Bronze Dwarves

Just something that occurred to me kind of inspired by Runequest and by my brass bladed pocket knife ...

Bronze is an interesting metal in that it is as hard as and effective as iron yet easier to use in many respects.

Its biggest flaw historically was that it was expensive to get the copper and tin needed to make it in large amounts and as such and thus anything needing it was too pricey for mass use.

Of course once steel (as vs iron) came along, bronze was obsoleted for weapon and armor applications and such is history

However imagine if a fantasy culture, say a group of Dwarves, call them the Redsmith clan had deep nearly inexhaustible mines of copper and plenty of tin. Now these folks would keep using bronze well into the age of iron and would not have any real disadvantages in continuing to do so.

Now imagine further that they find by alloying a bit of some silvery metal they happen have lots of , I dunno starmetal or mithril or something into the mix they can make weapons at least as good as the finest steel.

This gives you something in game terms is simply "better quality weapons" masterwork or whatever your system uses that happen to be bronze. Thus you can have a sea of gleaming red armor that looks like a bronze age panoply but is a strong as steel.

This is even better if the opposing cultures are not quite to "blast furnace" tech and instead are still at mail and coat of plates. Graceful Dwarf (or Elf if you prefer) plate strong as armor that would not be seen for centuries on a battle field with mail and scale ...

Something to think about anyway ...