Discussion:What color is Adamantium?

What color is Adamantium?

Hawk 20:24, 4 March 2008 (MST)

Can anyone tell me in D&D specifically what color Adamantium is? In different books etc it is different colors (blue green black) but what color is it in D&D? can anyone think of a D&D book with a picture of adamantium armor etc?

Eiji 22:48, 4 March 2008 (MST)

They don't say, so I act as it was X-Men's adamantium... a steel silver metal which is gray molten. Actually, let's make a thread with out views on metal colors then...

• Adamantium Silver
• Cold Iron Dark Gray
• Silver... uh, Silver
• Mithril White

What else might there be metallic without clear description?

Hawk 23:16, 4 March 2008 (MST)

I know it doesn't actually say anywhere (bastards) but one artists interpretation in a picture in the d&d books would be enough for me lol. personally I like a green color as it sets it apart from the rest. A friend of mine (our current DM) was describing an item and he thought it was meant to be blackish (from memory) and he was very glad when i mentioned it depends on what your reading (he didn't like the color he was using lol). I fully expect someone to come here and tell me matter of factly that it is <insert color here> no exceptions so to combat that before it happens I would like to add a disclaimer "it's a mythical metal I can color it however I like".

Eiji 01:23, 5 March 2008 (MST)

More metals!

• Deep Coral: Always struck me as dark blue stone with many pitmarks in it.
• Obdurium: Black and unreflective, very dark and very heavy.

Hawk 01:57, 5 March 2008 (MST)

Why do I get the feeling you actually made an effort to find / think of those :P. Thankfully some of the non existant metals have colour descriptions / pictures like:

• Abysal Bloodiron: From the Planar Handbook "weapons forged of this metal usualy appear dark except for their cutting edges, which are as red as freshly spilled blood"
• Astral Driftmetal: From the Planar Handbook however does not have a picture nor description.
• Bronzewood: From the Eberron Campaign Setting is bronze in color (go figure) in the picture.
• Byeshk: From the Eberron Campaign Setting "has a lustrous purple sheen"
• Densewood: From the Eberron Campaign Setting has no description nor picture.
• Flametouched Iron: From the Eberron Campaign Setting "When mined, this iron variety has a speckled dark red color, resembling rust, but when it is refined, it takes on a shimmering, silvery hue." the picture is slightly blue green colored.
• Liverwood:From the Eberron Campaign Setting is a green-colored hardwood.
• Riedran Crysteel: From the Eberron Campaign Setting picture is light purple colored.

Lord Dhazriel 08:15, 5 March 2008 (MST)

If i remember well, in Baldur's Gate adamantium was dark purple, but these armours were made by the drow so they could be coloured. But adamantium can be any colour you like.

Hawk 08:25, 5 March 2008 (MST)

Lol that makes the list of colors for admantium four I draw the line at rainbow colored :P. One of my friends likes getting angry about stuff and when I was talking to our current DM about how it can be many different colors he was adamant ;) it was silver blue (or something) because thats the color is is in x-men.

Aarnott 08:14, 6 March 2008 (MST)

I think you are all forgetting that it is called Adamantine, not Adamantium. Take a look at the following wiki links:

• Adamantine (Note it is a real mineral)
• Adamant (Note that it used to refer to diamonds! Maybe that is why it costs so much :P)
• Adamantium

Hawk 10:09, 6 March 2008 (MST)

My god your right. Thanks so much Aarnott! I never noticed that D&D used Adamantine I always assumed it would be adamantium as in the mythical version Guess I should of read the name closer. So that settles it in standard D&D we use Adamantine as dictated by the DMG and SRD which is as wikipedia describes it a "silky brown form of corundum" so adamantine armor would be brown. Felix, our current DM, will love this (he's very excitable lol). EDIT: So you could actually create a new metal Adamantium for your game what would the properties of that be?

ShadowyFigure 10:37, 6 March 2008 (MST)

Hmm strange always thought Adamantine a green color... I suppose if Adamantium was a metal in my game it would be like Adamantine but stronger say granting DR 5/-...

