A Brief Look At Adamantine In TTRPG With WizKids’ New Adamantine Dragon
by Anton Kromoff
Welcome to the table,
What the heck is Adamantine?
It makes appearances through real, mythological, and fictional histories. The real and made-up definitions range from an archaic word for diamond to a misattributed name for magnetic load stone. There’s also the substance that reinforces the claws of an angry regenerating Canadian, and all sorts of strange and wonderful things in between.
While my first recollections of the material are from the 1990s X-Men cartoons, I quickly learned that the mythical material also appeared in the pages of Dungeons & Dragons books, and even there it seemed to have some variations.
In Volo’s Guide to All Things Magical, an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons book, Adamantine is described as an alloy composed of five-eights adamant, two-eights silver, and one-eight electrum. It retains the hardness of adamant, but gives it a durability that makes it “the best non-mythril armor” and the best material for other assorted weapons and tools.
When we get to 3rd edition D&D, the Adamantine lore was along the lines of “found only in meteorites and the rarest of veins in magical areas, this ultrahard metal adds to the quality of a weapon or suit of armor.”
When I made the jump to Pathfinder First Edition when D&D 4th edition dropped, Adamantine was much the same. We were seeing the ore mined from rocks that “fell from the heavens.”
Pathfinder also has the absolute unit of a dragon known as the Adamantine dragon who’s one of the appropriately named skymetal dragons. The magic that flows through these winged creatures draws metal to their bodies.
In some cases, it allows them to grow the skymetals that typically fall from space on their physical forms. Adamantine dragons begin their lives with hardened scales that are naturally replaced with even stronger adamantine plates as they grow older.
My pals at WizKids have put out a doubly delightful dragon miniature, which is the reason I have Adamantine at the front of mind. This winged wonder looks fantastic in pre-painted miniature form atop its 75mm clear base with a Huge-sized threat ring.
I’m sure they reason they went with this particular dragon dude is because of an Adamantine dragon’s appearance on the cover of the Pathfinder Second Edition: Monster Core book.
This alloy-turned-metal-turned-dragon — and still very much claw-coating and superhero silver stuff — has been around awhile and will seemingly continue to stay around as a fundamental part of the fantasy and culture landscape. If you want to own a bit of this long-winded and much loved lore you can score an Adamantine Dragon of your very own at this link. You can grab a copy of the Pathfinder: Monster Core at this link.
Until next time, Adamantine is a comfort food to me. It’s this fixture that regardless of what form it takes across comics, shows, TTRPG books, or at The Table, maintains this element of wonder and awe. It’s a special thing that makes cool things even cooler, even more unique.
In a sea of strange and wonderful materials it’s a weirdly beautiful bit of make-believe. It makes me feel like the real world, hell worlds, and made-up worlds have something strangely cool in common. Something that fell from the spaces beyond and can be forged into these truly magical memory making bits of star stuff, be that handwritten items on a character sheet or well lettered text in a book.
