Trying to write a fantasy book. Not to bore you with the details, but how far would society have been able to progress with no or VERY limited access to iron? Would we not start seeing the strain until industrialization and would be able to make due with inferior bronze up until the middle ages, or would access to only bronze at best make it nearly impossible to even progress to where we were in the middle ages?
>>1210450
I don't know the answer to your quesiton, but I've been writing fantasy novels too, and in my studies I found that Inuit (if I recall) tribes were able to make rudimentary iron tools without mining, from meteorite iron.
We'd actually be more advanced
Bronze production required extensive trade routes, and it's a stronger material than iron
Only downside is the lack of weapons which can be mass produced
>>1210477
>bronze is stronger than iron
>>1210497
>I know nothing about metalworking
>The post
Please kill yourself
>>1210497
They're about the same, actually. It's something of a myth that iron is SO much stronger than bronze. It's just that iron can be made from just iron while bronze is an alloy and much more difficult to make.
And the big point with iron is that iron work leads to steel work and steel is THE material.
>>1210450
Iron is like what, the third most common element in the earths crust? On what kind of planet does your fantasy thing take place?
Oh and perhaps more important do the people have domesticated animals? Cows, Horses, Elephants kinda make a difference in regards to how advanced a society can get.
Oh and if Bronze, or more precisely tin mines, are as common as iron is in our world you would have to see how that would work out.
No steel means no industrialization.
>>1210450
Go look at the native american civilisations
>>1210589
Had no large domesticated animals though.
When stars die they start producing iron and THEN other denser elements before it shoots them in every direction. A planet without iron is a planet without life.
What would the world be like without fossil fuels? Would a limited industrialization be possible, with craftsmen making things like the Antikythera mechanism?
>>1210762
Do you consider peat a fossil fuel?
Eternal combustion engines on wood or charcoal would be possible but simply to expensive for it to work.
>>1210531
>the lack of iron in my book is from faerie rulers banning it, not it being rare or nonexistent
Genuinely curious, why do they ban it?
>>1210865
In mythology, faeries have usually had a weakness to 'cold iron.' This is usually taken as poetic license and just means any iron. (like how we say 'cold steel' just to mean any sword) Some people take this as metaphor to mean technology as a whole since iron weapons were the most advanced at the time fairy tales were popular, (and since faeries run on metaphors) which is partly why so many works have magic interfere with technology today.
I've always wanted to write a book that takes place entirely in the realm of faeries, though I'm honestly having a bit of trouble deciding if they'd ban it outright, or if they'd allow it and just pretend that iron didn't do anything to them. I'm thinking the ban would be a kneejerk reaction to a recent (by immortal faerie standards) murder. But now I'm rambling.
>>1210785
>Eternal combustion engine
>>1211307
>6cilinder inline
Ffs
>>1210450
I would be better, read up on the bronze age collapse
OP if you are still there check out Glorantha. Which was the setting for runequest and heroquest. It is one of the few fantasy settings that is not influenced by tolkien. (or the influence was very minuscule) The setting itself is older thna 1st ed D&d and there are tons of written matearials about it. There is also a very published book by the title of Guide to Glorantha. Which kinda organizes all the mess. It's a massive book.
Glorantha is a bronze age setting, not only technology is bronze but many (not all) cultures are influenced by our bronze to early iron age cultures.
It is not for everyone but If you are interested in bronze age fantasy, learning about Glorantha is a must.
>>1211332
King of dragon pass
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>>1210622
llamas are not the largest, but the incas would gather huge trains of llamas to carry their goods across the andean region. It left to their own devices, they might have selectively bred larger and stronger stocks of llama equivalent to camels.
>>1210865
According to folklore, iron is anathema to the fay, often the only material that can harm them.
>>1211362
Also this, Glorantha is also has a game that is very unique in it itself. Where you control an Ortlanthi tribe (I would say resemble very close to Aryan nomads who migrated to iran-india) and tribal affairs.
Be angry, angry about elves
Instead of them outright banning iron, you should make it so that the fairies run a controlled market on iron that they've used to enslave humanity; since their own weakness is the very metal humans need to stay alive.
Only I don't know how you would reconcile this with the story, since the fairies wouldn't use iron fish like http://www.luckyironfish.com/. Ideally speaking, they would present every so many people with a small block of iron to heat with their drinking source. But maybe the more iron it is, the greater their intolerance towards it, so they have to keep the pieces small and hand them out one per person.
I don't know. Feel free to use or alter.
[spoiler]Maybe the fairies, once a year allow people to kill a cow so they can drink its blood, to satiate their iron deficiency. You know how back in the day only royalty was allowed to eat cattle or hens, unless they ordained it a holiday? Like that.[/spoiler]
