How many metal items can a Forge cleric lay out in a single Artisan's Blessing?

Question

The Forge Domain cleric gets the Artisan's Blessing Channel Divinity option at 2nd level (XGtE, p. 19):

Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to create simple items.

You conduct an hour-long ritual that crafts a nonmagical item that must include some metal: a simple or martial weapon, a suit of armor, ten pieces of ammunition, a set of tools, or another metal object. The creation is completed at the end of the hour, coalescing in an unoccupied space of your choice on a surface within 5 feet of you.

The thing you create can be something that is worth no more than 100 gp. As part of this ritual, you must lay out metal, which can include coins, with a value equal to the creation. The metal irretrievably coalesces and transforms into the creation at the ritual’s end, magically forming even nonmetal parts of the creation.

The ritual can create a duplicate of a nonmagical item that contains metal, such as a key, if you possess the original during the ritual.

^{Emphasis mine}

When it says "you must lay out metal, which can include coins, with a value equal to the creation." It doesn't specify the number of items, even more, it just says "metal". Can I lay out several metallic items (metal sources) at once? I mean, for example, can I lay out 2 battleaxes (10 gp each one), 15 gold pieces and 10 silver pieces (27 items in total) to transmute an item worth of 36 gp?

Answer 1

You can lay out any number of metal items

Clearly, you are not limited to a single object, since the metal can include "coins", plural. In addition, at the end of the ritual, the metal "coalesces", indicating that multiple distinct objects made of metal are merged together to form the final product. The value of the product formed can be up to the sum of the values of all the metal items laid out.

The value contributed by an item might be less than its full purchase price

However, those battleaxes you bought for 10 gp each might not contribute 10 gp to the ritual. First, they may not be made fully of metal - the haft may be made of wood, for example. If so, you'll need to remove the non-metal parts while setting up the ritual. Furthermore, the value contributed by an object may only be the value of the raw metal used to create it. Specifically, the 10 gp value of a battleaxe includes both the cost of raw materials and the cost of labor to craft it from those raw materials. It's not clear whether adding an object to this ritual adds the full value of the object or only the value of the (metal) raw materials it is composed of. You'll need to ask your DM to decide how this works.

The section on crafting items in Xanathar's Guide to Everything gives a simple guideline for dividing an item's value between raw materials and labor: half and half.

In addition to the appropriate tools for the item to be crafted, a character needs raw materials worth half of the item’s selling cost.

For example, if your DM rules that each item contributes only the value of its raw materials to the ritual, then a 10 gp battleaxe made mostly of metal would contribute 5 gp worth of value.