How would Fae Civilization advanced past Bronze Age even with their fear of iron

As everyone knows most mythology & fiction has a fairy in it. they often use their mythological weakness which is iron when the faes go to battle with other mythological sapient species, especially humans but we don't know how their civilization advanced past the bronze age in the first place, especially in the Speculative Fiction setting like Modern World or Patchwork Fantasy World that we see in Anime & Manga

They go the route of "Fae-Metals", of course.

Or just remain in touch with nature and never bother develop industry and metal-work in the first place.

Alternatively, they may develop magitek: structures of spell-strengthened bone; tools of magicked bronze or stone; devices of enchanted crystal; and so on. (Or perhaps the bone and bronze might be the other way around.)

Runes = "The duct-tape of fairy land".

I mean they could just enchant bronze to make it stronger so they don't have to resort to iron

Iron was a major leap not just because it's stronger, but it's also much more common. Bronze requires both copper and tin deposits nearby, which isn't all that common. Iron just requires iron ore and plenty of charcoal.

But if you're dealing with the fae, they don't necessarily need to go full iron. Composite materials are known for being very strong. If the fae have some sort of hold over nature, then natural materials could compete in many ways.

I could certainly see them charming or directing spiders into making their textiles, or growing trees as hard as stone.

I think it depends on exactly how the metal reacts to them and vice versa. If the metal needs direct contact with their skin, then they would prolly wear specialized gloves (more in general. I assume such cloths were already in use for metalworking contexts given the hear of the metal), if being near it is what causes a poisoned reaction in them as would be the normal scenario assumed in the thread, then they would prolly go full hazmat in any case that necessitates working with the metal and find a method to "detox" it for civilain use.

If the phase Cold Iron is interpreted as literally as possible...then its simply a matter of keeping the metal warm enough to be disqualified.

The issue here is that iron was important in early development because you could make a lot more useful things out of much stronger metal. Not just swords, but also metallic pieces for your clothes and armor, easier access to better tools, etc.

All of which are things you'd keep pretty close on your person.

True but they could be the type of fae that only wear cloth, or even nothing at all. Plus magic can remove the need for tools

My point is more that "the Fae will simply not touch or be near the iron but still use it" isn't really viable. Alternative options exist.

In particular, if their use of magic means they have greater control over energy and greater understanding of nature, stuff like titanium and aluminium could absolve many of the needs that Iron fulfills. In real life it's quite high-tech to produce this, but a species like Fae might have completely different approaches.

Going off what Ars suggested: One way to approach this would be to work off The Fair Folk's traditional association with forests and trees and have them shape wood into an all-purpose working material through supernatural woodland arts.

Rather than forging or casting ferrous implements, they would grow specialised hardwood plants, shaping the geometry of their growth using scaffolds (magical or otherwise) akin to modern tissue engineering. These scaffolds shape a plant's branches into hard tools like rakes, riding bridles and spearheads as they grow, while the bases of the branches serve as sprues, rendered soft through enchantments or potions so they can be easily cut when the time comes to "harvest" the parts. The same means are also used to grow the wood fibres inside the tools into a dense mass and align them like what a hammer forging process does to structural grains in steel, resulting in an exceptionally tough end product.

The process is highly delicate, requiring fae woodsmiths to guide the growth of their hardwood plants into complex shapes while giving them enough sunlight, air, water and nutrients to survive. The knowledge of mathematics and optics are highly sought after for this reason; this is also one of the fae's main uses for bronze and other shiny metals, cast and polished into geometrically complex mirrors that channel the sun's light into the path of the plant's growth.

Some tribes of the fae reside deep underground, far from the sun's light. To grow the hardwood saplings they took from topside, they cast pale enchanted flames and lure in blind cave creatures whose skins glow in the dark.

The fae spent eons selectively breeding their hardwood plants to survive with little water or sunlight, reacting to any infusion of both with directed, explosive growth. Fae hardwood orchards are dark, tomb-like stone caverns dug into barrows, lit by the sun through small apertures that dot the ceiling like stars in the night sky. Few of the fae youth have the patience to learn the mirror-lore needed to operate these orchards when they could be hunting for game and thralls, and those with the knowledge are fiercely fought over by their kings and queens.

On some rowdy nights at human taverns, a hooded stranger would walk in and challenge the patrons to a game of dice. Unlike the proud fae, the humans have no shortage of tradesfolk well-versed in numbers and geometry. Most of these, the fae learned to their annoyance, live behind the stone walls of their cities, far from the reach of the Fair Folk's seasonal hunt. But they all have the same weakness: they think they're better with numbers than they really are. It only takes a little glamour for a silver-tongued fae hunter to lure one to bet themselves into a life of servitude in the Land of Faerie.

