Hi y'all. Hoping to set up a brainstorming session here

What, in a medieval-fantasy world a la Elder Scrolls, could armour be made from? I'm hoping to have a vast array of different armours, and perhaps the magical ones could have their own subtle abilities. All ideas welcome! Here is the most interesting subset of what I have come up with so far:

EDIT2: No longer taking armour ideas - I have 30 different materials now, but thanks to everyone who contributed! I got rid of a few, including a few of my own, and am satisfied with the final list Seeing how awesome this thread was, I might make another suggestions thread for other items (Especially weapons!) and spells

The armour categories are now divided into: Mundane, Elemental, Natural, and of course the two Divine armours accessible to demigod characters

Mundane:

Animal Hide

Leather

Scale Mail

Chain mail

Iron Plate

Steel Plate

Adamant

Titanium

Golden - magic properties of gold allow mage-smiths to alloy it with steel to make it stronger

Mithril

Natural

Dragonscale

Leaf - Armour made from very very tough leaves! Very lightweight.

Coral

Resin

Feather

Skeletal

Chitinous

Spider Silk

Ivory

Elemental

Igneous - rocky exterior with the lava core showing through cracks

Sanguine - steel fused with blood, forged by vampire blood-alchemists

Crystalline

Magesteel / Necrosteel - Normal steel forged with enchantments

Skysteel - rare metal found in falling stars (meteorites)

Aphotic - this mysterious material absorbs all light...

Diamond

Icicle

Apocalyptic - forged in the heart of a dying star

Halcyon

(Apocalyptic and Halcyon armour only accessible to characters that have become demigods)

Again, all ideas welcome, and feel free to suspend disbelief/ignore the practicalities!

Bees. Like a beard of bees, except it covers your whole body. Doesn't really provide much direct protection, but anyone who hits you will suddenly have a swarm of angry bees to deal with. Doesn't help much against fire based attacks though.

Feathers. I've heard of armour made from hides, furs, scales, chitin. But I've never come across an armour constructed primarily from feathers. It can also be rolled up and double as a comfy pillow at night.

Portable Holes. The armour is made by sewing lots of Portable Holes onto a suit of regular armour. Most attacks will just go straight through!

Bees. Like a beard of bees, except it covers your whole body. Doesn't really provide much direct protection, but anyone who hits you will suddenly have a swarm of angry bees to deal with. Doesn't help much against fire based attacks though.

Feathers. I've heard of armour made from hides, furs, scales, chitin. But I've never come across an armour constructed primarily from feathers. It can also be rolled up and double as a comfy pillow at night.

Portable Holes. The armour is made by sewing lots of Portable Holes onto a suit of regular armour. Most attacks will just go straight through!

Feathers?! I love it!!! Super-tough feathers from an extinct race of birds, like the Roc or something. Of course, collecting enough feathers for a full suit is quite the challenge

Bees: It's a nice idea but I think it might just be too complicated to implement - what happens when your armour attacks one person, then their buddy attacks you? It would lend itself to an interesting aggressive spell though - noted!

Portable Holes: Would like to avoid crazy quantum science fiction concepts - my magic system is going to be complicated enough as it is! Again, thanks for the contribution :)

Not sure if this is the kind of input you're looking for, but here's some stuff:

- Madeupium Clay - some sort of fictional clay (obviously from the Madeup marsh) that's soft and malliable under normal conditions, but hardens upon strong impact. So, good for arrow deflection, sword swings, but bad for slow knife stabs

- Nonexistian Spiderian Web armor - woven thin fibers into a kevlar-like material, but naturally produced by the Nonexistian Spiderian species(who, I hear, also happen to eat people alive :) ) Guess you can call it Silk armor..

- Indestrucium Tree Bark armor - made from the ancient and nearly indestructible bark of the Indestructium Trees. Can only be obtained in random sized flakes of the bark that fall off naturally, as the trees can't really be cut

- Colder-than-ice armor: a magically fueled armor that freezes everything to come in contact with it, making it brittle. Swords and arrows shatter on impact. Obviously it only does so on the outside

Probably more crazy ideas out there...

