Thunderbolt Iron: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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This trope can also be [[Truth in Television]]. Real-life meteoric iron often contains traces of the rare, superdense metal iridium, which significantly strengthens the metal, and there's a reason why they're called iron-''nickel'' meteorites now: they contain a lot of nickel, sometimes having a fine structure formed of interleaving alloys of nickel-iron and iron-nickel. And nickel strengthens a steel, so the old meteorite-hunt was justified. Before forging became advanced enough to make iron-alloys, this was one of only two ways to get them (the other being to dig them up and hope they're good enough), so this concept is linked with [[Cold Iron]]. Even when cold-wrought iron was outdated, at least it was a source of ready nickel.
But there was a trick: various alloys in meteorites have iron and nickel but ''aren't'' steel. Sometimes a lucky Inuit tribe (nickel alloys remain pliable at low temperatures while carbon steel becomes brittle and prone to breakage) got tons of metal they coldhammered into tools, but sometimes a smith faced an apparently very good, malleable, ''magnetic'' metal... which he could not temper like a normal iron, until someone said "screw that" and mixed it with a real steel, thus adding
Even if these samples had no nickel in them, they contained very few impurities, which was very difficult to find or manufacture in any large amount prior to the industrial revolution (specifically the patent of the Bessemer process in 1855.) As an alloy, steels can only have around two percent of their total weight as carbon; beyond that, they're classified as cast iron and display increasingly brittle behavior. Starting with low carbon steel from meteorites makes it much easier to add carbon back in to just the right amount, making a metal that is hard enough to hold an edge but ductile enough to not shatter under strain.
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** The Yashida Clan's "honor sword" is also made from meteorite iron, and forged by a demon. Both factors become pivotal when [[Wolverine]] is fighting a mystical assassin, the "Iron Monk", who boasts of being impervious to mortal and Earthly weapons. The Iron Monk repeats his boast (which was backed up repeatedly throughout the issue) when Wolverine draws the sword, only to have a brief [[Oh Crap]] moment when its origins are explained to him. Brief because Wolverine isn't generally known for showing mercy to villains. Especially in his solo adventures.
** Bloodscream is another notable victim of the blade, although he survived. Bloodscream was turned into a vampire by a voodoo priest. His curse has a condition that only a blade that is not made by a mortal can kill him.
* The [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] [[Green Lantern]] had an actual lantern, forged originally in ancient China from a glowing meteorite. A piece of the lantern was made into a ring by Alan Scott, who needed to recharge it every 24 hours by touching it to the lantern. This was [[
* Skywise's "magic" lodestone compass in ''[[Elf Quest]].''
* A variation of this occurred in a [[Superman]]/[[Batman]] story that had the two of them hopping around unstable timelines, when they landed in a Wild-West themed one, coming across [[Jonah Hex]] and a ton of cowboys shooting at them. When Hex heard Superman was an alien, he figured he should maybe load his gun with bullets made from meteorites. Which, of course, are kryptonite. Bonus for him not even knowing it was Superman's weakness.
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*** It is prophesied that Turin will use it to kill {{spoiler|Morgoth}} in the final battle for Arda, though.
** Like many elements of Túrin's story, this comes from the old Finnish myth of Kullervo. Kullervo received a magical broadsword from Ukko, the god of the sky (parallel to Anglachel being forged from meteoric iron.) Kullervo, after defeating his enemies with his magic sword, returns home and finds that all his family has died while he was obsessed with his own quest for vengeance. Finally he kills himself after interrogating and cursing his sword, which, being magical, answers him and tells him gleefully that it partook in all his other villainy and will just as gladly destroy him as well.
* The [[Discworld]] is the [[Trope Namer]]. Discworld's
** Also referenced in ''[[Discworld/Wyrd Sisters|Wyrd Sisters]]'', where Magrat suggests they forge for the prince a sword made from Thunderbolt Iron. "I have a spell for that," she explains, "You take some Thunderbolt iron...[[Captain Obvious|and make a sword out of it]]."
** Pratchett here is most likely referencing [[Lord Dunsany]]'s "[[The King of Elfland's Daughter]]", where a witch forges a sword of thunderbolt iron to be used as a weapon by the prince to invade Elfland.
