D&D 5E Cloud kingdoms....brainstorming

[NotAYakk]

Speaking of water…


You have to defeat it in some way to get things out of or into a floating pool. But in doing so, it could creep up whatever via capillary attraction…and too much water could suck you in. And how do you get out of a sphere of water with nothing to push off of?

You'd swim.

Breaking the surface tension of an area of 0.5 m^2 requires a force of 4 newtons.

If the sphere is large, you'd just swim towards the edge and break out of it. You'd push off the sphere with almost any non-zero velocity and you'd float free. You'd probably still have some water on you, but you could brush that off with your hands.

Then, so long as you have something to push off the air (say, wings? (artificial or not) What are you doing in the sky without those. Without gravity, relatively small wings work reasonably well even for human-sized creatures) you could start moving.

 

[Tonguez]

Well, except that clouds are full of water (if playing for Realism) - am thinking about economics in other ways. Food for starters..

yeah water neednt be a worry in a cloud kingom, irrigation is possible too and that opens up for aquaponic gardens for feed. plus birds etc.

Getting a supply of metals and wood is hard though which is why flying ships are needed and why theres always a groundlevel dockunder the cloud cover

 

[Ancalagon]

Well, except that clouds are full of water (if playing for Realism) - am thinking about economics in other ways. Food for starters..

Ok, so if you want realism?

1: Why are there clouds at all? Where does the water (to generate enough water vapor to form clouds) comes from?

2: If it rains, where does the water go?

3: food concern are definitely an issue, depending on how big the floating islands are.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Ok, so if you want realism?

I think if someone wants realism, I'm not sure building a kingdom in the sky is ever really going to work...

 

[Tonguez]

Ok, so if you want realism?

1: Why are there clouds at all? Where does the water (to generate enough water vapor to form clouds) comes from?

2: If it rains, where does the water go?

3: food concern are definitely an issue, depending on how big the floating islands are.

For clouds you just need any source water and normal evaporation and condensation. Once you’ve got water and heat you just need a container to hold plants in to grow.
Nutrients may be an issue but your using magic to build a floating city, nutrients can be presumed (the waste has to go somewhere too - unless the world below really does have yellow snows)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You'd swim.

Breaking the surface tension of an area of 0.5 m^2 requires a force of 4 newtons.

If the sphere is large, you'd just swim towards the edge and break out of it. You'd push off the sphere with almost any non-zero velocity and you'd float free. You'd probably still have some water on you, but you could brush that off with your hands.

Then, so long as you have something to push off the air (say, wings? (artificial or not) What are you doing in the sky without those. Without gravity, relatively small wings work reasonably well even for human-sized creatures) you could start moving.

Sorry, I worded my posts poorly. You have to remember that to be a spherical body of water, the water has to be in zero or microgravity conditions.

Assuming your skin is not clean, it probably will be covered with hydrophillic materials (like dirt), and if true, that means you’re not going to float, you’re going to sink. You can definitely get to the surface by swimming, but that’s going to take more energy without the buoyancy assist from gravity.

And because of surface tension, there might still be some water adhering to your face (or whatever breathing apparatus you have). So getting completely to safety is tough.

Water in Space: How Does Water Behave in Outer Space? | U.S. Geological Survey

Does water still feel wet in outer space? Does it float or does it fall? With a little help from our friends at NASA we will help you understand exactly how water behaves in outer space. Continue reading to learn more.

www.usgs.gov

Watch How Water Behaves in Zero Gravity

It's all due to a little something called surface tension.

www.mentalfloss.com

 

[Faolyn]

Well, except that clouds are full of water (if playing for Realism) - am thinking about economics in other ways. Food for starters..

Air plants, of course!

Which, in a fantasy world, would include many that are edible and useful for making textiles.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Heh, now about those skyships ...are they just mechanical or.....weird. IN both Monster Blood Tattoo and H.P. lovecraft fantasy, ships had some weird "things" inside them that rowed in the ocean. So the idea of some buoyant gassy "things" in the bowels of a skyship. Like an organic zeppelin come to mind. I also remember a bio-mech zeppelin called a Huxley...now which book did that come from....

mechanical mostly but made by thing with rather different minds, depends on the house and their goals and what they care about, I have been trying to hammer out their concept for a while.

Air plants, of course!

Which, in a fantasy world, would include many that are edible and useful for making textiles.

you can also have micro flyers or to use other words air krill.

 

[NotAYakk]

Sorry, I worded my posts poorly. You have to remember that to be a spherical body of water, the water has to be in zero or microgravity conditions.

Assuming your skin is not clean, it probably will be covered with hydrophillic materials (like dirt), and if true, that means you’re not going to float, you’re going to sink. You can definitely get to the surface by swimming, but that’s going to take more energy without the buoyancy assist from gravity.

And because of surface tension, there might still be some water adhering to your face (or whatever breathing apparatus you have). So getting completely to safety is tough.

Water in Space: How Does Water Behave in Outer Space? | U.S. Geological Survey

Does water still feel wet in outer space? Does it float or does it fall? With a little help from our friends at NASA we will help you understand exactly how water behaves in outer space. Continue reading to learn more.

www.usgs.gov

Watch How Water Behaves in Zero Gravity

It's all due to a little something called surface tension.

www.mentalfloss.com

"Sink"? Sink where? You mean, the water will pull you inside itself when you are at the edge of it?

Even then -- https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-v045n018.p024 -- our skin is highly hydrophobic. Unless you are caked in dirt, the clean surface area is going to win. So surface tension will make it want to wrap around us (minimal surface area), it won't be hard to shake loose.

If there is enough water to swim in, I'd expect that the hydrophillic/phobic and surface tension effects aren't going to be large compared to the thrust of a swimmer.

I did make a surface tension error. It is actually in force/distance, as the output is energy when multiplied by the increase in surface area.

So, suppose you try to breach a water membrane. You want to make a tube 0.5 m diameter that is about 2 m long, representing the water you drag along with you as you break free. Then you want to snip it off. Assuming the source water is large, the new surface area is then 2 pi * (0.5m)^2 for the "caps" and pi * 2m^2 for the "long part", or 8 m^2. (The goal is order of magnitude).

Water is 72 mN/m. So this is all of 0.576 Joules. That isn't all that much.

I suspect the fact that swimming will make the water start to mix with the air (internal currents overwealm surface tension) making it hard to swim before that becomes a problem. But I could be wrong.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I did point out the thing about skin not being clean being a prereq for sinking.

The crux of the matter is how clean/dirty would you have to be before hydrophilic became hydrophobic. I’m thinking that your average FRPG setting inhabitant isn’t going to be all that clean. Still…we’re talking about a case in a fairly radical departure from a typical FRPG setting. So a drawn out debate would be of little use.

That said…apparently, I’m probably in the wrong on this.