Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

[Markdoc]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

12 Argus's Figureheads: Detect A Large Class Of Things 14- (Unusual Group)' date=' Increased Arc Of Perception (240 Degrees), Ranged (+1/2), Line Of Sight (+1/2) (30 Active Points); OIF Immobile (-1 1/2) [Notes: Detects Rocks and Shoals, and other navigation hazards']

 

This is more for larger ships, and comes more under nautical magic, but could still be really useful

 

Actually, the Mage in my current FH game has a spell which functions very much like this*. In a recent adventure, the Players and their allies were able to destroy a much larger enemy fleet by luring it into a dangerous area of reefs and shoals and then tricking them into a maelstrom.

 

Combine this with an Aid to Swimming - which can be cast on the ship - and change environment (tides and currents), all of which he has, and you have a medieval ship that can operate like a modern warship.

 

* This spell allows the Wizard to sense movements and density fluctuations in the surrounding water. This form of vision allows him to see, even in total darkness, the types of creatures moving through the water nearby, the strength and direction of currents, and any fresh or salt water influx.

 

Spatial Awareness (Unusual Group), Discriminatory (27 Active Points); Custom Modifier (only works in water; -½), Extra Time (Full Phase, -½), Requires A Skill Roll (-½), Requires Mana (-½), Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -¼), Concentration (½ DCV; -¼)

 

cheers, Mark

[Cancer]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

Not magic at all, just a comment: from the library research I've done, it looks like the top sustained speed for a single-masted sailing vessel of this tech level is 6 knots, and with a single square sail, you can't do much better than one point into the wind (though even small improvements over that win you a lot).

 

Windmaking magics would help this, of course, assuming they can be sustained for many hours to days.

[QueenOfItAll]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

Not magic at all, just a comment: from the library research I've done, it looks like the top sustained speed for a single-masted sailing vessel of this tech level is 6 knots, and with a single square sail, you can't do much better than one point into the wind (though even small improvements over that win you a lot).

 

Windmaking magics would help this, of course, assuming they can be sustained for many hours to days.

 

What level of technology are you assuming?

[Cancer]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

I'm aiming at 1250 AD or so, North Sea area type tech. Multi-masted ships had not yet been invented, and the only sail was the square-rig; there was lateen in the Mediterranean but not in the north, and fore-and-aft had also not yet been invented.

[QueenOfItAll]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

I'm aiming at 1250 AD or so' date=' North Sea area type tech. Multi-masted ships had not yet been invented, and the only sail was the square-rig; there was lateen in the Mediterranean but not in the north, and fore-and-aft had also not yet been invented.[/quote']

 

To be acurate, it was a case not of "nat invented" but of "forgotten." The ancient Romans had multiple-mast ships. As well, the Chinese did from early on as well.

 

However, for ~1250 CE North Sea area, or a campaign setting based on such, you are correct; single-masted ships with a single square-rigged sail (possibly with two such sails on larger ships) is what would be available.

 

Which leads me to an idea...

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

Cancer, you may wish to invest in the great naval historian N. A. M. Rodger's two volume history of the British Navies through the ages, which I like not least for its excellent technical chapters sprinkled through the volumes. Rodger is a master of the recent literature, and his views vary dramatically from your sourcesm, which I suspect are not exactly current, as the theoretical context here is Victorian.

 

"The single square sail was a powerful rig, and off the wind must have driven a fine hull very fast, but it had serious limitations. Ships had been able to beat to windward for many centuries by 1204, and all seagoing ships seem to have been fitted with the spar known in English as a 'loof' to boom out the weather tack. This was supplemented from at least the twelfth century by the bowline, and eventually the combination of the bowline... and tack....replaced the cumbersome loof altogether. Nevertheless, the performance of a large, especially a taunt square sail to windward, will always be limited by the difficult of controlling ... .the 'leading edge' in aerodynamic terms.... and medieval sails seem from illustrations to have been cut with a very full bunt... Moreover, the fine, shallow hull of the oarred warship was leewardly, and the deeper hull of the cog was no better, to judge from the replica of the Bremen cog which has been tried at sea. A well-designed quarter rudder can act as a centre-board, but the replacement of quarter by stern rudder on English galleys in the thirteenth century will have removed this benefit.

