So, my ideas on every weapon material present in the game. We might add more types later on, but first let's focus on original ones.
Here are all Weapons from Daggerfall -
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Weapons
Illustrations I use are from later games or other resources, which I felt best show my idea for a material. Doesn't mean we need to copy them in any way, just to share my picture overall.
I don't like many of these designs and I think we can do much better, but they illustrate my point rather well.
Materials:
Iron Weapons - rough and cheap, massively produced weapons, often utilized by bandits, adventurers, mercenaries, and poor people, who can't afford something better. Fairly straightforward, nothing special about them, but they are cheap and can be quite effective.
Steel Weapons - polished and practical, most used weapon by soldiers and knights. More expensive and reliable than iron weapon, but nothing too fancy.
Silver Weapons - intricate and beautiful, but fairly realistic designs. Mostly used by clerics and rich nobility, they are not as sturdy, but the material is useful against supernatural dangers.
Elven Weapons - unusually elegant weapons crafted by the elves who carefully protect secrets of its creation. Can be found in ancient dungeons or wielded by very rich people.
Dwarven Weapons - mechanical and gear like weapons, created by the Dwarves, who disappeared long ago from Tamriel. Mostly found in Dwarven Ruins, scattered around the north of Tamriel, including Morrowind, Skyrim and Hammerfell provinces.
Mithril Weapons - honestly, here we can use our imagination. In original game, these weapons are blue which looks kinda cool. I assume it's some sort of "blessed" material, but that's just my idea. Picture from Oblivion, but it's a clear rip off from LoTR.
Adamantium Weapons - adamantium weapons are very light and sturdy, unusually so. Rare material found throughout Tamriel, utilized by the very rich who can afford it. So, something fantasy like as well, but more human-like in design. Used image from one of the mods for Oblivion, nothing to do with Adamantium, but kinda looks like what I think it should look like.
Orcish Weapons - pretty much what you expect from Orcish weapons, but more elaborate and sturdy. Slightly green color.
Ebony Weapons - technically made of obsidian, volcanic glass, but looks more like black metal in items. Relatively heavy and dark, but often used with golden decorations to make it look more majestic. Once again, kinda human, but this one is often used by the elitest of the elite, very expensive. Also often used by vampires and darker characters. Think Death Knight, but noble and intricate. Also used by good guys as well, so not too dark
Daedric Weapons - demonic weapons, often combination of black and glowing red. They appear to have evil spirit within them. Give freedom to your imagination pretty much. I like the overall aesthetic of Morrowind's weapons, though some of them are fairly generic, but the color contrast is pretty good and some pieces are really cool.
P.S. Note that this is just an overall assessment of weapon materials and styles found in the game. We'll need to take a closer look at every style later on, to come up with more original concepts which wouldn't rely too much on other TES games. I feel that it is very much possible.
On a positive note, looking at the weapons made me realize just how many similarities there are between them. So, it shouldn't be too hard to create them, I hope. We won't be going with high poly models anyway.
Although I understand that texture work will take a lot of time potentially + there are many-many variations of weapons in Daggerfall, more than in Oblivion or Skyrim.