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The Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure "Isle of the Abbey" lists the following treasure (GoS, p. 109):

a suit of Medium mithral armor (your choice of type)

Which of the following interpretations is correct?

  1. A suit of mithral armor that is a chain shirt, scale mail, breastplate, or half plate.
  2. A suit of mithral armor of any type that is sized to fit a Medium creature.

This is for an Adventurers League game, so any AL-specific guidance would be helpful, if it exists.

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A suit of mithral armor that fits a Medium creature

The wording is indeed confusing, but the key is in the capitalization. Creature size is always capitalized. For example, the description of oil of etherealness says:

The oil can cover a Medium or smaller creature [...] (one additional vial is required for each size category above Medium).

"Isle of the Abbey" isn't the first place in Ghosts of Saltmarsh where armor sizing is mentioned. In "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh", the party can come across a dead adventure wearing plate (GoS, p. 45):

The plate mail is banged up - the result of brutal clubbing and kicking - but serviceable and fits a Medium creature.

Again, creature size is capitalized. This also sets a precedent - armor will include sizing in Ghosts of Saltmarsh, likely a hold-over from the early editions that many of the adventures were written for.

On the other hand, armor categories are not capitalized. From the header of mithral armor itself:

Mithral Armor

Armor (medium or heavy, but not hide), uncommon

The barbarian's Rage feature also mentions armor by category (again, without capitalization):

While raging, you gain the following benefits if you aren't wearing heavy armor

Lastly, the latest version of the AL Content Catalog (v9.01) does not contain specific guidance about this treasure. It does include guidance about mithral armor (plate) that appears in a later adventure, so either they missed this one (across two major revisions), or they did not intend for it to be changed. For now, at least, the DM can give out any medium or heavy mithral armor.

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    \$\begingroup\$ ...or the AL folks interpreted it as medium-class armor rather than medium-size armor. Since season 8 began, they seem to have taken efforts to keep plate out of the hands of T1 and T2 player characters. \$\endgroup\$
    – T.J.L.
    Commented Jan 9, 2020 at 18:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @T.J.L. That's the more likely answer, but I'm not complaining! \$\endgroup\$
    – Red Orca
    Commented Jan 9, 2020 at 19:02

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