Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

 

According to my good old Eleventh Edition of the Britannica, people used to use saltpetre as an inhaled treatment for asthma and whooping cough. Take a piece of paper and soak it in a water-saltpetre solution (and that may be as easy to make as draining off water from a really fetid swamp and letting it evaporate for a while). Let the paper dry, put it in a brazier, and put it under the patient's mouth. Light the paper and -poof- a blast of black smoke with considerable amounts of stimulative nitrates (plus carbon black and sulphates in my example above) are released. Breath in, and, presto, instant symptomatic relief as air passages dilate.

I have no idea when doctors started doing this, but it's all pretty much old fashioned materia medica.

Point is, fantasy authors sometimes make a big deal of the "invention" of gunpowder. The issue here seems to be one of inventing a new use.

[Mr_Yuck]

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

 

We use gunpowder weapons in our game.

 

I've found that they cause no more problems that a powerful wand of fireballs. Heck, the wand 'shoots' faster, is usually more reliable, and is a bit easier to recharge with the prevelance of mages.

 

Make firearms very expensive to purchase.

Make the black powder (called 'dragon sand' in my campaign) very rare and expensive.

Players tend to be much more careful before firing their wepons!

 

You will find players may initially become enamored with them, but lose interest when their archer companion is making a monster a pincussion where they have fired only once. (if there was no misfire!)

 

I think it adds a bit of flavor if carefully controlled.

[Basil]

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

 

An idea for those of you with a copy of Guns! Guns! Guns! 3rd Edition Revised; the formula for the optimum barrel length is dependent on the tech level of the propellant.

 

Now, while the Middle Ages are (IIRC) TL 4 or 5, one could assume the only available propellant is TL 1. This gives an optimum barrel length of 3+ meters for a the power (of the "cartridge") one might expect of a rifle. So, for a usable firearm, much of the propellant energy is lost (big flame out of the muzzle). Thus the firearm is not very powerful. And upping the amount of propellant runs into two problems: only so much propellant can be used (based on the volume of the projectile) before running a high risk of misfire, and the optimum barrel length goes up, as well.

 

End result? You can have firearms, you just can't have one with an impact even near that of a bow & arrow.

[Bismark]

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

 

I'm a renaissance black powder geek' date=' so I often include black powder in my games (especially if the game is gonna involve ships... Catapults & ballista just don't have the right "feel" for me).[/quote']

 

Of course, catapults are a different thing entirely when loaded with glass globes full of "specialist ammo" [an example from "real life" being the "incendiary mayonnaise" (burns and sticks like napalm - lovely!) invented by the Byzantines in the 7th century for their dragon ships (a fleet of which pretty much annihilated the Arab feet which had been besieging Constantinople for the previous 3 years).

 

The other (and at closer range, the main) weapon of those ships is even more fun (if you are not on the receiving end of it anyway) - the Greek Fire Siphon. Having access to the Romanian oilfields had its advantages - a nice light form of crude oil. This could be squirted a surprisingly long distance when propelled through a tube by dudes (in clothes with asbestos woven into them, believe it or not) operating a pump. The precise names for the type of pump involved escapes me.

 

I know that a TV program actually built and tested both the above weapons, and they were very, very scary.

 

Now imagine these weapons with "Fantasy" payloads (Alchemists of the world unite!)…

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

 

An idea for those of you with a copy of Guns! Guns! Guns! 3rd Edition Revised; the formula for the optimum barrel length is dependent on the tech level of the propellant.

 

Now, while the Middle Ages are (IIRC) TL 4 or 5, one could assume the only available propellant is TL 1. This gives an optimum barrel length of 3+ meters for a the power (of the "cartridge") one might expect of a rifle. So, for a usable firearm, much of the propellant energy is lost (big flame out of the muzzle). Thus the firearm is not very powerful. And upping the amount of propellant runs into two problems: only so much propellant can be used (based on the volume of the projectile) before running a high risk of misfire, and the optimum barrel length goes up, as well.

 

End result? You can have firearms, you just can't have one with an impact even near that of a bow & arrow.

 

I in general prefer my black powder weapons to hit a LOT harder than most bows, and a little better than crossbows, in order to give them a reason to exist in the context of the game world. S'not entirely inaccurate either.

 

The quality of powder issue is completely dead on, and when I boot up my FH game again I'm probably gonna add a RSR: Alchemist (or a similar "I make gunpowder" skill) limitation, and have the quality of a powder defined by the skill roll of its creator, possibly defined as an activation range for that batch (15- powder might be considered "Fine" or "Superior" grade, f'rinstance.)

 

Of course, catapults are a different thing entirely when loaded with glass globes full of "specialist ammo" [an example from "real life" being the "incendiary mayonnaise" (burns and sticks like napalm - lovely!) invented by the Byzantines in the 7th century for their dragon ships (a fleet of which pretty much annihilated the Arab feet which had been besieging Constantinople for the previous 3 years).

 

The other (and at closer range, the main) weapon of those ships is even more fun (if you are not on the receiving end of it anyway) - the Greek Fire Siphon. Having access to the Romanian oilfields had its advantages - a nice light form of crude oil. This could be squirted a surprisingly long distance when propelled through a tube by dudes (in clothes with asbestos woven into them, believe it or not) operating a pump. The precise names for the type of pump involved escapes me.

 

I know that a TV program actually built and tested both the above weapons, and they were very, very scary.

 

Now imagine these weapons with "Fantasy" payloads (Alchemists of the world unite!)…

 

 

Yeah, but then you wind up with Doomwheels, not to mention big reflector deathrays and the like, just fine for a high magic/Magictech/steampunk feel, but not always my cuppa tea (tho I do enjoy the style on occasion, ala Hawkmoon, Warhammer and others.)

