To whom it may concern,
I would like to address the gossip some of you rabblemouths have been spreading about my earlier statements on the quality of human-made armor. I stand by what I said, but if I am to be lauded or condemned, I would rather it be for the meaning behind my words, rather than every lackabrains’s interpretation thereof. What I said was, that human armor is quite good, for what it is. In order to better communicate my meaning, I will expand upon it by category.
Alloys and metallurgy
If you were to purchase two plain steel ingots, one each from Dawi and Human smiths, the difference in quality would be less than most would care to admit. Do not assume I see no difference between Dawi and Human metal! A Human smith might incorporate small amounts of copper, tin, or zinc into their work for purposes aesthetic and practical. However, our smiths create alloys that, to put it bluntly, are beyond the capability of Human forges. So a Human knight’s armor is quite good, for being made of plain steel, while our ironbreakers are clad in much denser, more tensile stuff.
Tools and methods
The Virtuous Cycle of Mining can be summarized thusly: our miners dig deep. They bring wealth and reports of danger to our craftsmen. Our craftsman improve our tools and methods, allowing us to dig deeper. Such is why Dawi engineering no peer in any, or every, realm. This is reflected in the tools we use. A Human smith, working their forge and bellows (rudimentary tools for a Dawi smith), lacks both the tools we take for granted, and the smithing techniques we’ve developed use to use them to their full effect. A Dawi smith, restricted to such conditions, could hardly be expected to fare much better.
Use cases and doctrine
Need guides design, and Dawi and Humans design armor optimized for fundamentally different purposes. Yes, both forge armor “for combat”, but differences in our combat doctrine are reflected in how we armor ourselves. Where we Dawi excel at tunnel fighting and siegecraft, Humans favor open field cavalry maneuvering and infantry formation-fighting. This doctrine informs their choice of weapons, the spear and the lance, which together inform their choices of armor. If you were committed to fighting a battle of maneuver in an open field, you would be well served to don armor that incorporated Human design elements.
In summary
It is easy to look at Human armor and dismiss it as crude, if you look at it only from the perspective of a Dawi. If one of our skilled smiths were to craft armor, appropriate for open field infantry or cavalry maneuvering, out of plain steel, using tools no more advanced than a forge and blast furnace, then the results of their craft would look very much like Human armor. Human armor is not as good as that of the Sons of Grungni, but it is quite good for the purpose and conditions of it's manufacture.
With thanks, Artom Ergensson, Third Councilor to the Carnelian Gauntlet