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In a world there is a king and that king has knights. These knights make use of magic amulets to protect them from supernatural threats: witch spells, manticore venom, werewolf curses, et cetera ad bad magic mojo.

These amulets contain the magic within precious gems such as rubies and sapphires. The gems generally fit easily in the palm of your hand.

My question is- do I have to radically alter traditional plate armor to safely house the gems inside? Not on chains or sewn into clothing but actually housed in the armor so as to be unseen and a part of the armor itself instead of on chains around the neck?

The idea is that greater ranks of knights need to have up to a dozen gems for greater dangers and for several reasons the gems now need to be in the armor instead of chains round the neck. I don't know if I have to make large changes to traditional armor or not in order to both house the gems and keep them reasonably safe from damage.

By traditional armor I mean this.

enter image description here

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More room for your jewels?

You can build out a portion of the armor to accomodate these large jewels, and be impressively manly at the same time.

codpiece armor

https://peashooter85.tumblr.com/post/103603460967/15th-and-16th-century-suits-of-armor-with

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In short, no, you wouldn't. Bear in mind that a suit of armor is more than just the plate; depending on how elaborate you want to go, there can/will be layers of chain mail, leather, and cloth protection beneath.

So if you're picturing soldering the gems onto the interior of the plate, a small gem that fits easily in your hand won't be any issue, hypothetically.

I would think the main consideration would be attaching them in places where they wouldn't be likely to compromise the surrounding armor (or shatter), either from normal wear and tear or the wearer taking a blow near one. If we're talking about the chest area, just keep them away from edges and points where the plate rests close to the body, and you should be fine.

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Gemmed armour although very rare due to the price, already exists. Although this would mostly be used for ceremonial purposes to show off one's wealth, and these armours would be useless in battle.

To answer your question, from what it looks like these gems need to be functional as a magic items, but don't actually need to be specifically located to work. This means any edges of the armor could easily be smithed somewhat longer, and rolled over with the gems inside. This would not change any properties of the armour much, and would be fairly inconspicuous.

Of course if the gems do need to be visible to work, then the worked in gems could present weak spots preventing attacks from sliding off.

A pocket or small cage could also easily be smithed onto the armor in one of the less accessible places to hold the gems.

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  • $\begingroup$ Can confirm the gems do not need to be visible and the only specifics regarding location is they do need to be in a general 'above hip and below neckline' sort of thing. $\endgroup$
    – Friendlysociopath
    Feb 15, 2020 at 18:22
  • $\begingroup$ @Friendlysociopath that would complicate things with rolling over the edges of the armour. But hiding them in shoulder pads, or a slightly thicker breastplate for example is still very possible. $\endgroup$
    – Plutian
    Feb 15, 2020 at 18:29

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