 

"In any circumstances, and in any design of ship, moreoever, a single masted rig is unhandy. For the purposes of manoeuvrer, a ship may be compared to a weather-vane, pivoting about her centre of resistance. With a square sail set on a single mast, necessariliy on or very near the centre of resistance, the only force available to tun the ship is the weak effect of the rudder.[23] Oared vessels probably used some oars to push the ship round when tacking, but merchantmen must have been unhandy, especially in confined waters.[24] This explains the very long delays while ships waited for a fair wind; the range of points of sailing available to them for sailing on the open sea was probably not greatly inferior to that of square-rigged vessels of the seventeenth and even eighteenth century, and there are clear references to ships sailing close-hauled. However, the ability to work ships in confined waters must have been limited, condemning them to lie imprisoned in harbour for want of a leading wind out, on many occasions when there was a fine wind in the offing for their intended passage."

(Rodger, Safeguard of the Sea, 64.) Italics mine.

In summary, single-masted vessels can sail close to the wind, and did. (Which only makes sense --I mean, modern sailboats do, don't they?) The problem was that they were so bloody hard to turn because that humungous sail didn't give the rudder much torque. Oarred vessels didn't have that problem, but cogs and hulks needed a square wind to get out on the open sea. The existence of a replica gives us high confidence in these results.

 

PS: I need a typing stand.

[badger3k]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

Not magic at all, just a comment: from the library research I've done, it looks like the top sustained speed for a single-masted sailing vessel of this tech level is 6 knots, and with a single square sail, you can't do much better than one point into the wind (though even small improvements over that win you a lot).

 

Windmaking magics would help this, of course, assuming they can be sustained for many hours to days.

 

I can't work on it now (puppy is in ultra-max play mode!), but you can use either swimming, Aid to swimming, flight (ground movement) for really fast travel, megascale swimming (maybe a naked megascale modifier). I am not sure if there is anything to enhance the turn mode, but if so that is possible (maybe a roundabout teleport with position shift that has no or 1" distance, requires moving through hexes to cause winds to swirl and spin a ship around). Make any of those usable as attack and you can use the winds to cause damage or problems to the enemy (add in suppress swimming to cause counter winds - forgot the name).

 

I was thinking of a brazier or something similar, bulky but it can be moved from ship to ship, that requires the individual to stand watch (but this can be sustained by an apprentice), perhaps with the color of a summoned elemental. This sounds like several games, but I remember it from a fantasy novel (can't figure out what, I don't think it was Earthsea). Of course, you could change all of this around to fit what you want.

 

If I can, I'll try to work something up in HD like this.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

Basically, use a "forgotten magic" setting instead of a post-apocalyptic "forgotten technology".

 

It always amused me that TSR and WOTC called their D&D setting "The Forgotten Realms" as if nobody who lived there had any idea where they were....

 

But a "forgotten magic" campaign has interesting possibilities. Perhaps PCs have access to low-level spells at best (no more than 15 active points in effect per spell) when they can use spells at all, but a previous age left whopping great magical effects behind that are starting to decay and cause problems. The PCs can't learn the new magic because it is destructive to human minds (just as in CoC, where learning spells reduces your SAN score and starts to drive you mad).

[badger3k]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

It always amused me that TSR and WOTC called their D&D setting "The Forgotten Realms" as if nobody who lived there had any idea where they were....

 

But a "forgotten magic" campaign has interesting possibilities. Perhaps PCs have access to low-level spells at best (no more than 15 active points in effect per spell) when they can use spells at all, but a previous age left whopping great magical effects behind that are starting to decay and cause problems. The PCs can't learn the new magic because it is destructive to human minds (just as in CoC, where learning spells reduces your SAN score and starts to drive you mad).

 

I like the Kane series (Karl Edward Wagner) for that type of Lovecraft/Howard setting with ancient magics in a Swords & Sorcery setting. Bloodstone is one that I really like.

 

This type of setting can have a lot to go for it - ancient golems gone amuck, magical diseases or transformative effects being released by unknowing people...lots of fun things.

[Markdoc]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

I like the Kane series (Karl Edward Wagner) for that type of Lovecraft/Howard setting with ancient magics in a Swords & Sorcery setting. Bloodstone is one that I really like.

 

This type of setting can have a lot to go for it - ancient golems gone amuck, magical diseases or transformative effects being released by unknowing people...lots of fun things.

 

Amusingly, there's a lot in common between topics of this thread and my current FH game. It also is a setting where ancient powerful magics were once used and relics of astounding power can still be found here and there. And there are "things" - things in the fabric of the world, although they are only just starting to enter the story in a big way.