 

I've never agreed with EGG that gunpowder muddies the waters of a fantasy world. One of my favorite fictional setting is Recluse by L.E. Modesitt Jr., and blackpower essentially winds up as a tool of the Order mages for the majority of the time periods of the series. Never killed them for me as fine fantasy novels.

[Basil]

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

 

Of course' date=' catapults are a different thing entirely when loaded with glass globes[/quote']

Load a catapult with glass globes (esp. if the glass is pre-Industrial-Revolution quality) and try launching them. Result: bits of glass and the globes' contents spread all over the catapult and the area immediately in front.

 

Catapults give an enormous acceleration---100 of g's for smallish ones. Glass does not survive that kind of acceleration.

 

full of "specialist ammo" [an example from "real life" being the "incendiary mayonnaise" (burns and sticks like napalm - lovely!) invented by the Byzantines in the 7th century for their dragon ships

That is what Greek Fire is!. BTW, where did you get the term "dragon ships"? I've never come across it before, at least as referring to Byzantine ships.

 

(a fleet of which pretty much annihilated the Arab f[l]eet which had been besieging Constantinople for the previous 3 years).

 

The other (and at closer range, the main) weapon of those ships is even more fun (if you are not on the receiving end of it anyway) - the Greek Fire Siphon.

Which pumped water through a brass tube, where the Greek Fire was introduced, causing the Greek Fire to combust. It was them pointed at the enemy ship(s), throwing "unquenchable" fire all over said ship.

 

That's right---Greek Fire flared into fire upon contact with water! It also floated on water, so water wouldn't put it out. Real nasty stuff.

 

I know that a TV program actually built and tested both the above weapons' date=' and they were very, very scary.[/quote']

 

TV? :sick:

If I hadn't read that Greek Fire existed, that would be enough to make me file it under "BS." Which is where I'm filing the idea that glass globes (full of a substance that ignites on contact with water) were ever fired from a catapult. Well, more than once...

[Bismark]

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

 

Load a catapult with glass globes (esp. if the glass is pre-Industrial-Revolution quality) and try launching them. Result: bits of glass and the globes' contents spread all over the catapult and the area immediately in front.

Catapults give an enormous acceleration---100 of g's for smallish ones. Glass does not survive that kind of acceleration.

 

That is what Greek Fire is!. BTW, where did you get the term "dragon ships"? I've never come across it before, at least as referring to Byzantine ships.

 

 

Which pumped water through a brass tube, where the Greek Fire was introduced, causing the Greek Fire to combust. It was them pointed at the enemy ship(s), throwing "unquenchable" fire all over said ship.

 

That's right---Greek Fire flared into fire upon contact with water! It also floated on water, so water wouldn't put it out. Real nasty stuff.

 

 

 

TV? :sick:

If I hadn't read that Greek Fire existed, that would be enough to make me file it under "BS." Which is where I'm filing the idea that glass globes (full of a substance that ignites on contact with water) were ever fired from a catapult. Well, more than once...

 

Well spotted, Basil:

I strongly suspect that the original containers fired from the catapults would have been ceramic and that they were glass on the TV prog to make the impact, etc. clearer visually (that'll teach me to write stuff when I am half asleep - I was going to add a sentence like that and forgot in the midst of mucho yawning).

 

The TV program (one of those 'how the hell did these ancient types build [whatever it is]) that was doing all the reconstruction was surprisingly good for its type. Like you, I am usually surprised when a TV program does not go completely off-beam when doing this type of thing (my pet hates include programs about medieval jousting when the 'knights' doing the demonstrations cannot even hold the lance the right way or have their shields facing in the right direction).

 

This particular program (damned if I can remember the name of it - it was on Channel 4 here in the UK last year) had the requisite number of Professor-types/experimental archaeologists, carpenters, metalworkers etc. mixing up the dreaded mayonnaise-like mixture, getting catapults of as authentic a type as they could make, etc. etc.).

 

The siphon that was built took a few iterations to get working decently (the instructions the builders were working from were - unsurprisingly - a little unclear, and the first few times there was a worrying amount of leakage around the joints, something you do not want with that kind of device), but it was quite scary and extremely unpleasant for the target (a scaled-down copy of a dromon-type vessel).

 

As for the term 'dragon ship' - I cannot remember exactly which context it was mentioned in during the program, but there were a few contemporary pictures shown, and some interesting iconography.

[Markdoc]

Re: Turakian Age Q: Gunpowder?

 

According to my good old Eleventh Edition of the Britannica, people used to use saltpetre as an inhaled treatment for asthma and whooping cough. Take a piece of paper and soak it in a water-saltpetre solution (and that may be as easy to make as draining off water from a really fetid swamp and letting it evaporate for a while). Let the paper dry, put it in a brazier, and put it under the patient's mouth. Light the paper and -poof- a blast of black smoke with considerable amounts of stimulative nitrates (plus carbon black and sulphates in my example above) are released. Breath in, and, presto, instant symptomatic relief as air passages dilate.

I have no idea when doctors started doing this, but it's all pretty much old fashioned materia medica.

 

Having SEEN this technique in use, a more usual result is gasp, wheeze collapse with streaming eyes in extreme discomfort, then cough mucus (occasionally admixed with blood). As a way of generating income for the faith healer, it's an old standby. As a way of relieving asthma, it works every bit as well as a kick to the 'nads: by instantly generating more discomfort, it makes the patient feel slightly better when the worst of the discomfort has passed.

 

cheers, Mark