Id love to see the math on the amount of iron in a person's blood, because I find it HIGHLY questionable that there's enough iron in only 300 people to make a full iron sword. I'm too lazy to do it myself though.
this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longsword
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body#Elemental_composition_list
The numbers roughly check out. Not sure how much one can extract by just draining the blood though.
You're both in luck! Someone else linked to an article that breaks down how it could work in reality: https://startrek.website/comment/9430643
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These are the required elements for making steel:
- Iron
- Carbon
- Manganese
- Chromium
- Phosphorus
- Sulphur
- Nickel
- Molybdenum
- Titanium
- Copper
- Boron
Source: https://www.cliftonsteel.com/education/11elementsfoundinsteel
So, iron is only step 1. Humans are carbon based lifeforms, so I'm guessing that carbon is also sorted, that's step 2.
There's plenty of other elements in the human body, like phosphorus and sulphur, but I'm guessing that it's going to take more than 300 adults.
Source: https://sciencenotes.org/elements-in-the-human-body-and-what-they-do/
Source: https://sciencenotes.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/PeriodicTableHumanBody.png
You only need iron and carbon the rest is already alloyed steel. You can definitely make a good blade out of only iron and carbon, it won't be stainless, it might be difficult to harden just right, but it will be flexible and hold a keen edge if forged right. The smiths of ole dealt with nastier steels containing all kinds of things making it worse, not better (such as excessive amounts of sulphur and phosphorus) so I'd say they'd manage.
Steel requires only iron and up to about 2% carbon
Rest are minor alloying elements used mainly in modern steel alloys to improve the steel beyond what just carbon steel could do like for example stainless steels
Well, the non-metals and Manganese are way more available than iron anyway (probably molybdenum too). But it will be really difficult to create high-quality steel.
Someone else did the math, accounting for waste made during forging. https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-gaming/blood-iron-sword-myth-explored/
This is the MVP-comment! Thank you for that source!
This is extremely helpful, and fits perfectly into my secret plan
Secret plan
I will use this info as background for a BBEG in my TTRPG game
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- Your link says these are elements commonly found in steel, not that they are all required. In fact it says of phosphorus and sulphur that they are generally undesirable.
- We don't need to make a steel sword, an iron sword could do.
Either way you would definitely need carbon, but as you say that's pretty easy. I don't think any of the other elements are absolutely required.
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Listen. If they used surplus blood to do this (blood that was expired) and then held a raffle at the end of each year where all blood donors were entered to win a knife or sword made from the expired human blood iron, I bet they'd see blood donations skyrocket.
I want The Red Cross to hire you for marketing asap so this can actually happen.
Somebody call NileRed asap
After completing all these steps, the result was a little anticlimactic and disappointing. But still, I realized there was one thing left to do: taste it.
You could even use the carbon from their flesh to make the steel!
Chingis Khan approves.
Genghis Khan* in English
Correcting just so that others would understand
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So about 3150 pints of blood (10.5 being average for an adult).
Sounds doable XD
Edit: New ethical dilemma just dropped - kill 300 to forge the sword, or deny 3150 people blood in an emergency to forge the sword...
Here's the plan: we kill 330 people, save 330 people, the rest is free sword!
P.S. math may not be perfect
New ethical dilemma just dropped - kill 300 to forge the sword, or deny 3150 people blood in an emergency to forge the sword...
New ethical dilemma just dropped - kill 300 to forge the sword, or deny 3150 people blood in an emergency to forge the sword…
You know there’s a writer reading this meme somewhere: here; where ever it came from; where ever it will be reposted; and adding it to the story they are working on. Wonder where we’ll come across it first?
You could also get a big sword-shaped ice cube mold, a chest freezer and probably not even a whole enemy.
You would have to do battle in freezing climates too though in order for it to remain physically effective
Though I imagine the psychological effectiveness might persist a bit longer
Mythbusters did this on their first episode: ice bullet. I think a sword might also be too brittle unfortunately.
Glory.
Or you can use one person and drain their blood over long time.
Let's do the math...
You can donate three times a year to the red cross (once every 112 days). According to some page, you donate around 10% of your blood volume each time.
That means, for a volume equivalent of 300 people, you'd need to donate 3000 times, which would take around 1000 years.
The vampire is going to need more people, or to keep a person alive 1000 years with vampire magic.
When you're harvesting the blood iron of your enemies you don't have time for ethics. A controlled study managed 4 weeks within ethical boundaries, maybe we can cut that in half unethically. So 14 days, 3000 . 14 = 115 years. So when you torture two people, you could manage to do 58 years. Better start early!
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But remember they are your enemy so you could drain a bit more blood more often to shave a few years off maybe
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Slaanesh approves
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