Cold Iron (Patreon)

Crafting material, rare

There are places in this plane so cold that no mortal man could survive without magic. One of those places is the Hien. A mountain range that crosses the northlands like a giant white wall of ice, snow, and despair.

Few brave explorers ever dare to travel this far. Ridkos, a strong and proud dwarven blacksmith, was one of them. He dedicated his life work to studying a metal he called Cold Iron. At first, it appeared to be regular iron ore, but in the dark, its true nature is revealed to the eye. Glowing and freezing energy emanates from the metal core through small cracks in the mineral, keeping it forever freezing to the touch.

After years of experiments with the metal, he discovered that the only way to forge something out of it was using magical or alchemic fire. Regular forges couldn’t even begin to lower its temperature. Once forged, the item would always emanate an aura of cold that could lead to some amazing effects in the hands of a skilled blacksmith.

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Proficiency needed

To be able to craft something using Cold Iron, you need proficiency with Smith's Tools to forge the metal and Arcana to handle the runes or enchantments. The metal is always cold and has a small gemstone on its inside that is the font of its elemental powers. If something breaks the gem, an explosion of pure freezing energy will affect all creatures within 20ft of the ore. They must succeed on a DC15 Dexterity saving throw or take 8d6 cold damage. The creature takes half the damage on a successful save.

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Most common uses

The cold that emanates from the metal can be used in various ways. Craft weapons capable of dealing cold damage beyond their regular damages, using the gemstone to craft items that can release explosions of freezing energy or even to build a mug that can always keep your beer cold.

Here on the Legacy Forge, we used the gemstone within the Cold Iron along with a Firestone to create the very first weapon of the page. The Great Furnace. The elemental frozen gem gets in touch with the heat of the Firestone to create the vapor that pressurizes the magic maul.