#thieves' cant

[theoutcastrogue]

Cold Iron in folklore, fiction, and RPGs

'Gold is for the mistress—silver for the maid! Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.' 'Good!' said the Baron, sitting in his hall, 'But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all!' — Rudyard Kipling, “Cold Iron”

Folklore

Drudenmesser, or "witch-knife", an apotropaic folding knife from Germany

The notion that iron (or steel) can ward against evil spirits, witches, fairies, etc is very widespread in folklore. You hang a horseshoe over your threshold to deny entry to evil spirits, you carry an iron tool with you to make sure devils won't assault you, you place a small knife under the baby's crib to ward it from witches, and so on. Iron is apotropaic in many many cultures.

In English, we often come across passages that refer to apotropaic cold iron (or cold steel). "All uncouth, unknown Wights are terrifyed by nothing earthly so much as by cold Iron", says Robert Kirk in 1691, which I believe is the earliest example. "Evil spirits cannot bear the touch of cold steel. Iron, or preferably steel, in any form is a protection", says John Gregorson Campbell in 1901.

Words

So what is cold iron? In this context, it’s just iron. The “cold” part is poetic, especially – but not only – if we’re talking about either blades (or swords, weapons, the force of arms) or manacles and the like. It just sounds more ominous. There are “cold yron chaines” in The Fairie Queene (1596), and a 1638 book of travels tells us that a Georgian general (in the Caucasus) vowed “to make the Turk to eat cold iron”.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang defines “cold iron” as a sword, and dates the term to 1698. From 1725 it appears in Cant dictionaries (could this sense be thieves’ cant, originally? why not, plenty of words and expressions started as underworld slang and then entered the mainstream), and from ~1750 its use becomes much more common.

NGram Viewer diagram for 1600-2019.

In other contexts, cold iron is (surprise!) iron that’s not hot. So let’s talk a bit about metallurgy.

Metals

In nature, we can find only one kind of iron that’s pure enough to work with: meteoritic iron. It has to literally fall from the sky. Barring that very rare occurrence, people have to mine the earth for iron ore, which is not workable as is. To separate the iron from the ore we have to smelt it, and for that we need heat, in the form of hot charcoals. Throwing the ore on the coals won’t do much of anything, it’s not hot enough. But if we enclose the coals in a little tower built of clay, leaving holes for air flow, the temperature rises enough to smelt the ore. That’s called a bloomery.

clay bloomery / medieval bloomery / beating the bloom to get rid of the slag

What comes out of the bloomery is a bloom: a porous, malleable mass of iron (that we need) and slag (byproducts that we don’t need). But now we can get rid of the slag and turn the porous mass to something solid, by hammering the hot bloom over and over. And once the slag is off, by the same process we can give it a desired shape in the forge, reheating it as needed. This is called “working” the iron, hence “wrought iron” objects, i.e. forged.

a blacksmith in his forge, with bellows, fire, and anvil (English woodcut, 1603)

This is the lowest-tech version, possibly going back to ~2000 BCE in Nigeria. If we add bellows, the improved air flow will raise the temperature. So smelting happens faster and more efficiently in the bloomery, and so does heating the iron in the forge, making it easier to work with. And that’s the standard process from the Iron Age all through the middle ages and beyond (although in China they may have skipped this stage and gone straight to the next one).

If we make the bloomery bigger and bigger, with stronger and stronger bellows, we end up with a blast furnace, a construction so efficient that the temperature outright melts the iron, and it’s liquified enough to be poured into a mould and acquire the desired shape when it cools off. This is “cast iron”.

a blast furnace

So in all of this, what’s cold iron? Well, it’s iron that went though the heat and cooled off. (No heat = no iron, all you got is ore.) If it came out of a bloomery, or if it wasn’t cast, it’s by definition worked, hammered, beaten, wrought, and that happened while it was still hot.

Is there such a thing as “cold-wrought” iron? No. In fact, “working cold iron” was a simile for something foolish or pointless. A smith who beats cold iron instead of putting it in the fire shows folly, says a 1694 book on religion, so you too should choose your best tools, piety and good decorum, to educate your children and servants, instead of beating them. When Don Quixote (1605) declares he’ll go knight-erranting again, Sancho Panza tries to dissuade him, but it’s like “preaching in the desert and hammering on cold iron” (a direct translation of martillar en hierro frío).

