IMG ID: the covers of Maus and Maus 2 by Art Spiegelman first image shows a parent and child Mouse with the parent in a trenchcoat and the child overed in the blanket, the parent has an arm around the child and both are sitting on the ground, the parent is in a protective pose. Behind them is a swastika in a white circle with a cat Hitler in the middle. The title "Maus" is at the top and at the bottom it says "A survivor's Tale Art Spiegelman" second image shows a lot of mice in striped blue uniforms and caps behind a wire fence, they are all staring at the viewer, they are all more pale than the mice in the first image and have deep eye bags. behind them is the same swastika in a circle with cat Hitler in the middle. at the top is the author "Art Spiegleman" and the title "Maus" and at the bottom it says "a survivor's tale" underneath that is a red stripe on the left is a big 2 in roman numerals and in the center is text "And here my troubles began" END ID
My fiancee and I were discussing the worst metal to use to make armor, and the obvious answers are lead and gold, but she cunningly suggested mercury. Which is a fair point, but then I wondered if solid mercury is any good. Googling told me that the melting point of mercury is -38° c (-37° f), so first you get it really fucking cold. At that point, it turns out that mercury has a tensile strength of 1900 mpa, compared to lead’s 18 and steel’s ~500-940 (depending upon the kind of steel).
Now, I know that tensile strength is not necessarily the best measure of a material’s ability to function as armor, but I’m a liberal arts major and didn’t care to actually do that much more research before going straight to, “EVIL ICE DEMONS IN MERCURY ARMOR. THE PCS CAN’T LOOT IT BECAUSE WHEN THEY PUT IT ON IT MELTS AND KILLS THEM.”
Ice Demons wielding weapons made of frozen mercury. Spearheads that break off & melt inside the target. Swords that leave tiny bits of melted mercury inside the wound (the swords re-freeze to razor sharpness while in the ice demon’s claws).
Item: blades, spears, and/or arrowheads made of mercury frozen by Ice Magic; can only be used by one with Ice Magic, but deliver whatever damage the weapon type would normally make plus equal amounts of Cold and 1d8 Poison. Once the wound has been delivered, it continues to deliver 1d8 Poison until the mercury has been removed by healing magic, Wish, &c.
Apparently I’ve seen this before? But this EXACTLY matches the description of the Morgul blade in LOTR? It felt like “a dart of poisoned ice” (or something like that), it left a piece in Frodo’s shoulder that slowly poisoned him, and the blade melted away when Aragorn looked at it. And Glorfindel warned them all to handle it as little as possible, too!
ALT
ALT
skajador