Things that make me go 'uh?'

[speaker_to_customers]

I missed a vast number of birthdays during my long absence from posting: Belated Happy Birthday wishes to:
ravenwings_7, spikendru, ciciaye, i_digress_uk, bedawyn, ralob, theohara (although Meghan has been absent from LiveJournal for many months and wouldn’t have seen it anyway), josephine_64, toysdream, xanpet2000, kazzy_cee, salice89, beccagirl17555 (another long-term absentee), desoto_hia873, miriya_2099, lilacdream7, rhi_silverflame, beer_good_foamy, c05mick1d, cyberwitch13666, charmingkarla, ladymela99, harpygoddess, mangosorbet007, deborahc, priscellie, petzipellepingo, woman_of_, meli1_77, ergie, mythichistorian, gipsy_dreamer, deyvra, and weyrwolfen. Happy birthday for today to denny_dc and to the inimitable shadowscast.

Department of things that make me go ‘uh?’
One reason for my lack of posting is that I’ve been playing ‘Neverwinter Nights 2’ again. The latest expansion pack, ‘Storm of Zehir’, is out. It’s slightly disappointing compared with its predecessors; the well-drawn companions, and the interactions with them, are missing and somehow it gives the impression that the player characters are mere bit parts in someone else’s story. Also too much of it focuses on trade instead of adventure. It’s still a good game, though, and it isn’t those niggles that have inspired this post.

In D&D from 3rd Edition onwards ‘cold iron’ often crops up in descriptions of weaponry. Said to be particularly efficacious against demons and fey creatures, ‘cold iron’ weapons are more expensive than steel. The origin of the term – which, to my surprise, the Wombat didn’t know – is that it is short for ‘cold-forged iron’, when a sword is made by beating a wrought iron bar on the anvil without heating it red-hot in the forge first. Incredibly labour-intensive, of course, but it produces a weapon stronger and less brittle than cast iron and harder and able to hold an edge better than hot-forged iron. Once techniques for producing proper steel were developed cold-forged iron vanished from use and remained only in folklore.

In ‘Storm of Zehir’, however, the writers have missed the point. There is actually a cold iron mine! As I said to the Wombat, while tearing my hair out, that’s the equivalent of a cold coal mine – or, as ‘cold iron’ is a finished product, perhaps the equivalent of the legendary Jam Butty Mines of Knotty Ash.

Comments

[shadowscast.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the birthday greetings!

[hezzabeth.livejournal.com]

We both have gipsey_dreamer on our FLISTS! that is so random, I found her through the doctor who community.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

I know gipsy_dreamer through Discworld - she's the girlfriend of another Friend who I knew for years on Usenet before I came to LiveJournal.

[gipsy-dreamer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the birthday wishes! I had a lovely day :)

[cbtreks.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that about cold iron - thanks for the tidbit; I love learning things like that. Can't wait to quiz Irish when he's done watching The Great Escape....

[evilawyer.livejournal.com]

This game sounds like it would make me twitchy and nervous. And physically exhausted.

[owenthurman.livejournal.com]

We still do a lot of cold forging today. Most of my aluminium bicycle parts are cold-forged. I don't know anybody who forges much plain iron, though.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I deny totally that I didn't know! I actually said that it was a very stupid description; all iron weaponry is cold unless you've just had it in a fire to heat it, and I prefered the term 'cold-forged iron' - not that I didn't understand that this is what they meant!!!

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

There is actually a cold iron mine!

Oh, that's too funny!

[sammywol.livejournal.com]

cold iron mine?! Arghh! When my Mum was a kid holidaying with relatives in Cornwall she remembers her brother and two of the local boys taking delight in directing visiting 'trippers' (usually Brummies and so especially despised for some reason) to visit the famous Treacle Mines of Polgooth. Now that could be a fun, if messy, RPG setting ... particularly as the residents of Polgooth were famously dour and humourless back then.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

We have a treacle mine at Ronague. There's a totally useless piece of information for you...

And I did know what cold iron meant - he misunderstood my comment!

[sammywol.livejournal.com]

I read your point of order in the comments and the point is duly acknowledged. However, as I am trying to encourage my daughter to not be afraid to saying she does not know/understand things and admit when she is wrong (two life lessons I would have been happier to learn before I was 30+) I must admit that I did not know what cold iron meant. In spite of hearing the term thousands of times since I was quite a small kid. So thankyou S2C! My store of information increases.

[mangosorbet007.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you for the good wishes, kind sir! :-)

[arkeus.livejournal.com]

ahah, thanks for the info.

Myself, i much prefer this expension to the OC (never played MOTB) for the simple reason they had to drag me kicking and screaming through what they called a story.

Oh, and i love the fact that any character can speak, and that at *last*, skills are importants.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Any character can speak but they don't really have a lot to say. If only the 'cohorts' had back-stories and conversations. There was a lot I would have liked to say to Sa Sani, too, outside the options that were available.

The fights get incredibly repetitive and a lot of the trading bores me stupid.

I did enjoy it, yes, but it probably won't inspire any fanfic.

Although, an idea for a Sa Sani/PC romance has just reared its snake-like head...

[arkeus.livejournal.com]

Point, it's *not* fanfic material.

Both the "story" and and the characters don't lend itself to it.

OTOH, most NWN2 fanfic are really bad, and there the story was more (in my opinion) a drag than a good point. Same for the OC.

Hence the "improvement" for me, as this looks more like a game to me.

[http://users.livejournal.com/woman_of_/]

Thank You so much for the birthday wishes!