Gateway to the Plane of Metal

[Havard]

But... isn't metal just... highly refined Earth...? :|

It might be yeah. I was never really sure if I liked this idea of Metal and Wood being their own Elemental Planes. I guess it is based on the Chinese Five Elements Philosopy, but the Chinese don't include Air, so its a bit of a mix of that idea and traditional Western/D&D cosmology.

It might boil down to mainly an excuse to create some new elemental monsters and of course to make the Elven Elementalist Class a bit more interesting.

For those who don't really like it, I think there are a few easy ways around this idea, which basically amounts to Blackmoor and Elven Scholars being wrong. The Plane of Metal might just be a region of the Plane of Earth, or both the Planes of Metal and Wood could be Outer Planes mistakenly believed to be Elemental Planes. The Ordo Elementarum have had to do a lot of pioneering work with regards to planar exploration.

Mithgilivyr Goss (brother of Raddan) was the one who set up this model in which he also talks about the Ethereal Plane, the Astral Plane, the Plane of Shadow and the Plane of Time (see Blackmoor Player's Guide p175).

Now, since we have this concept of the Plane of Metal, I think it would make sense to make use of it in some way or other, whether it is an Elemental Plane or something else.

Here's one idea:

The Trueforge
The Trueforge is a powerful artefact that allows the user to produce incredible weapons and other items of metal. The Trueforge is in its essenence a gate to the Elemental Plane of Metal. Artifact isn’t the forge itself, but a large slab of iron that is placed within the forge. The Trueforge does not appear to create metal, but rather purifies and strengthens objects of metal that are forged in it. The Trueforge was created by the Fire Giant King Jevarian Firehammer more than a millennia ago when he ruled the lands later known as Blackmoor. However, the Trueforge was stolen by Robert of Genova and the dwarf-smith Thorwien Dur’Hail (City of the Gods, ZGG, p 12) who brought the forge to an unknown location in Thonia. Agents of the Plane of Metal have been looking for it for centuries in hope to bring it back. Metal Elementals and Steel Mephits are actively searching for the Forge, but have so far not been able to come up with anything.


Thoughts?

-Havard