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Old 02-12-2018, 04:03 PM   #11
JLV
 
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Default Re: How Do You Imprison TFT Wizards?

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Maybe this is a digression and maybe not. Why do we always say COLD iron? Is that just an epithet for iron, or does the iron really have to be cold?
I always assumed it was because molten iron wouldn't have the same effect on magic ("barring" it or interfering with it), since molten iron is an a highly excited state, molecularly speaking...
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Old 02-12-2018, 06:43 PM   #12
Anaraxes
 
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Why do we always say COLD iron?
A popular debate. Really, it's just a poetic phrase, much like "cold steel".

Whether or not it has any actual meaning in a game is one of those things best left to the setting, IMO. It might mean any sort of iron. It might refer to technique. (Perhaps the weapon or object can only be hammered into shape while cold, which is going to be a LOT of work. So perhaps there's an upper limit to temperature, even that's not "cold".) It could be a reference to some temperature in the process, like a Curie point for magic to make the iron become non- or anti-magical. Or it might refer to some special metal, like meteoric iron or iron that's never been heated in a forge (thus getting contaminated with carbon from the coal and becoming crude steel, which for some magical reason is "not iron").

So what does "cold iron" mean in Cidri?
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Old 02-12-2018, 10:09 PM   #13
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So what does "cold iron" mean in Cidri?
A better question than I thought to ask! Well done, sir (or ma'am, as the case might be)!
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Old 02-13-2018, 09:06 AM   #14
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I always ignored the 'cold iron' rule.
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Old 02-13-2018, 10:26 AM   #15
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Default Re: How Do You Imprison TFT Wizards?

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Maybe this is a digression and maybe not. Why do we always say COLD iron? Is that just an epithet for iron, or does the iron really have to be cold?
I'd always heard it as "cold steel" and usually as a euphemism for a bayonet -

"Rangers of Connaught! It is not my intention to expend any powder this evening. We'll do this business with Cold Steel." -- General Sir Thomas Picton, 6 April 1812 to the 88th Foot before the assault on Badajoz.

"I beg leave to remind the Cavalry Board that very few people have ever been killed with the bayonet or sabre, but the fear of having their guts explored with Cold Steel in the hands of battle maddened men has won many a fight." -Gen. George Patton

And of course, the Poet Laureate of the British Empire:

Gold is for the mistress - silver for the maid
Copper for the craftsman cunning in his trade.
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall
But steel - cold steel is master of them all.

I think that the adjective "cold" connotes a lack of pity and harshness - appropriate for bayonets.
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Old 02-13-2018, 12:19 PM   #16
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I'd always heard it as "cold steel" and usually as a euphemism for a bayonet -

"Rangers of Connaught! It is not my intention to expend any powder this evening. We'll do this business with Cold Steel." -- General Sir Thomas Picton, 6 April 1812 to the 88th Foot before the assault on Badajoz.

"I beg leave to remind the Cavalry Board that very few people have ever been killed with the bayonet or sabre, but the fear of having their guts explored with Cold Steel in the hands of battle maddened men has won many a fight." -Gen. George Patton

And of course, the Poet Laureate of the British Empire:

Gold is for the mistress - silver for the maid
Copper for the craftsman cunning in his trade.
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall
But steel - cold steel is master of them all.

I think that the adjective "cold" connotes a lack of pity and harshness - appropriate for bayonets.
That's all very well for a Napoleonic to post-Napoleonic world, where cold steel confronts hot lead; but in medieval terminology there was a more specific meaning to it, and it was "cold iron" then. According to several medieval sources, "cold iron" was a sovereign counter to some forms of witchcraft and Magick, and certain monsters of legend...

Now the question becomes; "why is that?"
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Old 02-13-2018, 03:56 PM   #17
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That's all very well for a Napoleonic to post-Napoleonic world, where cold steel confronts hot lead; but in medieval terminology there was a more specific meaning to it, and it was "cold iron" then. According to several medieval sources, "cold iron" was a sovereign counter to some forms of witchcraft and Magick, and certain monsters of legend...

Now the question becomes; "why is that?"
Yes, I seem to recall that being mentioned in the sci-fi classic “Quatermass and the Pit” (aka “Five Million Years to Earth”).
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Old 02-13-2018, 04:03 PM   #18
Anthony
 
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According to Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811)
Quote:
COLD IRON. A sword, or any other weapon for cutting or
stabbing. I gave him two inches of cold iron into his beef.
The implication is that you prevent wizards from casting spells by stabbing them.
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Old 02-13-2018, 04:40 PM   #19
Steve Jackson
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Certainly that was Conan's approach.
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Old 02-13-2018, 04:50 PM   #20
Steve Jackson
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But steel - cold steel is master of them all.
Kipling had it as " ‘But Iron — Cold Iron — is master of them all.’ "

And, doing a bit of webreading, I find an allegation that he was the first to apply the epithet this way.
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