Most everyday tools used by fae commoners, like cookware and cutlery, can still be produced through regular carpentry and pottery. Bronze is reserved for fae royals and druids: not only are copper and bronze hard to come by (unless you're in a Central Asian folktale, where copper is the plaything of sinister spirits), but the act of melting them down for casting means felling trees for fuel — an act which the woodland fae do not take lightly.

Though it took centuries, the oldest and richest of the fae kingdoms are slowly inching out of these archaic practices. Through centuries of breeding and enchanting, they came up with hardwood plants whose barks they could spin into textile fibre like so many strands of flax or cotton. This fibre is then finely woven into a fabric, strong enough to stop an iron bodkin arrowhead shot from a human bow. Layers of this fabric can be cut into shape and glued on top of each other with sap from the ancestral trees, creating a tough yet lightweight fibre-resin composite that more than matches any iron tool that humans could possibly forge.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Sep 9th 2022 at 6:10:05 AM

One of the sequel novels to Willow had the elves using ceramics of some kind.

Ceramics are neat, don't get me wrong, but they're not really a replacement for metallic objects. Metal armor is great; ceramic armor sucks.

Metal is also easy to forge into a shape and can hold an edge easily, so it's good for weapons and tools.

They could do all that, or do what the Fae were historically depicted as doing: you enchant a bunch of humans to be your mind enslaved iron clad meatsheilds for you.

IOW, the Fae were a slave based society anyway, so they can most easily build off that.

I do believe the fae have the whole "if you partake of their hospitality you're under their control" thing going on

Sounds like a fantasy dystopia waiting to happen

Depending on your take on the fae, and what other capabilities they might have, this could be handled multiple ways. Partly, it depends on exactly how they are weak to iron. Are they:

1. Mostly only injured if iron enters the body or otherwise contaminates a wound?
   • An elven blacksmith is probably a lot like a human one, except they will have developed PPE earlier than we did. Think thick gloves, Full-body apron, and face-shield/goggles. Maybe breathing protection.
   • Weapons need good, solid non-ferrous grips anyway. Guards, etc would probably be brass or bronze. (common even in human weapons)
   • Non-weapon structures are going to need coatings to keep a passer-by from picking up iron slivers. Plating (if they have the chemistry/alchemy for it), and various tars and resins are some obvious solutions here.
2. Injured/burned on contact?
   • Same as above, only more so. Work with drop hammers that are worked by pulleys and leavers from behind blast shields. View the work with mirrors or other optics. Manipulate the piece with something like a pantograph/waldo arrangement.
   • Weapons training with these is probably a much more advanced skill
   • Structural elements are probably behind masonry or thick plaster. Steps will need to be taken to prevent rust from contaminating the environment.
3. Ill effects just from being near sufficient quantities?
   • This might be more of a problem, but with the kind of precautions that humans reserve for plutonium and uranium. Not widely used except where nothing else will do.
   • practical uses will be limited according to what is required to effectively shield against the effects. Will a resin layer do? Thick layer of another metal?

I was thinking about this and i think the traditional Cold Iron tales wouldn't work with number one and while number three is supported by burying iron it would require making iron radiative which i don't think it is though i could be wrong and if fairies walk around barefoot (or at least used to) then number two is supported by horseshoes being iron to deter fairies

Number three doesn't necessarily require making iron radioactive—it may just be that the Fair Folk have a different relationship with it than do we.

Now, this could be magical—through supernatural means, iron's mere presence is harmful to the Folk.

(The exact underpinnings—if given at all—could be a variety of things. Perhaps the Folk have a similar nature to iron, and the resulting resonance is painful; perhaps iron bespeaks technology, and proximity to that is anathema to a nature-aligned Folk; perhaps everything produces aetheric auras, and those of iron are harmful to the Folk; perhaps the Folk can feel the "nature" of things, and iron feels "sharp"; and so on and so forth.)

Or it could be (at least somewhat) scientific: For example, Terry Pratchett had it, as I recall, that it was iron's interaction with electromagnetic fields that was the problem: his Fair Folk could perceive EM fields, and the manner in which iron distorted those fields was very unpleasant for them.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Nov 11th 2022 at 9:22:59 PM

In fact, iron is the least radioactive element in the universe - lighter elements undergo fusion, heavier elements undergo fission. Stars die when they have too much iron in their cores and it interferes with the nuclear emissions that stabilise them against gravitational collapse.

Interesting though I don't know how effective iron's effect on the electromagnetic field would be without being magnetized first

For that you might want to check with someone better-versed than I in the relevant physics, I'm afraid.

Massive. We use iron or iron composites in the cores of electric transformers and motors to bend and direct magnetic fields, for example. Without this, our power distribution grid would be far less efficient.

I wasn't suggesting that Iron was literally radioactive. I was suggesting that depending on your background and underpinnings, it might have proximity effects that were analogous to radioactivity, requiring similar levels of elaborate shielding.