[Dragonstar] The 65 billion gp magic item, or the Magic Beanstalk

[Caliban]

Cool, you've really given this a lot of thought!

Something else that just occurred to me, who/what would control the levitate spell on each section? You couldn't leave it up to the passengers of the beanstalk (and cargo can't decide which way it wants to go if it's a pure non-living cargo lift), so would each section require an operator to control the sections magic? (basically to "use" the section like an item?)

What a job - report for work, punch in. Get transported to your section. Begin thinking "Up....Up....Up....Up.....Up.....Up...." for the next 8-12 hr shift.

I just had the thought pop into my head of the old elevator operators ("Going Up!"). This might make things a little complicated for manning the upward side, although the downward side wouldn't require any supervision if you went with the Feather Fall.

The levitate side is actually a good idea because you are not limited to upward travel, in case of an emergency you could reverse the direction to evacuate the orbital station in a hurry with 2x the downward cargo/passenger movement, or move anything else downward from orbit at a double rate.

Hmmm, that almost makes me want to lobby to see levitate used on both sides. That would give you the capacity to provide 2x the flow in either direction if needed. The only problem would be the financial end of it, the corporation would have to really have to lobby to get that past their financial departments....

The current version does use levitate on both beanstalks. The cost is the same, and that way only one type of ring section needs to be made.

If I made the down beanstalk use feather fall, you would reach the ground three times as fast (about 1.5 days insead of 4.4), because feather fall lowers at a rate of 60' a round as opposed to 20' per round for levitate.

I'm also assuming that since it's a continous magic item, it only needs a person to set the direction once it's activated. After that it automatically affects everything that comes within reach. Now that I think about it, these items probably qualify for the 30% discount because of their limitations, which would drop the price significantly.

I envision a a set of tracks leading into the bottom ring, with cars constantly moving cargo in. The cargo is clamped to the cars, and then released once they are centered in the ring. The cars are connected to the tracks, and won't be lifted. That way you can keep a pretty much constant flow of cargo. (Cars go in one side, release, go out the other side, and have more cargo loaded on as they follow the track around to the entrance again.)

 

[Caliban]

This is so interesting that it's almost a shame that a teleportation circle magic item would be so much cheaper.

"Transporter": teleportation circle (9th level spell x 17th level caster x 2000 for use activation) = 646,000 gold, 25840 xp. Now that presumes you have a 17th level wizard willing to cast it. 8)

Still, the Empire has to have some darn high-level mages as IIRC they have a magical teleporting highway connecting important planets.

It's also not clear how much cargo a teleport circle can handle, although it would seem that no matter what it needs a person to ride up with it. If the limit is the same as teleport then that 17th caster level item would only be able to teleport the handler+850 lbs per trip. On the other hand those trips would be instantaneous.

You could potentially make it cheaper by requiring a wizard to operate it, thus saving the jobs of all the guys who would otherwise be enchanting your beanstalk.

Now I'm picturing Imperial Express couriers - "when it absolutely, positively has to get across the galaxy...overnight." Teleport circles all leading to a central sorting house, that has the circles going to all the planets in the empire...

J

One of the assumptions I'm using for this is that

A) High level mages have better things to do with their time than doing grunt wor for a corporation. At 17th level you are one of the most powerful individuals on any planet. The Emperor can command the services of high level spellcasters (thus the Long Road was built), but most will corporations won't be able to hire them for the sustained effort that creating permanent teleport circles between two moving objects would take.

B) The beanstalk is actually much more economical over the long haul. ( As in over a 100-200 year period. A company run by dragons wouldn't have any trouble taking the long view.)

For the concept of industrial magic to work, you need to be able to use spells in a mass production setup, which means low level spells that can be cast by many different mages. This is why I'm trying to limit myself to cantrips and 1st level spells for the big engineering projects.

You can get higher level mages to create one-off items that incorporate more powerful spells, but they rarely do that as a full time job. They just can't afford the XP expenditure unless they are active adventurers (in which case item creation isn't their full-time job, adventuring is).

There probably is one or two permanent Teleport Circles on the station. The Imperial Legion based there probably has one, and the Draconis Combine section probably has one. Neither of them would be used for transporting ordinary cargo. Instead, they would only be used for very critical cargo: Stuff that absolutely has to get there right now, or for wealthy patrons able to afford the much higher cost of the trip.


There main reasons I didn't go with Permanent Teleport Circles:

1) It would have the 850 pound weight limit. You would need about 60 of them to transport 25 tons of cargo, and it would still have to be in 850 pound units. A single 25 ton vehicle would have to be broken down into parts and then re-assembled on the other side.