** When Tiffany Aching invades Elfland in one of the young Discworld books, one of her companions mentions that such swords are now considered traditional. It turns out a [[Frying Pan of Doom|frying pan]] and a horde of Pictsies (sic) works pretty well too.
* Thorn, one of the three titular swords that serve as [[MacGuffin
* In ''[[The Belgariad]]'' and ''[[The Malloreon]]'' by [[David Eddings]], the main character's [[BFS]] is made of meteoric iron. Granted, having the single most powerful magical artifact in all of existence stuck onto its hilt would have made that sword inconceivably dangerous even if it had been made of a wire frame wrapped in aluminum foil, but a sword made of any other material would have shattered when the orb was placed in the pommel. Also, [[Because Destiny Says So|It Was Meant To Be]]. (The only reason Garion can wield or even lift it is because said artifact is magically removing most of its weight. At one point, when required to remove the Orb from the pommel, the suddenly-returned real weight of the sword almost breaks his wrist before crashing to the floor.)
* The ''[[Redwall]]'' books have the ([[Reforged Blade|reforged]]) Sword of Martin the Warrior, forged from a meteorite; just for extra kick, its blacksmith spoke the name of every hero he could think of [[And This Is For|as he beat it into shape]], naming Martin himself with the final hammer strike.
* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', the greatsword Dawn is thought to be forged from a fallen star. The blade is handed down to members of the noble House Dayne, and a wielder of the blade is always called the Sword of the Morning. The world of the series also features particularly sharp and strong blades believed to be forged by magic, but Dawn seems to be held in even greater respect. A previous Sword of the Morning once dueled a notorious bandit knight and hacked three of his swords to bits, showing that Dawn is indeed something special.
* The steel swords that [[The Witcher|Witchers]] carry (in the books and video game of the same name) are crafted of meteorite steel.
* The panserbjørne ([[Everything's Worse with Bears|armored bears]]) from ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' are a [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Proud Warrior Race]] that focus their whole culture around "sky-iron". Specifically, they beat massive suits of plate armor out of the metal without heating. The armor then becomes a sort of iconic possession/"external soul" similar to the traditions around [[Samurai
* Non-weapon example: Kerrick, the protagonist of [[Harry Harrison]]'s ''[[West of Eden]]'' has an arrowhead of meteoric iron as a talisman of sorts.
* In [[Fred Saberhagen]]'s ''[[Books of Swords|Swords]]'' series, the Twelve Swords were all forged from meteoric metal by Vulcan.
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== Mythology and Religion ==
* The [[Public Domain Artifact]] [[Excaliburn|Excalibur/Caliburn/Caledfwlch]] is often portrayed as being made of
** The film ''The Last Legion''.
** Jack Whyte's Camulod series.
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** The mutating ore formed from congealed dark magic is called warpstone. Used for a variety of nasty rituals and weapons, it originally fell (and is still falling) from the sky.
** Gromril, from the same setting, is a more traditional version of this, although it only fell from the sky depending on what edition you're on.
** Currently Gromril is a more mundane style of metal - the new
** There's also the Armour of Meteoric Iron, one of the cheaper magic armours. It's basically just really tough, with no real special abilities.
* In ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'', the best way to tear large chunks out of [[The Fair Folk|the True Fae]] is to use hand-forged (that is, not machine-processed) "cold iron." The "Rites of Spring" splatbook defines cold iron specifically as iron which has never been heated to the point of malleability by any human agency, but has instead been beaten into shape by ''pure brute force.'' Overlooking the general improbability of making anything more refined than a club or a rough mace by this method, the book outright states that your best hope of ''ever'' obtaining cold iron is to get your hands on meteoric iron, since melting down normal iron ore is pretty much the only way to get iron out of it in the first place.
** ''[[Mage: The Awakening]]'' also has an advantage in meteoric iron as being already half [[Unobtanium|perfected]].
* The 3rd edition of [[Dungeons and Dragons]] has two examples: Adamantine and starmetal. Both have extraordinary hit points and hardness. They also ignore hardness under a certain number so they are good for sundering other objects
In addition, starmetal is a version of adamantine that has the bonus property of causing extra harm to Outsiders (as opposed to the [[The Order of the Stick|OotS]] version, which also harms Undead) thanks to its "affinity for the Material Plane". The book that introduces starmetal, Complete Arcane, mainly focuses on a prestige class where you eat starmetal until you turn into an indestructible person made of starmetal.