If you have a "plains" area, reed grass could be used to make a lower level armor. Or padding for other armors.

Coral

Love it!

- Colder-than-ice armor:

There's some of that in Skyrim's latests expansion actually :P

Lacquer is something that was actually used for armor but you rarely see it in games. So was wood. Mage robes made out of insect wings could be pretty awesome (or feathers, as mentioned above). An organic equivalent of kevlar (some variety of silk?) would also make a good light armor. Ivory plates or scales could make a cool looking heavy armor.

Wow, this thread is going awesomely!

Not sure if this is the kind of input you're looking for, but here's some stuff:

- Madeupium Clay - some sort of fictional clay (obviously from the Madeup marsh) that's soft and malliable under normal conditions, but hardens upon strong impact. So, good for arrow deflection, sword swings, but bad for slow knife stabs

- Nonexistian Spiderian Web armor - woven thin fibers into a kevlar-like material, but naturally produced by the Nonexistian Spiderian species(who, I hear, also happen to eat people alive ) Guess you can call it Silk armor..

- Indestrucium Tree Bark armor - made from the ancient and nearly indestructible bark of the Indestructium Trees. Can only be obtained in random sized flakes of the bark that fall off naturally, as the trees can't really be cut

- Colder-than-ice armor: a magically fueled armor that freezes everything to come in contact with it, making it brittle. Swords and arrows shatter on impact. Obviously it only does so on the outside

Probably more crazy ideas out there...

I'm liking the Spider Silk idea, in the real world, spider silk is supposed to have a greater tensile strength than steel, so in the fantasy realm, silk from giant spiders could be woven into armour.

I did already consider tree bark, but decided to go with the leaf idea in the end. One of my existing "exotic" ideas is Icicle armour - it's spiky and cold ;)

The clay idea is an interesting one - as a negatively thixotropic material, so a great shock absorber.

If you have a "plains" area, reed grass could be used to make a lower level armor. Or padding for other armors.

This is a good idea, every game ever seems to start you out with generic leather armour, this would make a good alternative.

Lacquer
is something that was actually used for armor but you rarely see it in
games. So was wood. Mage robes made out of insect wings could be
pretty awesome (or feathers, as mentioned above). An organic equivalent
of kevlar (some variety of silk?) would also make a good light armor.
Ivory plates or scales could make a cool looking heavy armor.

I was reading something about real-world medieval armour, and it seems to me that lacquer would be a finish to leather or cloth armour, rather than a material on its own?

Insects could be another idea, somebody already mentioned chitin, or carapace armour. Of course I've got spider silk now for the 'organic kevlar' idea, and ivory is another great idea, perhaps ivory scale mail.

I've also added "resin" armour - my housemate came up with it not five minutes ago, probably inspired by Shivering Isles' amber armour. I'll post the full working list after the next reply. Thanks for all the ideas everyone!

Bees: It's a nice idea but I think it might just be too complicated to implement - what happens when your armour attacks one person, then their buddy attacks you? It would lend itself to an interesting aggressive spell though - noted!

The angry bees could be as simple as an AoE effect.

Of course, it doesn't have to be bees. Taking the idea further, it could be any kind symbiotic creature/colony of creatures.

Bees: It's a nice idea but I think it might just be too complicated to implement - what happens when your armour attacks one person, then their buddy attacks you? It would lend itself to an interesting aggressive spell though - noted!

The angry bees could be as simple as an AoE effect.

Of course, it doesn't have to be bees. Taking the idea further, it could be any kind symbiotic creature/colony of creatures.

I think it works better as a curse, because then I can have a nice string of upgrades - Bee Swarm, Wasp Swarm, Hornet Swarm, Deadly Dragonfly Swarm

Whereas bees as armour relies on the behaviour of bees when they form 'bee beards' or similar, which not all insects do