hot, before you start hamer forging, and yet, when the hammer hits the white-hot rod, the rod barely dents. Tough stuff .. awk!

Working with a basically not-steel type of forging is going to take some expertise that most forgers are not going to have. While the Mithril knights are being trained to a specific task, to make a single item, with a single type of steel, and alloy, by experts, the doing is much different than the knowing, so … keep this in mind with the role-playing.

My next post will look at some ways and skills in creating armor.