Minor work can be done on cold iron. A 1710 dictionary of technical terms tells us that a rivetting-hammer is “chiefly used for rivetting or setting straight cold iron, or for crooking of small work; but ’tis seldom used at the forge”. Fully fashioning an object out of cold iron is not a real process – though a 1659 History of the World would claim that in Arabia it’s so hot that “smiths work nails and horseshoes out of cold iron, softened only by the vigorous heat of the sun, and the hard hammering of hands on the anvil”. [I declare myself unqualified to judge the veracity of this statement, let's just say I have doubts.] And there is of course such a thing as “cold wrought-iron”, as in wrought iron after it’s cooled off.

Either way, in the context of pre-20th century English texts which refer to apotropaic “cold iron”, it’s definitely not “cold-wrought”, or meteoritic, or a special alloy of any kind. It’s just iron.

Fiction

The old superstition kept coming up in fantasy fiction. In 1910 Rudyard Kipling wrote the very influential short story “Cold Iron” (in the collection Rewards and Fairies), where he explains invents the details of the fairies’ aversion to iron. They can’t bewitch a child wearing boots, because the boots have nails in the soles. They can’t pass under a doorway guarded by a horseshoe, but they can slip through the backdoor that people neglected to guard. Mortals live “on the near side of Cold Iron”, because there’s iron in every house, while fairies live “on the far side of Cold Iron”, and want nothing to do with it. And changelings brought up by fairies will go back to the world of mortals as soon they touch cold iron for the first time.

In Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword (1954), we read:

“Let me tell you, boy, that you humans, weak and short-lived and unwitting, are nonetheless more strong than elves and trolls, aye, than giants and gods. And that you can touch cold iron is only one reason.”

In Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn (1968) the unicorn is imprisoned in an iron cage:

“She turned and turned in her prison, her body shrinking from the touch of the iron bars all around her. No creature of man’s night loves cold iron, and while the unicorn could endure its presence, the murderous smell of it seemed to turn her bones to sand and her blood to rain.”

Poul Anderson would come back to that idea in Operation Chaos (1971), where the worldbuilding’s premise is that magic and magical creatures have been reintroduced into the modern world, because a scientist “discovered he could degauss the effects of cold iron and release the goetic forces”. And that until then, they had been steadily declining, ever since the Iron Age came along.

There are a million examples, I’m just focusing on those that would have had a more direct influence on roleplaying games. However, I should note that all these say “cold iron” but mean “iron”. Yes, the fey call it cold, but they are a poetic bunch. You can’t expect Robin Goodfellow’s words to be pedestrian, now can you?

RPGs

And from there, fantasy roleplaying systems got the idea that Cold Iron is a special material that fey are vulnerable to. The term had been floating around since the early D&D days, but inconsistently, scattered in random sourcebooks, and not necessarily meaning anything else than iron. In 1st Edition’s Monster Manual (1977) it’s ghasts and quasits who are vulnerable to it, not any fey creature. Devils and/or fiends might dislike iron, powdered cold iron is a component in Magic Circle Against Evil, and “cold-wrought iron” makes a couple of appearances. For example, in AD&D it can strike Fool’s Gold and turn it back to its natural state, revealing the illusion.

Then Changeling: The Dreaming came along and made it a big deal, a fundamental rule, and an anathema to all fae:

Cold iron is the ultimate sign of Banality to changelings. ... Its presence makes changelings ill at ease, and cold iron weapons cause horrible, smoking wounds that rob changelings of Glamour and threaten their very existence.... The best way to think about cold iron is not as a thing, but as a process, a very low-tech process. It must be produced from iron ore over a charcoal fire. The resulting lump of black-gray material can then be forged (hammered) into useful shapes. — Changeling: The Dreaming (2nd Edition, 1997)

So now that we know how iron works, does that description make sense? Well, if we assume that the iron ore is unceremoniously dumped on coals, it does not. You can’t smelt iron like that. If we assume that a bloomery is involved even though it’s not mentioned, then yes, this is broadly speaking how iron’s been made since the Iron Age, and until blast furnaces came into the picture. But the World of Darkness isn’t a pseudo-medieval setting, it’s modern urban fantasy. So the implication here is that “cold iron” is iron made the old way: you can’t buy it in the store, someone has to replicate ye olde process and do the whole thing by hand. Now, this is NOT how the term “cold iron” has been used in real life or fiction thus far, but hey, fantasy games are allowed to invent things.

