Over the last few years, the dragon-fighting scene has been led by the smithing guild of Ulincis, famed for their incorporation of the natural defenses and products of wildlife into their designs. Their primary design, the ironphase armour, did its job very well: A light outer shell of iron, bathed in the melted cobwebs of phase spiders and reinforced from the inside with braces of copper and dilinite alloy, traded flexibility for defense against ferocious flames of dragons, as the astral nature of its covering diverted the blasts rather than facing it head on.
However, recently, the metallurgists of Zyarhelm have come up with a better design. The well-known diamond armour, of which many sacks of gold are traded for each year, has often been used as a defense against the claws and talons of dragonkind, and in this it succeeds. But, against the ferocious flames of a dragon's breath, diamond armour acts as a poor defense, conducting the heat with little resistance to the wearer's body. Many would be slayers have been confident in the superior protection of their wear, only to cook in their suits like an oven.
In order to overcome this problem, Zyarhelm followed Ulincis's lead, and looked towards natural wildlife. For many decades, the freezing effects of basilisk blood have been well-known, and have been instrumental in several amputative procedures. Not until recently, however, has their use in blacksmithing been considered. When cooled to a fraction of a degrees above its freezing temperature, basilisk blood forms a strange thread-like liquid, easily malleable yet extremely difficult to break apart. When woven into a framework of iridium, the resulting material soaks up heat, like a sponge soaks up water, without noticeably increasing its temperature. Careful testing has revealed this property applies up to a temperature of 1043 C°, slightly higher than most dragons can manage.
The basic design of this heatsoak armour is the standard diamond design, slightly thinner than regular, with the lattice framework bonded to the inside through careful use of gravity magic. Several areas of the lattice leave holes in order to allow the framework to expand, mostly around the biceps, elbows, chest, waist, thighs, knees, and neck. This combination of materials creates an armour which is heavily resistant to slashing, stabbing, or any other kind of pressure, while the inside provides heavy insulation against heat-based attacks without significantly reducing mobility. These features make it the best dragon-fighting armour yet, and it is expected to become the new standard within time.
The only notable problem is when the temperature of the attack exceeds the 1043 limit. Generally, this temperature is unreachable by dragonkind, for such extreme heat levels would burn the inside of their mouthes and stomachs, but the exceptions to this rule are fire dragons, who can easiley reach temperatures of 1300 C° or more by adulthood. In such temperatures, the lattice has the tendency to spontaneously combust in a chain reaction and release all of its stored heat in <2 seconds, exploding in a fashion similar to fireball spells, except bigger. For this reason, it is strongly reccomended that different armor is worn when facing fire dragons.