** The Arms & Equipment Guide introduced Obdurium, which is harder than Adamantine. They don't go into much, but most agree that Obdurium has 10 more Hardness than Adamantine, more HP, and can cut through even non-magical Adamantine like butter.
** Kheferu, found in Sandstorm, the truest form of
** Adamantine also happens to be the go-to metal for fighting [[Golem
* ''[[GURPS]]'' mentions that this is one of the guesses about what "cold iron" was supposed to be and lets you use it if you want... but it defaults to the handling that it's just a descriptive term for regular iron, like one might say "cold steel."
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'', one of the three Great Sages crafts a weapon out of the "Red Rock" Crono and his friends find in the past; the prehistoric people talk of the strange rocks having magical properties, with the game implying that the "meteorites" are also actual bits of the [[Cosmic Horror|Lovecraftian]] parasite Lavos.
** They called it Dreamstone, by the way, and quite a few of the [[MacGuffin
* ''[[Boktai]] 2'' lets Django find a small meteorite which can be forged into a unique Star melee weapon, which gains power as you do and uses solar energy directly from the Solar Station reserves rather than Django's much smaller energy bar.
* [[Earthbound]] had the Material Zexonyte which was forged from meteoric metal.
* Meteorite is the strongest metal available for crafting weapons in ''[[Evil Islands]]''
* [[Golden Sun]] has Star Dust, described as "Rare metal from space", which can be [[Elemental Crafting|forged]] into such niceties as the [[Making a Splash|Mercury]]-[[An Ice Person|aligned]] Comet Mace or the PP([[Mana]])-increasing Astral Circlet.
* ''Castle of the Winds'' features Meteoric gear as its top line before
* In many of the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games where crafting is possible, meteorites are usable as raw material for that crafting.
* In ''[[Dragon Age]] Origins'', you can stumble upon a meteor ([[Superman|on whose crater a child was previously found by a woman named Martha and her husband]]) and have Levi Dryden's brother make a sword from it after the events at Warden's Peak.
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== Web Comics ==
* The protagonist in ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' has a sword that's supposedly made out of "starmetal", though this is apparently not actually true as of the beginning of the strip. He later [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0297.html reforges his sword] to include some starmetal he's found (and we discover that "starmetal" isn't actually meteoric '''iron''', as would be expected, but some entirely different and extraordinarily dense and rare
* In ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'', the classical Cold Iron used to fight the Fair Folk is a mistranslation; Quentyn says that it meant ''Polar Iron'', as in magnets.
* Parodied in ''[[8-Bit Theater|Eight Bit Theater]]'' when Red Mage suggests getting "starmetal" out of a Meteor spell Black Mage dropped on someone. Black Mage points out that the Meteor isn't even metallic, but when he turns away for a second and turns back, RM is holding a piece of metal, completely confounding BM.
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* There is a metal, generally only found in meteorites, and under the earth's crust, called [[wikipedia:Iridium|Iridium]]. Often, unusually high levels of this metal found in a layer of rock is a major clue to either a meteor-strike or a volcanic eruption at the time represented by said layer.
* [[Genre Savvy]] author [[Terry Pratchett]] [http://www.news.com.au/technology/terry-pratchett-creates-a-sword-with-meteorites/story-e6frfro0-1225926584339 had one forged for himself] in order to celebrate having been knighted.
* Attila the Hun was believed to have wielded a sword made from meteorite, which the Romans nicknamed the "Sword of Mars".<ref>[[Macekre|despite the fact that Attila himself, having no reason to worship Mars, would probably have called it "Sword of God(s)"]]</ref>
* James Bowie's iconic knife was supposedly forged from a piece of meteorite iron.
* Invoked with [[wikipedia:Stellite|Stellite]], a superalloy produced by Deloro Stellite Company. It's ''hard'' and can take a ''lot'' of heat without weakening. Some applications include saw teeth, racing engine valves, machine gun barrels, and drill bits for metal cutting machines.
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