Regardless, 3.5 borrowed the idea, and for the first time D&D made this a core rule. Now most fey creatures had damage reduction and took less damage from weapons and natural attacks, unless the weapon was made of Cold Iron:

“This iron, mined deep underground, known for its effectiveness against fey creatures, is forged at a lower temperature to preserve its delicate properties.” — Player’s Handbook (3.5 Edition, 2003)

Pathfinder kept the rule, though 5e did not. And unlike Changeling, this definition left it somewhat ambiguous if we’re talking about a material with special composition (i.e. not iron) or made with a special process (i.e. iron but). The community was divided, threads were locked over this!

So until someone points me to new evidence, I’ll assume that the invention of cold iron as a special material, distinct from plain iron, should be attributed to TTRPGs.

[taitavva]

when im in a worst roommate ever competition & my opponent is joker persona 5 royal 🙄

[stargirl230]

kaito screencap redraw! plus my favorite panel from the scarlet return arc lol

I've been reading detco for like 2 years and the unhealthy obsession fanart motivation finally caught up

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated)

[srapsodia]

Maaaaan, that was close...

[petermorwood]

See Michael Crichton’s novel “The Great Train Robbery” where thieves’ cant often appears in dialogue. It’s been a while since I read it, but IIRC a lot of the terms weren’t Info-dump-explained but were (or became) clear in context.

Also check out Back Slang, Pig Latin and particularly Polari, made famous by Julian & Sandy in “Round the Horne”. This radio show assumed - correctly* - that many of their audience were both more dirty-minded and more wordly-wise than would ever be admitted in public.

“Bona to vada your dolly old eek,” etc.

*****

* Another example from the old-time talking-type wireless: “The Goon Show” occasionally sneaked in bits of naughty Army slang such as the “Jodhpur Hooded Cobra” and characters like “Justin Heidelberger” and “Major Hugh Jampton (excused shorts)”.

One is a species of trouser snake, the others are Just an Idle Bugger and Huge Hampton. Since “Hampton” is rhyming slang derived from London district Hampton Wick, with a meaning that should stick out a mile be fairly obvious, the problem about wearing hot-weather uniform is, or rather isn’t, there for all to see.

When complaints came in, some were from old soldiers who recognised such language, while others were from old soldier’s wives who shouldn’t have but clearly did. 

Innuendo meets outuendo or possibly intheknowendo.. :->

*****

Polari also appeared on the Discworld, as Terry said himself:

"A certain amount of DW slang comes from Palari or Polari, the fairground  / underworld / theatre 'secret language' (which seems to have a lot of roots in old Italian). UK readers with long memories might recall the pair of gay actors 'Julian and Sandy', in the old Round the Horne radio show in the Sixties and Seventies (innocent times, innocent times); they  spoke almost pure Palari."

Polari-Palari was / is also spelled Parlayaree. 

This does NOT imply association with Nuckelavee, and the management accepts no responsibility for any unpleasantness caused by mistaking one for the other.

Rogue Week: Thieves Cant

image credit: Ron Spears

Thieves cant is essentially a secret code shared between thieves. In Dungeons & Dragons, this is a way for rogues to roleplay with NPCs of the criminal underbelly of their world. Here, I’ve outlined or given examples of thieves cant to help you create your own ideas for your campaigns or characters. In the final section I’ve written up some new thieves cant for D&D-specific terms.

Thieves Cant

Thieves Cant is a conglomeration of many languages but mostly a mixing of Romany and English. I couldn’t tell you the origins of each of these slang terms because I simply don’t know them. Many dictionaries for thieves cant have been printed and reprinted since the 1500s as normal folks struggled to keep up with the ever-evolving language. I’ve compiled a list of real-world thieves cant terms that might appear in your D&D campaign. All words here are taken from The Lexicon of Thieves Cant by Shaun Haley, which is the most exhaustive I could find online.

Alarm (to sound the alarm): cry beef

Bribe: dawb, grease, hush money

Brothel: academy, snoozing ken

Building/House: ken, panny

Crowbar: bess, betty, ginny, jimmy

Danger: lay

Daytime: lightmans

Gullible Person: cull, gull, gudgeon, pigeon

Innkeeper: bluffer

Lock Pick: charm, dub, kate, screw

Man: cove

Money: blunt, caravan, iron, lowre, plate, pony, rag, ready, rhino, ribbin, wedge, king’s pictures

