Mechanical Arts

[Herobizkit]

"Near the river source, on a mountain slope,
Lies a great machine called the Gummi Scope.
It can harness the sunlight and shoot off a stream
That can send out a message or burn with its beam."

Watch Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears... they're secretly Dwarves, I tells ya.

 

[Samloyal23]

"Near the river source, on a mountain slope,
Lies a great machine called the Gummi Scope.
It can harness the sunlight and shoot off a stream
That can send out a message or burn with its beam."

Watch Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears... they're secretly Dwarves, I tells ya.

So they're crafty little folks, eh?

Dwarves using light seemed almost scandalous to me, dwarves should only trust things they can hold in their hand. So Hans is in a tiny minority in Burghausen and only his success with defending the great gates of the city (which are atop the mountain the city is in) made his fellows give him some grudging respect.

The question now is how to get solar power into the depths of the city for use by others. How far can you deflect light without losing energy? Or should Hans and company concentrate on using it outdoors and sending the product of their work, like smelted ingots and boiling water, through conventional channels?

 

[Herobizkit]

Borrowing liberally from Final Fantasy 12 - Darkstones.

Darkstones are nature's solar batteries, absorbing the energy of the sun during the day. They resemble dark, smoky quartz and share many of the same properties. This energy can later be collected by a Shadestone, turning it into a brilliant Sunstone.

These Sunstones were originally used in jewellery due to their luminescent glow; Dwarven smiths have discovered more interesting uses for the 'batteries'.

Change the names all you like, but a specific kind of gem/element that acts as solar batteries would be the ticket. Lunar variations could exist as well.

 

[Samloyal23]

Borrowing liberally from Final Fantasy 12 - Darkstones.

Darkstones are nature's solar batteries, absorbing the energy of the sun during the day. They resemble dark, smoky quartz and share many of the same properties. This energy can later be collected by a Shadestone, turning it into a brilliant Sunstone.

These Sunstones were originally used in jewellery due to their luminescent glow; Dwarven smiths have discovered more interesting uses for the 'batteries'.

Change the names all you like, but a specific kind of gem/element that acts as solar batteries would be the ticket. Lunar variations could exist as well.

That's a nifty idea. How hard would it be for an alchemist to make something like this? Would it be reasonable to spend the money to make one that could release enough energy to smelt metal or superheat water?

 

[dragonfriend7738]

That's a nifty idea. How hard would it be for an alchemist to make something like this? Would it be reasonable to spend the money to make one that could release enough energy to smelt metal or superheat water?

Why make it something that has to be created? You're world crafting, right? You could make it a natural (if uncommon/rare) mineral. In FF12 it's a natural thing. You see large patches of crystal formations, and they're all Darkstone formations.

Now, for the Shadestone equivalent, if you want it to be a crafted thing, I don't see why it would be any different from a Thunderstone.

 

[Samloyal23]

Why make it something that has to be created? You're world crafting, right? You could make it a natural (if uncommon/rare) mineral. In FF12 it's a natural thing. You see large patches of crystal formations, and they're all Darkstone formations.

Now, for the Shadestone equivalent, if you want it to be a crafted thing, I don't see why it would be any different from a Thunderstone.

Not quite sure how that would work ruleswise, how would you determine the amount of energy stored? How much would all this cost?

 

[dragonfriend7738]

Not quite sure how that would work ruleswise, how would you determine the amount of energy stored? How much would all this cost?

If I were to use this mechanic, I'd make the amount of energy stored dependant upon the Darkstone crystal rather than the Shadestone. In the game that we're pulling the mechanic from, the same Shadestone was used to draw the energy from several different Darkstones before it became a Sunstone. You could say that the amount of energy that a Darkstone stores is dependent upon its size- for rough sketch let's put a + modifier on it and work from there.

A Darkstone smaller than size small would not be able to be used to charge a Shadestone. Small grants +1, and the charge increases to +2 at medium, +4 at large, +6 at huge, ect.

A Darkstone is a crystalline growth- like all crystals, they can grow in size if given the proper environment. In a mineral-rich environment that is subject to stable sunlight for a period of at least a month at a time, a Darkstone can increase its size by one category once a month (maximum size colossal). This size increase prevents any charge buildup in the crystal during the month, and happens randomly (as determined by the DM.) A tiny size Darkstone shard can be used as a seed to grow a new Darkstone crystal formation.

