I'm sure there's an adventure I haven't read yet that would answer my question, but I hate spoilers.
I know it varies from game to game, with some having adamantine veins forming deep underground, while others have adamantine as a 'meteors only' sort of deal.
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.
Presumably, anywhere the diamond mining is good, you would also find adamantine.
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Adamantine mines ? In real life, padparadja saphires and "pigeon's blood" rubies are so rare than for the latter, you find almost all the world's production in only one burmese city, and I believe only one of one thousand fine-looking stones are of the perfect, true color.
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.
In Golarion, adamantine is a skymetal and therefore probably not mined in the conventional sense at all.
What they look like? Hmm... they loke like... space mines. Yeah! Like orbital... asteroid field space mines! Managed by, by mind flayers. Who used it to trade for more good smelling brainy slaves. But you know, everything very safe. They will not want the security inspector aeons to find any irregularities... =|
In my games, you do not mine for adamantine. There are no adamantine mines. You may find adamantine while mining for other stuff, but because it is so rare and hard to find, you don't just mine for it by itself.
Its like an extra little special treat you can find while mining other materials.
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.
I'm sure there's an adventure I haven't read yet that would answer my question, but I hate spoilers.
I know it varies from game to game, with some having adamantine veins forming deep underground, while others have adamantine as a 'meteors only' sort of deal.
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.
Presumably, anywhere the diamond mining is good, you would also find adamantine.
In my game Mithril and Adamantine are both artificial / magical metals. Mithril uses an artifact called a Mithril Seed which is planted in a vein of silver and slowly (think centuries) converts the ordinary silver to "True Silver". Adamantine uses an "Adamantine Core" for the same purpose (but uses gold as a "base metal"). Mithril was created by the Elves, Adamantine by the Dwarves. I've had one adventure that centered around a Mithril Seed.
Anyway, small quantities of the metal are mined in the traditional way. No Adamantine in streams though -- it doesn't erode. People tend to plant their artifacts in hidden locals where thay can be guarded of course...
Yeah, they hire gnomes or pay the dwarves.
==Aelryinth
I consider Mithral a rw analogue of titanium and Adamantine a real world analogue of tungsten. Neither are common, both very hard to use.
But, heck, you could use Mithral as ALUMINUM. Until they figured out the method of using electricity in water to seperate it from bauxite ore, aluminum was incredibly rare and precious because it was so damn hard to get out of its useless oxide form.
==Aelryinth
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Y'know, when i saw the thread title the first thing I thought was "An explosive trap only a Baneblade going over would be able to trigger."
==Aelryinth
In my opinion, I just can't imagine elves choosing to toil away pounding pick axes at rocks. Elven miners don't work for me.
Ordinary metals, they go to the Dwarves. For Mithril, my Elves use golems :)
I consider Mithral a rw analogue of titanium and Adamantine a real world analogue of tungsten. Neither are common, both very hard to use.
But, heck, you could use Mithral as ALUMINUM. Until they figured out the method of using electricity in water to seperate it from bauxite ore, aluminum was incredibly rare and precious because it was so damn hard to get out of its useless oxide form.
==Aelryinth
I was going to say this about tungsten. There wouldn't be adamantine mines per se, but there would be tungsten mines, plus an adamantine manufacturing plant on the surface.
It's hard to say what a fantasy tungsten carbide production would look like, since IRL it requires some pretty sophisticated equipment, most importantly high-pressure ovens, which definitely brings us into the steam age. If you're okay with a little steampunk in your campaign world, then go for it. Otherwise, it's probably done with just a specific magic spell. Create adamantine or somesuch.
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I think, for Golarion to be specific, adamantine is going to be so rare, thanks to it's extraterrestial origin, that there won't be actual mines anywhere. Instead, miners sometimes hit upong adamantine meteorites while working a new shaft for instance. Similarly, some people well-versed in astronomy or geography might be able to locate geographical features shaped by ancient meteors. It's a small chance, but digging beneath that lake or stripmining that valley might result in a jackpot.
I can just imagine dwarven meteor hunters who travel unceasingly over unknown distances to reach rumored sites of fallen stars or nigh-forgotten skyborn local legends to find that one big haul. Hell, managing and planning and protecting an adventurous caravan like that might be a whole campaign unto itself.
Can a wizard in golarion use Meteor Swarm to make much Dinero?
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In Golarion I imagine "adamantine deposits" to be the crashed and mangled, partially melted hulks of crashed space freighters buried deep under the earth, but still relatively close to the surface (compared to, say, the underdark).
So a discovery of adamantine would look like a twisted and partially melted piece of a fuselage -- something like this -- and would need to be dug up as one giant piece and smelted into bars in an elemental blast furnace.
Or at least that's how I interpret "skymetal." I know most people think "meteors," but I get the impression that the Numerians also find superscience technology in the skymetal deposits, which to me implies that the "metal dungeons" are crashed spaceships (ala Expedition to Barrier Peaks).
But in my own campaigns I always imagine them as thin, spidery veins of super bright metal in dark volcanic stone reaching up from the underddark that inspire dwarves to dig deep into the earth, so deep they often disturb unnatural things. Like adamantine is deep earth silver that's been exposed to millenia of supernatural pressure from the evil things the gods stored away deep in the earth in the distant past.
In my games, you do not mine for adamantine. There are no adamantine mines. You may find adamantine while mining for other stuff, but because it is so rare and hard to find, you don't just mine for it by itself.
Its like an extra little special treat you can find while mining other materials.
As a geology student this doesn't sit right with me. Assuming adamantine is a naturally forming metal (not from space or artificaly created) there would be certain geologic events that would indicate the presence or at least likely presence of adamantine.
If it were anything like rare real world metals and gems you'd have one or two mines that were found by accident and from there prospectors would scour the globe looking for similar environments for more adamantine. Most of these surveys would turn up nothing but a very few would fine more adamantine veins. Thus most of the the world's adamantine would not come in single chunks by accident but in veins from very small number of well guarded and quite possibly hidden mines (So that outsiders wouldn't know how to locate more).
Everyone knows adamantine is just starship hull plating repurposed into swords and stuff!
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This is what an adamantine mine looks like!
Re: tungsten carbide as an analogue for adamantine -- given the density of tungsten carbide (15 g/cm3) as compared with that of iron (7.8 g/cm3), you'd be doubling the weight of armor and weapons -- and, while super scratch- and wear-resistant, they still would be a very long way from shatter-proof. The various nickel-molybdenum superalloys might be good adamantine analogues, however.
Titanium (density 4.5 g/c3) makes a dandy analogue for mithral, however.
the real question is what do adamantine mimes look like
Adamantite appears every tenth time a wizard uses meteor swarm, by this level they have no use for it so it just sits in its crater
In Golarion, adamantine is a skymetal and therefore probably not mined in the conventional sense at all.
In one of the Second Darkness books...
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I'd wing it and guess if someone one more enterprising in Golarion that struck upon a meteor strike might try to mine it. The resulting mine would look more like a primitive strip mine.
Meteor impact sites are not necessarily obvious to people on the ground. In the age of Fantasy Medieval times, they probably wouldn't even realize that a deposit had extraterrestrial origins. They'd just think they were extremely lucky. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Basin
I'm sure there's an adventure I haven't read yet that would answer my question, but I hate spoilers.
I know it varies from game to game, with some having adamantine veins forming deep underground, while others have adamantine as a 'meteors only' sort of deal.
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.
Presumably, anywhere the diamond mining is good, you would also find adamantine.
Well you dig it out just like any other metal.