Female warrior armor
I have never understood this kind of BS armor. The female warriors in my fantasy writing have proper armor that covers everything, even the head and face. (Except the eyes.) Lyria's soldiers all have essentially identical-looking armor, and it's impossible to tell the males from the females when they're in full armor.
Lyria herself does not appear to wear armor, but does in fact wear mithril (living silver with the strength of adamantium) armor under her clothes. Kialu Laiu, a female Faery warrior character, also wears mithril armor. Mithril can shapeshift at the mental command of its wearer, so their whole bodies can become protected if need be. Lyria also wears a magical belt that provides an invisible personal force shield. Her daughter, Meriel, also wears a force-shield belt. (Though she is too young to be a warrior.)
The way mithril moves, one could wear only mithril armor and it would be both sexy and protect everything. Which Lyria, as an asexual, wouldn't like, which is why she wears the armor under her clothes. Kialu is a Fae, so she likes elegance, and she doesn't think of "mithril only" as being elegant enough for her taste.
And why adamantium for Lyria's soldiers, and not mithril? Because adamantium is easier to make, and cheaper. Mithril is so hard to make that Lyria, as the only human taught how to make it, can get the equivalent of half a million dollars for a bit of mithril the size of a baseball.
EDIT: People have made some good points, and one of them is that "mithril" was an Elven word in Tolkein's stuff. So I've decided to go with a bastardization of Czech, and call the living metal "zivotnikov." I've also decided that zivotnikov will be sentient, know its owners, and refuse to cooperate with thieves. The value is also different. I don't know how much, but a good point was made that a baseball's size of metal isn't much.
This was cross-posted from http://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1128973.html
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