A Darkstone charges at a rate of +1 charge modifier per ? hours of direct natural sunlight that the crystal is subject to. A Darkstone subjected to a Daylight spell does not obtain a charge.

To charge a Shadestone, it must be in contact with a charged Darkstone formation for a number of rounds equal to it's charge modifier plus one. A Shadestone must reach X number of charges before it becomes a Sunstone.

A Sunstone shines with light equivalent to a Daylight Spell for X number of hours before reverting back to a Shadestone.

X should be an apropriate number, I think. And the Sunstone could last for days rather than hours, if you think that's applicable as well, but then it should probably be at least 1/2X if not 1/4X. I'm partial to a two to three hour requirement for the charges, that way even at midsummer, where you've got 12 hours of sunlight the max you can get is a +4 to a +6 charge into a stone from a single crystal.

I'm pulling this out of my arse, but it sounds good to me, and if your Dragon Gate works off of the Sun, having a stone that works like a portable one would probably be exactly what you're looking for, no? What do you think?

 

[Loonook]

Use a unit of energy that would make sense in the world. The capacity of one stone is the equivalent of the needs to power one Y for X time. The Candela, BTU, or the Carcel burner measure from the French could all be used as baselines at an output. I would probably say that one coin-sized piece of this substance contains 1 candle-year of energy. Per non-SI standards that would be a little over a month (~36 days) of constant burning of a Carcel Burner lamp. That would make each of these small stones worth (lamp oil [1sp * 36 *4])144 sp, or 14 gp 4 sp. Two units and 30 lead balls would be around the same cost as 30 bullets for an Advanced Firearm in Pathfinder if you use them as your source of propellant for ammunition. The use of one of these coin-sized objects to power anything would burn the device out.

Now, this makes the item sit right on the Good side of thing, but puts it out of the reach of most poor individuals. A house with three lamps, for example, would have an upkeep cost of 432 GP/year... Which is actually cheaper than hiring and feeding three young poor servants (comm 1) with darkvision to sit with any non-darkvisioners who may live there to direct you through the house . Of course take into account that on average you're not burning the items all day in the average home, so let us say you use 2 hrs of 'oil' per night... Then you're going to keep these lamps around for an average of 14.4 30 day months, and adventurers will still have a substance that lasts longer than a similar weight of lamp-and-oil, but doesn't burn.

Rechargable forms would be purchasable for 10x the cost. This allows for a lamp to not burn its initial stock, and reduce the overall cost of the 'charge' to 1/5 of its base rate. 2gp 88sp brings the recharge savings to 11gp 52sp. This mean you will start saving after 13 recharges, which would come to savings after... 15 years of 2 hr use, 4 years of 8 hr use, or around 500 days of 24 hr 'burning'. Then you're just looking at sweet savings.

Now, we can surmise that on average a medium gas stove burner produces 7000 BTUs. and a standard gas lantern produce between 1050 and 1700. We're using very rough Googled numbers, but let us average the lamp's heat output to 1375 BTU. A good sized grill, which we'll mark as a campfire, produces 12000 BTU. Now these are all based on output/hr numbers. A large oven at a cooperative bakery (not uncommon in some medieval settings)? Let us take the basis of a pizza oven, at 250000 BTU. for an inefficient but serviceable large-scale double-rack pizza oven, which would fit ~ two dozen loafs minimum to bake in 20-30 minutes.

For such a large-scale operation as a bakery these costs would be prohibitive, though it is in theory possible to produce larger subsidized stones. A family of four's basic oven would cost between 1 gp to 1 gp 5sp/day of use of a medium-sized burner if using the semi-permanent rechargeable stones. Not horribly feasible for peasantry, but possible for use by the upper crust for the preparation of their foodstuffs.

Now what would be the cost to do other things with these stones? Figure that a 1500 watt space heater, with our current efficiency, is a little under the BTU output of a simple medium-sized burner (5100ish BTU), which would cover an area of 150 square feet (about 2 2/3 would make a Stronghold Space). This should be enough to maintain heat in a stronghold space a bit higher than ambient temperature, but for roaring heat you're going to still prefer a fire.

Hope some of these numbers will give you a soft set to work off of.

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Samloyal23]

But how do you measure BTUs in game terms? How many BTUs does it take to cause 1 hp of damage?

 

[Belzbet]

Their natural resistance makes it hard for them to cast spells,

Excuse my ignorance but why does a dwarves natural resistance make it hard for THEM to cast spells? I ask because I am wondering if I am missing any rules (since i dont give a dwarf a penalty for casting spells).