Adamantine

Fictional record. This page describes a mining commodity from a fictional setting, not a real material. Information is based on the cited canon, with adaptations and interpretation distinguished where necessary. It is kept separate from the real MineArchive corpus — see Fictional.

A jet-black metal of the Dungeons & Dragons worlds, alloyed from adamant or from the ferrous ore adamantite and counted among the hardest substances known. The game's free Basic Rules describe armour reinforced with it as turning any critical hit on the wearer into a normal hit.

Where it occurs

In the Forgotten Realms the ore occurs in veins in volcanic zones, mostly deep in the earth, and is rare in the extreme. Small meteorites of adamantite occasionally fall, and the metal has been found in earthmotes, the floating islands left by the Spellplague. The ores run brown-gold, blue-silver and green-silver, and the drow of the Underdark mostly mined black ores, favouring places where adamantine and faerzress, the Underdark's magical radiation, occur together. Baldur's Gate 3 places two veins of raw ore beside the lava flows of Grymforge, an ancient forge-stronghold in the Underdark beneath the Sword Coast.

How it's obtained

Dwarves are the recognised miners of adamantite and have their own words for the ore and the metal. Producing adamantine is described as a very difficult, high-temperature process, and the recipe differs between accounts: alloyed with mithral in the primary rules sources, five parts adamant to two of silver and one of electrum in others. Dwarves regard the bards' story of adamantine made from mithral and steel by cooperative sorcery as laughable. In Baldur's Gate 3 the Grymforge turns ore into a finished item in one step: ore and mould are placed in their chambers, a hammer is dropped to prepare the ore, lava is admitted to the crucible and the hammer falls again to forge the piece.

Properties

Black, with a green sheen by candlelight and a purple-white sheen under magical light. Melting points are given variously as about 2,280 and about 3,410 degrees Celsius, the higher figure needing exceptionally hot magical fires. Seawater leaves it unaffected, and dwarves brine it for the shine. It conducts magic well and so takes enchantment readily. In the rules, adamantine armour turns critical hits into normal hits; in Baldur's Gate 3 an adamantine weapon scores a critical hit whenever it strikes an object.

Why it's valuable

Adamantine is the metal for anything that must not break. Manacles of it could not be burst by anything weaker than a cloud giant and sold for 2,000 gold pieces during the Era of Upheaval, when a drill cost 200 and a hacksaw 600; after the Second Sundering a ten-pound bar could be had in Waterdeep for 1,000 gold pieces. The gates of the ancient dwarf realm of Alatorin were adamantine, the gold dwarves of the Great Rift made weapons of it in quantity, and in the drow city of Menzoberranzan the noble houses reinforced their walls, towers and doors with it. Many creatures, golems among them, are hard to harm with any lesser metal.

Uses

Armour and weapons above all, especially those meant to strike objects or to carry superior enchantment. Drow made house insignia, prosthetics, holy items, spiders and even spacefaring equipment of it, and the first and most powerful of the clockwork horrors was adamantine. Flakes, nuggets and cubes of the metal are consumed as components by several spells. In Baldur's Gate 3 the two ores of Grymforge yield any two of six items: a longsword, mace, scimitar, shield, scale mail or splint armour.

Canon & adaptations

Five different alloys have carried the name, and the sources disagree on the recipe, on the melting point and on whether sorcery can make it from other metals. Ed Greenwood's later clarifications treat the sorcerous accounts as non-metallurgical. Baldur's Gate 3 collapses the lore further: its forge consumes an item called mithral ore and produces adamantine, so the game treats one metal as the raw material of the other.

Related fictional records

Mithral

Recorded claims

Each claim is marked with its basis — explicit canon, MineArchive inference, adaptation only, or fandom interpretation — and attached to the source(s) below. Where tellings disagree, both are kept.

• Armour reinforced with adamantine, one of the hardest substances in existence, turns any critical hit on its wearer into a normal hit. (explicit canon) ¹
• Adamantite ore occurs in veins in volcanic zones, mostly deep in the earth, with occasional small meteorites of it; the drow mostly mined black ores. (MineArchive inference) ²
• Dwarves are the recognised miners and smelters of adamantite, and accounts of the alloy's recipe disagree: mithral in some, silver and electrum in others. (MineArchive inference) ²
• After the Second Sundering a ten-pound adamantine bar sold in Waterdeep for 1,000 gold pieces; adamantine manacles had earlier fetched 2,000. (MineArchive inference) ²
• In Baldur's Gate 3 the Grymforge turns the game's two pieces of mithral ore into any two of six adamantine items in a lava-fed crucible under a falling hammer. (adaptation only) ^3,4

Sources

1. (primary canon) Adamantine Armor — D&D 5th Edition Free Basic Rules (2014 and 2024), Roll20 Compendium — Wizards of the Coast rules text, licensed reproduction by Roll20
2. (interpretation) Adamantine — Forgotten Realms Wiki — Forgotten Realms Wiki (Fandom), citing Dragon 76 'Sage Advice', Volo's Guide to All Things Magical, Magic of Faerûn, Drow of the Underdark, Menzoberranzan, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Ed Greenwood's 2022 posts and other TSR/Wizards publications; read through the wiki's MediaWiki API
3. (adaptation) Adamantine Forge (location) — bg3.wiki — bg3.wiki, reproducing Baldur's Gate 3 (Larian Studios, 2023) location, item and in-game book text
4. (adaptation) Mithral Ore — bg3.wiki — bg3.wiki, reproducing Baldur's Gate 3 item data

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 16 October 2026