There is a major difference between how things look when I am role-playing, or DM-ing, and when I am writing a passage in a novel. For example, when I’m running a character and the DM tells me there is a huge golem in the city made of Mithril, I say “cool” or, if I am in character “oy!”, and — that is the end of it really, unless the DM points it out again, or the damn thing moves.

Approaching the same object, in the same place, in the same world, as a writer however, the presence of a giant golem made of mithril becomes something quite different. This could simply be based on the way I write, which is very visual. I need to know how things work, feel, taste and affect the world around them, so I spend a lot of time staring out the window, pondering these things, but humor me for a moment.

The golem, by most accounts, is about 80-90 feet tall, it has a 30 feet reach and 10 ft fists. This is a very large construct. It is made of mithril, a magical metal, which can only be used as an alloy, again by most accounts. Mithril itself is soft, nearly liquid, like quick silver, but its magical properties make it very useful when used with iron, steel and other metals.

What crosses my mind is that the properties of mithril, other than being magical, are not well known. Saying it is magical, is about as useful to a writer as saying it is dark. From what I have researched so far, the magical properties appear to be neutral, and attractive. The properties of mithril enhance whatever magic is focused on or around it, while being unaffected, for the most part, by the magic itself. That is to say the substance itself is unaffected, but it also absorbs and holds magical powers very well, which is why it is so useful for forging powerful weapons.

So, if you have a large, in fact massive, object close to several magic-users, such as clerics or wizards, would not this large object both attract and alter the magic being thrown around?

I believe it would. How great the affect might be, I’m not sure, because we are talking about the physics of a fictional world — it’s difficult to test and measure these things.

Mithril also has the tendency to attract and absorb magical power which is in its area of influence. Again, we can’t be certain how much or how little this attraction and absorption might be, but if we step away from attempting to rely on physics and move into a more anthropological mind set, we can suggest that it is not much, because no one is squawking about their spells not being as strong when using magic in the temple or at Shadow college.

The possible affect of such a large body of mithril being so close to clerics and gatherings of wizards is something to consider when working with the city of Mithril. There is definitely chaos brewing between those plates and armor.