Magical Materials

All metals conduct magic, but to varying degrees. Basic metals like iron and copper are very bad conductors, conductong worse than air an essentially acting as resistors. To that end, they have even been used as magic shields.

Better materials do not just conduct, but even amplify magic. Pure silver, orichalcum, adamantium, or mithrill are the most popular. Gold, curiously, has almost no magical properties to speak of. It conducts magic better than copper or iron(this making it useless as a shield), but tends to melt from very small amounts.

Most alloys do not have magical properties, neither conducting or resisting magic(becoming essentially transparrent). Durring the Mage Wars, many cultures learned the secret art of creating magical alloys, which was later lost durring the Golden Age,