HI All
In my game, Gurthang stays buried alongside Turin, but Estelang is forged with some remnants of Stariron. One of my players is an absolute Lord of the Rings loremaster, and he came up with a whole story of how stariron came to be, why it might be cursed if forged into weapons. So for me, the Numenoreans had dealings with the dwarves in the Second Age. The houeses of the Ered Luin knew about Eol and what he did with the knowledge about stariron. So it is not a far fetch to assume, that they are interested in the story about Turin's grave on Tol Morwen and the fight of the Numenoreans against Sauron. Maybe the Dwarves traded stariron for something else with them. Or they awarded the metal to an hero of Numenor. The leftovers were found by the heir in Tales of the Lost Lands.
Right now we're in the middle of the question "What to do with Estelang?" It seems cursed, but ancient legends of the Dwarves speak of other uses for stariron than weapons. Forged into a chain it holds even the mightiest creatures. Which would come in handy in the next two (and last) adventures of Tales.
Nice discussion. I'd suggest it depends how deep into Dwarven and Elven lore your players have appetite for, and whether they want practical or mystical views of what star-iron may be, or what risks & benefits it may have.
[ Other Earlier Tolkien estate licensed games have mapped Tolkien's metals and gem-crafting to our IRL periodic table and even possible alloys & techniques. I'm not sure how much is canon anymore]
Gurthang's blade is described as made of Galvorn "Shining Black', which is arguable a blend of Durang 'dark-iron' possibly Titanium, and Eog 'star-iron'. IMC I've theorized that the bits of Star-Iron the high smith used were fragments of a small asteroid/planetesimal or moonlet core, a bit like 16 Psyche. This composition lets us get very creative with the periodic table. So a folded or damascene style longsword blade of impact fused nickel-iron steel globules with some vacuum foamed Titanium intrusions, Iridium edges and gold wrapped Cranor 'tree-gold amber' spine sounds pretty impressive. The gold foil wrapped amber capacitor would build up a piezoelectric or static charge for nice arcing bolts when quick drawn or cleaving metal armours.. And then if you allow the High elven gem smiths to start getting into industrial diamond anvils, CVD or asteroid impact shock nano diamonds for your micro serrated cutting edges, there is really no limit.
If you are using it being part of Anguirel, maybe Maeglin had Ren the Nazgul toss in some natural uranium( celebur 'burning silver'?) grains for the 'evil sickness and hair-loss curse, black speech runes chiseled to show the radium green glow at night, and always hot to the touch' bit when the Fire King was forging his Burning Blade out of red edged galvorn in the furnaces of Angband.... Alternately if you don't want it that 1st age super-evil, the Black Numenorian smiths also learned some Celebur tricks from Annatar. For max freakiness, give it a sheath with Mithrarian(Abyss of High Silver) anti-gravity wire from Amon Lind, so the heavy bastard sword doesn't burden the wearer, and even floats on water. Of course if you unfasten the sheath from the metal belt, it will fly up and stick to the ceiling
Certainly sounds both awesomely dangerous and dangerously cursed
DX