2) Trying to do it with Starcasters (since they don't have the weight limit) wouldn't be economical in the long run. They aren't reliable in within a planetary gravity field. Even if you found a way around that, they would have to be recharged after 50 teleports. To match the beanstalk, you would have to do 1,440 teleports of 25 tons each, every day. You would have to drain 29 starcasters every single day. Keeping the mages on staff to recharge that many starcasters, every single day would cost more that the beanstalks in a few decades, even if you could find enough mages with the XP to spare.

3) Style. Industrial magic should have a mass-produced, factory feel. Also, I wanted the Industrial Might and Magic company to run on the backs of the little mages, not the great archmages.

 

[DMaple]

Wouldn't you just need the Feather Fall ring to be the very last one at the bottom of the down chute?

You could free fall the rest of the way.

Cuts your costs significantly.

 

[mythusmage]

Industrial Magic

So far we've been dealing with adventuring magic, the sort of dweomercrafting found in the PHB for example. But wouldn't an industrial fantasy society research industrial magic? The sort of magic useful in industrial applications.

Then too you have advancement in magical knowledge. Placing the art on a more "scientific" basis. Such that the effectiveness of castings becomes greater. Which means a spell can do more, be more effective.

Alan

 

[Caliban]

Re: Industrial Magic

So far we've been dealing with adventuring magic, the sort of dweomercrafting found in the PHB for example. But wouldn't an industrial fantasy society research industrial magic? The sort of magic useful in industrial applications.

Then too you have advancement in magical knowledge. Placing the art on a more "scientific" basis. Such that the effectiveness of castings becomes greater. Which means a spell can do more, be more effective.

Alan

True, but I don't want to create a whole slew of new spells just yet. I had thought of creating a more limited form of Levitate that can lift double the weight, but only affects non-living matter. I may still do that, as it would decrease the cost of the project significantly, as well as reducing the caster level needed. I think I can also reduce the cost by 30% with the appropriate limitations. I wanted to see if it was possible with the base spells in the PHB first, with a few assumption necessary for Industrial Magic to work.

I'm assuming that there is a form of ritual magic that allows spellcasters to combine their caster levels and XP when creating magic items, with one mage leading the circle and providing the required item creation feat.

That way you can use a hordes of very low level mages led by a few mid-level mages to create items, especially if they are modular items that increase each others power (as the ring sections in the beanstalk do).

[edit] Something else I just though of: Using custom spells for industrial-type magic favors wizards over sorcerers. The company can always provide a "company only" spellbook for each wizard to scribe the spell into, and pay the cost of scribing for the wizard. A sorcerer can't pick up new spells that easily. So in an empire run by dragons that favor sorcerers, they will tend to go for the approach that allows them to use sorcerer's as easily as wizards. Levitate's not a bad spell, even for a sorcerer. Especially if you can get a lucrative job by taking it.

 

[gnfnrf]

Wouldn't you just need the Feather Fall ring to be the very last one at the bottom of the down chute?

You could free fall the rest of the way.

That depends on if Dragonstar has re-entry damage, like Spelljammer did. I didn't see it in the Starfarer's handbook, but something like that would probably be in the Galaxy Guide (which I don't own) anyway.

--
gnfnrf

 

[mythusmage]

Undetailed Magic

True, but I don't want to create a whole slew of new spells just yet. (Posting goodness snipped)

That could be a daunting task indeed. On the other hand, you could hint at the existance of non-standard magics, and let others invent the spells for you.

If you tried to detail all the possible spells in a fantasy setting you'd never get the job done.

 

[mythusmage]

Ring Size

This question just occured to me. How substantial do the rings have to be? Could they be as small as rings one foot in cross section for the body of the ring? Each ring separated from the next by a gap of 20 feet or so. Or the max allowed by the enchantment.

With specialized enchantments capable of handling large volumes of material this could make building a beanstalk a lot cheaper in terms of XP.

 

[Caliban]

Blargh...

Someone just pointed out a major error in my calculations.

I was using 240 miles for the geosynchronous orbit, but it turns out that that is only a Low Earth Orbit.

Geosynchronous Orbit is 22,240 miles out, meaning that the cost of everything just increased by about 9.5 times. I'm going to have to rethink this quite a bit. *sigh*

 

[mythusmage]

That does make a difference.

I've been thinking about the beanstalk itself. Do you really need it? Put the station into geo-synchroneous orbit and have a set of pods that travel between station and the surface using a variant of Levitation. Add some sort of affinity magic, tuned to the station, and everything should go without trouble.

Please note that the beanstalk is necessary in the real world to help raise and lower the capsules, with magic you wouldn't really need such.