Murder: hush

Nighttime: darkmans

Receiver of Stolen Goods: family man, fence

Sleight of Hand: fam lay, paum

Steal: bite, cloy, curbing law, heave, hoist, lift, nim, prad lay

Suspicion (to realize something is up): twig

Tavern Owner: beggar maker

Thief: angler, napper, prigger, nipper

Thieves Guild Hideout: stop hole abbey, stuling ken, stalling ken, flash ken, fencing ken, dive

Thieves Guild Leader: dimber damber, upright man, arch rogue, prince prig

Thieves Guild License: (permission to work thieves guild turf) jukrum

Thieves Guild Member: made man

Veteran Thief: old hand

Woman: mort, mot

Cockney Rhyme

Keep reading

[afterthelambs]

Now that it's 11/23, happy shuake holiday to this insane line

Akechi: “Haha I romanced the leader of the phantom thieves~❤"

Phantom Thieves: *grumble grumble*

Joker, half dead: “okay guys, here’s how shuake can still work—"

[theoutcastrogue]

strange aesthetic thoughts I'd like your opinion on.

imagine if you will, a thief or bandit group with a specific type of dye for their equipment, most don't pay it any mind, hell without the right lighting it's invisible, but put them into said lighting and their outfits, tools, ect light up with bright, almost glowing patterns. shine the same light on different buildings and you may find similar patterns on them, invisible to the naked eye and looking close to graffiti to the uninformed.

these markings however, are not random. combinations of colour and symbol are used to denote where is safe, where isn't. if guards are known to patrol here or not, or the obvious "protected client raid and regret"

Thieves' Cant signs 2.0! That's a great idea!

I think needing a special dye (like invisible ink, right?) and a special light (a lantern with a filter of a given colour perhaps) to make it work kinda gatekeeps the whole thing.

Real life hobo signs (and fantasy signs, like Skyrim's Thieves Guild Shadowmarks) can be written with anything, chalk, coal, whatever you got. And they can be read by anyone who knows what to look for. Obscurity makes it work: they're just too small and mundane to take notice.

So perhaps something that elaborate is only available to the gang, and no one else has the knowhow to replicate it.

[froggisarethebest]

raven cycle this raven cycle that BLUE KISSED NOAH AS A SYMBOLIC PARALLELISM OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HER KISS AND DEATH. HER FIRST KISS WAS DEATH. DONT TALK TO ME DONT LOOK AT ME DONT GO NEAR ME I CANT I REALLY CANT OH MY GOD

[kroosluvr]

originally for my ask/rpblog!

[local-pickpocket]

*samael is still sniffling in the corner. she hasnt moved since michael entered the room*

((( aka, you stopped responding and i still have lore ideas ::::3 /silly )))

- @the-archangels7

*He's busy with healing Threat. for the most part.*

so... think they're gonna chop off a wing... or something?

[partyinpoison]

[theoutcastrogue]

they may not, and that's why they will

Thieves can

but may they?

[pinacoladamatata]

I found the digital deluxe character sheets....

did....did y'all know Astarion speaks... not only abyssal but also. orc?

Gale;

Karlach;

Lae'zel;

Shadowheart;

Wyll;

[lair-master]

I love thieves’ cant, but it has literally never come up in a single D&D game I’ve ever played.

I’m designing a D&D style TTRPG, so while writing the rogue class I wanted thieves’ cant to be actually useful during exploration and social interaction. Here’s what I’ve got:

This more closely aligns with how I imagine thieves’ cant should work in fiction, and looks genuinely fun to use at the table!

[nosferatil]

Things Brynjolf would say but its a text from my boss:

[oldschoolfrp]

I opened a long-forgotten box and found the AD&D Thieves' Cant Pocket Dictionary sections from Aurelio Locsin's article in Dragon 66:

Shake shake shake, shake your relbat. These aren't really useful for actual game play. The accompanying article lays out rules for pronunciation and grammar for a complete language, but it feels wrong for the purpose of representing a "thieves' cant." I imagine instead the normal local language peppered with slang terms, resembling Cockney rhyming slang, punctuated by hand gestures and augmented by clothing choices and symbols like gang hand signs and graffiti or hobo signs. It would be built upon an accumulation of in-jokes and references, maybe with some foreign word substitutions reflecting a group's ties and influences (see Spanglish, or the Nadsat of A Clockwork Orange). Even '80s Valspeak will give you a better model for how a group talks to itself to reinforce who is in and out.

Three lizardmen find a great treasure, as three adventurers find them.  (Paul Sonju, Dragon magazine No. 66, TSR, October 1982.)