 

This old magic really is "forgotten" - the barbarians who over-ran the remnants of that civilization smashed up all the stuff they didn't understand/couldn't control, so such relics are only found in very out of the way places. As a result the players are vaguely aware that "In the past there were powerful magicians" ... but that's about it, really. When they recently found the ruins of a sunken city on one sea voyage, they were all duly amazed.

 

In this week's session, the players fell into the power of a group of sorcerors who found one such artifact: a dimensional gate. The players think the sorcerors are evil - meddling with things man was not meant to know. The sorcerors simply want to learn to build gates (a valuable skill in kingdoms scattered across many islands), and wanted to study this one. Unfortunately said gate was protected by powerful magical traps, which in the course of the evening got demolished. At which point the players discovered the traps were put there not to stop people getting to the gate, but to stop the things on the other side of the gate from coming any further ....

 

cheers, Mark

[Cancer]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

I'll put together and post the sources I've used so far, with some relevant passages, but that won't happen until at least tonight. I haven't read the Rodgers books mentioned (though I have another one of his, I think).

[Cancer]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

References I found useful while research maritime tech for the North Sea, c. 1250 AD

 

"Ships of the World, An Historical Encyclopedia" by Lincoln Payne (1997, Houghton Mifflin). In particular, the entries for the Bremen Cog, the Gokstad Ship, the Oseborg Ship. Discussions of other important wrecks are also valuable (the Chronologies section near the end is useful for finding such things in the main body of the book; the entries are ordered alphabetically by name of the ship, and if you aren't familiar with nautical archaeology finding things is a PITA).

 

"Engineering in the Ancient World", by J. G. Landels (1978, U of California Press), especially chap. 6, and the appendix to chap. 6 is invaluable for understanding the limits of speed on oared vessels. While this book is largely concerned with the technologies of Rome and ancient Greece, the discussion of sailing ships and performance of oared vessels is useful, in particular why oared craft have such a firmly unsurpassable maximum speed.

 

"Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel", by Frances & Joseph Gies (1994, HarperPerennial). The information about ships is dispersed throughout the text (which is largely chronological in presentation) and is handy in placing things in the broader historical context.

 

"Galleons and Galleys", by John Guilmartin (2002, Cassell & Co). While more concerned with developments in the Mediterranean of a later era, the early part of the book, which mentions cogs and the Battle of Sluys (1340), is quite useful. Richly illustrated.

 

"Nina", unpublished and unattributed one-sheet handout obtained in July 2008 while visiting a replica of Columbus's caravel Nina when it came to Seattle. The experience of walking aboard this vessel, and seeing exactly what it meant to be aboard a four-masted 100-ton (displacement) ship, 94 feet long, 17 feet beam, 7 feet draft, with a deck length of 66 feet, was most useful. Sadly, the entire ship is painted black, which makes it very difficult to discern details in the pictures I took. It had no "crows nest" on any mast, the two mizzenmasts carried lateen sails (and the aftmost mast and sail were distinctly smaller than the others), while the fore and main carried single square sails.

 

"Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World", by Lionel Casson (1971, Princeton U Press). A primary scholarly text of the first order, documenting every source. Concerned with Rome, Greece, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, much of this is does not bear on the topic of interest, but Chapter 12 is a priceless discussion of the records of long-haul speeds of individual ships and fleets in a variety of conditions.

 

"The Physics of Sailing", by Bryon D. Anderson, in the Feb. 2008 issue of Physics Today magazine (the PDF of this can be had for free from the Physics Today website). Written by a physicist for other physicists, it's probably a thick read for most people, and the examples are all from current-era fore-and-aft rig racing boats. However, Figure 4 and the section "Hull speed" makes clear why (with regular, "displacement" hulls) longer ships can go faster than shorter ones, and Figure 5 (showing top speed plotted against angle to the wind for three different wind speeds, in polar coordinates) is a most enlightening little graph.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

It's good to see someone using Guilmartin after Parker's driveby "review." I would add the various volumes in the Conway's History of the Ship as pretty much the scholarly state of the art in this branch of history of technology, although those interested in pursuing the matter might want to look at the flagship journal, Mariner's Mirror.

[Cancer]

Re: Fishy, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

 

I own two books by Guilmartin, that one and the very similarly titled Gunpowder and Galleys. The latter is more of a standard scholarly text, slightly different topic, next to no illustrations, very interesting still.

 

I own one book by Rodgers (Wooden Walls). My interests got shanghaied into eras earlier than the glory of the Royal Navy.