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While researching for my Great Northern Wilderness map, I came across an interesting tidbit that I think warrants some further thought. The January Magic tribe's specialty is their ability to make metal threads and weave fabrics with them. The text emphasizes the cosmetic appeal of these textiles, but it doesn't seem to explore the practical aspect of them. What could a suit of such fabric offer in terms of protection?

Hotrod wrote:While researching for my Great Northern Wilderness map, I came across an interesting tidbit that I think warrants some further thought. The January Magic tribe's specialty is their ability to make metal threads and weave fabrics with them. The text emphasizes the cosmetic appeal of these textiles, but it doesn't seem to explore the practical aspect of them. What could a suit of such fabric offer in terms of protection?

There are modern and ancient textiles that contained metal thread (usually gold or silver) but are/were no stronger than normal cloth. I think that's what they are going for, not something thick enough to provide armor. At that point you might as well make chain mail.

That's a pretty intriguing thought though, especially when one considers some of the speciality metals available in the Northern Wilderness and Hinterlands.

I would think this is more Cloth-of-Gold and less Flexi-Steel. Mostly because framkly the idea of metallic blended body armor starts to get... well if I was going to be playing that sort of thing I would be doing RIFTS in the first place.
That said it might allow for a few rare items enchanted certain ways. But I certainly would not want to make them common place at all (see above.)

It's called "chainmail."

The key word is "Thread." Meaning it would have no more rigidity than normal thread. Which means it would stop any force from the blow of a weapon.

Could be a tricky way to try and smuggle metals into a place without paying as much tax as clothes tend to attract less tax then say blocks of gold.

eh.. cloth of gold doesn't really have enough gold content in it to use it for smuggling. you'd be trading a couple easily hidden bars for a whole boat load of fabric.

plus cloth of gold, and the Silk it tends to use as a base material, both usually fall under sumptuary laws, which tend to be both be taxed more heavily and have legal penalties applied when worn by those with the wrong social status.

if a kingdom has laws about who can use cloth of gold and how much, someone showing up with thousands of yards of it is likely to find themselves faced with a lot of extra fee's and suspicion.

Lukterran wrote:The key word is "Thread." Meaning it would have no more rigidity than normal thread. Which means it would stop any force from the blow of a weapon.

then again what about the iron thread of the alchemist?

if you as GM wanted to allow it, I would give it same values as chain mail. At least, the iron/steel.

Thread of Iron might be an interesting way to implement a true cloth armor (probably crazy expensive), but yeah, the more I've read on this, the more I think this should just be a fancy-looking cloth with no special features. This might be more interesting in the context of Rifts, where the Tarnaw Crystal could transform the wire into M.D.C. material.