Cronocke 04:40, 7 March 2008 (MST)

Myself, I always saw Adamantine as a dull grey, with gleaming steel coloration at the edge if given a blade. (Siegfried's sword here)
Mithral looks like silver, but with a very slight blue tint. (Zhao Yun's armor here)
Deep Iron is a darker, deep blue metal, looking almost like it's made out of some sort of blue stone. (Cao Pi's sword here)
Silver speaks for itself.
Deep crystal is green, mundane crystal is purple. (Deep crystal sword here)
Darkwood... also speaks for itself.
So does Dragonhide.

But then, my favorite color is blue, heh. Most other materials in other books have descriptions of how they look, though.

DanteElGuapo 11:22, 9 March 2008 (MST)

I have various colors of Adamantine, depending on where it's mined, I have a clan of dwarves living in an old inactive volcano and the adamantine is darkly colored to reflect the reigon. But hey, its your game, have fun with it.

68.101.6.29 21:26, 4 May 2008 (MST)

There are actually some Wizards pictures of adamantine items. In the Magic Item Compendium, there's an adamantine waraxe that's black (Axe of Ancestral Virtue, p. 47), and there's an adamantine morningstar (Dawnstar, p. 51) that's gray. I haven't checked the entire thing or every sourcebook, but those are the only two pictures I know of.

Personally, I've pictured it as a lustrous, jade green.

Ganteka 20:31, 28 May 2008 (MST)

I'd go with a frosted whitish silver.

After having just read an article in Smithsonian magazine about manufactured diamonds, and the origin of the word, being Latin or something (adamas, meaning invincible, I believe), and that diamond and adamantine/adamantium were thought to be the same thing, I must take some liberties of course in describing its color, since adamantine isn't real, and is a metal. So, what properties would such a hard substance have? Well, I gotta think that adamantine would be lightly colored, as it's so resilient that it reflects a lot of light. As for color itself, I'd really think that if it had color, that would be due to minor impurities in the ore that don't affect its hardness, just like red, yellow or blue diamonds. So adamantine could be any color depending on where it was mined from. Though I imagine that pure adamantine would be a pale silver color, paler even than mithral. As for the slightly frosted appearance, I just imagine it would be very difficult to polish out adamantine to a mirror shine. Hope that this helps, and sorry for that run-on sentence in the beginning.

Tipttt 18:09, 10 February 2009 (MST)

In final fantasy (2, I think) an adamantium weapon is like a greenish blue , not shiny and hard looking weapon.

Jamesja12 17:26, 23 July 2009 (MST)

I think its blue. mainly because i used to play a game caled runescape.

(note, i no longer like it)

173.245.55.120 18:37, 9 August 2012 (MST)‎

Epic Level Handbook's description of an Adamantine Golem says it is often mistaken for a large Iron Golem, but it has the unique shine of adamantium.

Nihil 01:17, 14 August 2012‎ (MST)

no way it's brown

using a wiki pg. for a mineral (a variant Aluminum oxide) would also make it less hard than diamond... is it? It's shiny metallic grey primarily effected by the color of light shining on it

Salasay Δ 09:36, 26 January 2013 (MST)

Personally, I see Adamantine as green, Mithral as blue (silvery blue. You know how silver can be seen as kind-of bluish?), and Cold Iron is dark grey.

Maninorange 18:45, 2 February 2009 (MST)

I've been told that adamantine is black; I've seen pictures where it is bright, lustrous gray; I, like Jamesja12, played Runescape, in which it was green (not blue). I've always simply assumed it was a lustrous gray, as the green metal always looked quite cheesy. However, after doing some research and finding that there is a mineral known as adamantine spar, and also finding that this mineral is basically a sapphire/ruby with impurities that make it brown, I will henceforth suggest that adamantine is actually a crystalline material which tends toward translucent brown, but, once forged and treated, may take on virtually any color, most commonly blue, black, and red.

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