Material

Item materials have no other function in game than to indicate the item tier.

Tier	Metal	Leather	Jewelry	Wood	Cloth	Mindstars	Tridents	Lites
1	Iron	Rough Leather	Copper	Elm	Linen	Mossy	Coral	Brass
2	Steel	Cured Leather	Steel	Ash	Wool(len)	Vined	Blue-steel
3	Dwarven-steel	Hardened Leather	Gold	Yew	Cashmere	Thorny	Deep-steel	Alchemist
4	Stralite	Reinforced Leather	Stralite	Elven-wood	Silk	Pulsing	Orite
5	Voratun	Drakeskin Leather	Voratun	Dragon-bone	Elven-silk	Living	Orichalcum	Dwarven

Tier is the first factor in determining an item's abilities. Higher tier weapons do more damage, and have higher stat requirements to equip. Higher tier armor gives higher Armour and Defense, and so on.

Gems also have tiers; see their page for details.