It occurs to me that the heavy banditry and Orc encumbrance on the town are not the normal state of things.
Or civil war for that matter.
I can't think of any town in a medieval setting like this that didn't have, at the very least, a single blacksmith somewhere, but it seems to me that the biggest export product that the town makes is food, given the very extensive farms to it's east, furs, due to the abundance of game around, and lumber, given the nearby river, the extensive operation of Rick's father and all the Elder trees lying around.
It makes me believe that iron was something that the town got mostly through trade. Or normally would anyway. If their main source had ever been the mine before the events of the game, it would have made absolutely no sense to let it rot.
Certainly, Copper is in bigger abundance then iron in this kingdom though, which aside from being a rarity would give reason why people are more often equipped with weapons and armor made of it then anything else; You can basically process copper in a hot enough stove.
Iron requires bloomeries and such to render from ore, and those required an assload of charcoal to heat up too.
First ting to note... Arenfield is no city or town, but a remote village, Kirlic is a city/town.
Considering the low numbers of inhabitants of the village the small mine nearby was enough to supply them with their needs.
Giron ordererd the recovery of the mine, which is why there were so many dead guards before.
As you said Giron is stingy on most things, after his first attempt he gave up on the mine as it was not worth it for him.
After the mine was considered lost John was forced to import iron in order to work on the Kings order of weapons for the frontline.
Copper was never used for weapons or armor... or any blade to begin with as it's far to soft to keep it's edge or even penetrate any form of flesh even John explains this to the MC after showing him the rusted copper blade.
Bronze was however used for many things, though as John said the required tin was never found in the mine near Arenfield, so those must have been imported.
I can agree to the rest of what you said though.
Giron is indeed not cutting corners on his personal guard, but he is much less preoccupied with the soldiers guarding the actual city. I seem to recall Lyvia complaining that they're underequipped as well though I may be misremembering.
This is true, but also a consequence of the original Guards being wiped out in the mines, I suspect they had to make duo with a single set of armor and sword for each member, while useing either those copper swords or something else of low value for training.
As they likely had to make duo with the spare equipment the last guards left behind.
I'll admit I didn't pay attention to tableware and the like. If Tia owns a metal cup then yeah, definitely entered the Middle Ages. Not sure I'd say for a while though, as we've yet to see full-plate armour or even crossbows. That said, there's more than 1000 years between the start of the Iron Age and the Middle Ages, so that certainly does count as "quite a while"!
I consider it hard to place an real Life era or date into a fantasy setting as several aspects tend to get mixed, it's normally simply called a medival setting, there are several tools seen in the game that would indicate that they are further advanced, but a lack of certain other goods is opposing this and stuff.
Solid points. I'll add that the king had already assumed John's iron to be imported. Had those mines truly be important to the kingdom, it'd have been more thoroughly defended and likely taken back, what with all those soldiers on hand. Instead, the kingdom doesn't appear to care all that much, so like you said, it wasn't the main source of income.
The mine is in posession of Giron and the Kingdom is preoccupied with it's war between the 2 Kings, it seems that Eric is not bothered if his people suffer from monster attacks as his brothers encroachment is a higher threat to him
So is that the canon version of events? I've been delaying my decision to confront Mira with the letter because of that. Marcus was hiding something and had the kind of money usually available to nobles so that MC didn't go the front lines. That made me think "he might be the (current or former) king's bastard son", or I suppose more likely, the queen's.
The letter is a work around ToS of Patreon... he offers this content while it is the Players explicit choice to make it as such.
MCs family must haven been rich, wether he is nobility or not is unclear as or yet (the simple fact that his parents apparently were murdered by assasins make it quiet likely though), this also makes it impossible that MC is related to Helena.
And again I can agree with the rest.
