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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 3935931" data-attributes="member: 19675">Specific questions about metals:1) I live in the D/FW Metroplex, and I see aluminum (I think they're aluminum, anyways) poles & rods used for all kinds of street signs and other external architectural features, yet several have noted aluminum doesn't do well in the elements.  What is the secret?  If something like that survived, would it be suitable for making handles/poles for certain weapons?2) I took a trip to Russia in 2005, and while in Moscow, I saw a tower/sculpture comemmorating their space program made of (or covered in) 1 years worth of Russia's titanium production in various polygonal panels.  It looked fairly unweathered and permanent.   If pieces of something like that survived, would those pieces be usable- perhaps mounted in a steel frame to make a shield, or abraded to hold an edge and make a dagger?A big part of my thought process on this campaign came from Isaac Asimov's Nightfall (both the short story and the posthumously expanded novel version).The reason I chose the intentionallly redirected asteroids:1) Early detection is unlikely. Therefore, the targets will be minimally prepared.2) Effects will be immediate & global.  Nobody has time to learn from the experiences of others or render aid- everybody is in deep trouble at the same time.3) The scope of physical destruction would be massive, but could be targeted.  The population centers get wiped out, but the countryside could be relatively unscathed.  Yes, there would be some crop dieoff, but with the addition of magic, you'd still have a significant population for the Illithids to dominate & eat.4) A plague like the 1918 Flu coupled with modern mass transit has ancillary effects I don't want.  The Illithids want somebody leftover, and a virulent, drug-resistant plague with lots of possible vectors could make their victory pyrrhic- they conquer an empty world and lose their favorite food source.  Plus, plagues don't cause damage to the infrastructure, which removes a lot of campaign motivations.1) Any University has to survive the Illithid Alpha strike.  If its in a city bigger than 10,000 people (about the size of Manhattan, KS, home of Kansas State University, when school is not in session), it probably won't because the city would be targeted.  Even if the school isn't struck directly, the meteorite impacts would doubtlessly start fires, possibly even igniting whatever is in the gas mains and other fuel pipelines.  Most cities struck, even if not pulverized by the meteorite, would dissapear in the resultant conflagration.2)  Anyone surviving the alpha strike would be thinking short-term survival over long-term revival of civilization.  With the world's nations infrastructures all reduced to rubble, including power plants, people would need to find ways to keep warm and cook food.Books, valuable though they would be, would be lower priority for uses other than fuel than surviving structures or furniture.  Paper burns so much more easily, and there is sooooo much of it.  99% of the books that survive the early years after Starfall (my name for the ELE) and remain in circulation would be what individuals could carry and protect themselves.  The rest would be, as described, buried under tons of rubble- indeed a treasure worth risking all for.  Like valuable, unmined minerals, there are probably more buried books surviving Starfall than anyone realizes- the trick is locating and recovering them (a major campaign feature).(See Isaac Asimov's Nightfall.)3)  The more specialized the book, the rarer the academic (student or teacher) who understands its contents.  When the ELE comes, how useful is the book on metallurgy to the typical expert in Pre-Shakespearean English literature (who, in all likelyhood, is on kitchen duty anyways)?  What value would a materials scientist trying to help his community glean from a copy of the Book of Kells?Its actually part typo and part just slinging out numbers.  I haven't decided upon the planet's size just yet- 500 miles is probably more realistic.However, what I meant to say was that the Inheritors of West Bouldershire had the only working plastics factory in that area, and ALSO happened to have a pre-ELE dump site from which they could easily get raw materials for it.  Others may have dump sites, but may not be able to do much with the plastics they uncover...or given what happens with older landfills, may not even realize they have a pre-Starfall dump site.First, all contributions are welcome!  I read a lot of subjects, but I'd rather get solid info from those who know their stuff than merely speculate from articles in PopSci or Nature, etc.Undoubtedly, stuff is going to survive.  The questions remain:1) Who knows where it is and who of the survivors knows how to use it?  Something stored in a salt mine may indeed survive the Starfall, but if the owners/commanders were in a population center, they're probably ash.  Even in a hardened military structure, there will only be so many MREs, and only a few personnel would have any practical experience with long-term forgaging & farming.  After a certain point, they'd probably have to move to where the food is (becoming well trained nomads...possibly descending to banditry like in David Brin's The Postman) or face starvation.  After a bit more time, nobody in the company may be aware of the location of their former base of operations.2) How much of it will be useful to the survivors who find it.  It may be cool to possess a pre-Starfall Doomsday Device, but does it keep you & yours warm?  Fed?In no particular order...I'm aware of the quality of artificial gemstones- I do jewelry as a hobby- but magic doesn't neccessarily play by the rules.  Perhaps those stones would be better or worse as material components...or perhaps they'd even change the results outright (think of wild magic effects, or the AU/AE charts for special material components).I wasn't so much thinking about reworking ceramics- I was thinking that someone finding zircon carbide shards might imbed them in the edge of a largeish piece of wood, like the shark-tooth swords you'd find in island/costal cultures, or using other ceramics to insulate a tower shield against a fiery breath weapon.Thanks all, and lets keep the ideas coming!  This is great stuff!</blockquote>

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