Hello people.Me and the life mate have been working on a fantasy book together and we are currently in the process of outlining the cultures. The culture of our antagonists' is a sort of woodland tribal/celtic[ish] deal and they are very nature oriented. Being a detail freak and wanting to have some real world credibility in the story, I am trying to decide how they produce steel. I want steel to be an important part of the culture, but a thing that is in limited supply. I also do not want there to be a large amount of resources committeded to mining or processing iron ore for steel. So does anyone have any real world ideas explaining how the people can produce steel without using underground mining operations, large processing facilities, and without raping the land?All help and ideas are appreciated
Well, steel is just modified iron, so you're going to have to start with acquiring the iron first. For that, you're most likely going to be using some sort of underground mining somewhere - either they do that themselves, or they purchase the iron elsewhere. Assuming you're not dealing with meteoric iron (which is possible, but pretty uncommon), or iron sands (not likely in a woodland area), then unless you're dealing with a rocky outcropping with iron veins out in the open, I'm pretty sure there needs to be somebody doing some digging. That said, it doesn't need to be a full raping of the land scenario. A couple of minor mines, some small-scale smelting operations, and somebody knowing the secret of making steel, and it could give you small amounts of steel without making an ecological disaster.
