How would you... (Game challenge)

[Dungeoneer]

I think you're kind of overlooking the all-important "the volcanoes aren't really volcanoes, they're X!" approach.

"The volcanoes aren't really volcanoes, they're slumbering primordial fire beings!"

"The volcanoes aren't really volcanoes, they're ancient engines built by a race of super dwarves!"

"The volcanoes aren't really volcanoes, they're the homes of fire spirits that have been disturbed!"

Personally I think having the volcanoes be living things or homes to living things opens up a lot of dramatic possibilities.

 

[Argyle King]

Cast Gate near the volcanoes so as to send the smoke and such to somewhere else. Let the residents of the chosen plane worry about how to stop it.

 

[Savage Wombat]

"Pimples on the face of Gaia! We need Clearasil, stat!"

 

[Lwaxy]

...or the size of the decanter... I had that happen already, although just with one volcano.

 

[Deset Gled]

Seems like a great way to make steam.

In terms of actually stopping the volcano?

Creating steam is basically the point. In an above ground volcano, you get all sorts of nasty gases, including the smoke that the bad guys are blanketing the earth with.

But when lava hits water instead of air, you get a laze plume, which is really just steam and HCl. The rest of the gases are cooled and trapped; no smoke. And the HCl is actually just a byproduct of the fact that, in real life, the water on top of an underwater volcano is always seawater. The HCl is the result of the heated sea salts. If the decanter has fresh water, there should be no HCl; just steam.

So, I repeat the suggestion: blanket the volcano in water, and the ash and smoke will be stopped. Now, I'll admit this isn't actually stopping the volcano itself; that was sloppy wording on my part. But it's solving the problem that the bad guys were trying to create.

Talk 10 of them dumping 36,000 gallons a minute, and you might have an impact, depending on the volcano.

I'll admit that I have no idea how many decanters it will take. It would depend entirely on the size of the volcanoes.

Disclaimer: I'm not a vulcanologist, I just read stuff on the internet. I've also seen the Outer Limits episode where Shatner takes part in "Project Vulcan" as well as the episode with Nemoy as a lawyer. So that may qualify me as an expert in something.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

One suggestion: For a manageable volcano control, I'd recommend a pack of Thoqqua's following the instructions of a leader. Enough of those tunneling worms used strategically and you should be able to control the amount of volcanic activity precisely.

To extinguish, do you guys have any way to redirect sea water toward it? A fissure, a tunnel, redirect a river, etc? Imagine a plan to tunnel the ocean from miles away, trying to bring it to the mountain undetected for as long as possible.

I'd imagine such an adventure hook would include underground travel.

Alternately, Any chance you guys have access to Gate or any other Planar openings? either for the villains carrying the smoke/lava from someplace else, or for the heroes ripping a opening from the Plane or Water and dumping in over the top?

 

[MarkB]

For awakening a volcano, I'd think that some judicious application of Earthquake spells to crack open the lava vents would probably work.

It might also work as a method of stopping the volcano, by collapsing the vents, but would need to be applied with a great deal more precision and expertise in order not to do more harm than good.

 

[Dark Dragon]

Creating steam is basically the point. In an above ground volcano, you get all sorts of nasty gases, including the smoke that the bad guys are blanketing the earth with.

But when lava hits water instead of air, you get a laze plume, which is really just steam and HCl. The rest of the gases are cooled and trapped; no smoke. And the HCl is actually just a byproduct of the fact that, in real life, the water on top of an underwater volcano is always seawater. The HCl is the result of the heated sea salts. If the decanter has fresh water, there should be no HCl; just steam.

So, I repeat the suggestion: blanket the volcano in water, and the ash and smoke will be stopped. Now, I'll admit this isn't actually stopping the volcano itself; that was sloppy wording on my part. But it's solving the problem that the bad guys were trying to create.



I'll admit that I have no idea how many decanters it will take. It would depend entirely on the size of the volcanoes.

Disclaimer: I'm not a vulcanologist, I just read stuff on the internet. I've also seen the Outer Limits episode where Shatner takes part in "Project Vulcan" as well as the episode with Nemoy as a lawyer. So that may qualify me as an expert in something.

Water does not always help, as is evident from numerous volcanic islands above sea level

Ash is created largely by fragmentation of rocks. If one pours water on molten rock, its surface will cool, crack and produce some amount of ash and steam (plus acids like HCl, H2SO4, and maybe some HF, depending on the lava).

So, it depends a bit on the DM, and how elaborate the volcanic system is. Some volcanoes erupt just once (but maybe violently), others are just fed by an efficient magmatic system and erupt for years (like Stromboli).

Maybe the party has to find some sort of an epic spell to end the activity. Or use cold fusion (as Spock did in "Into Darkness" ).

 

[Greenfield]

HCL can only form if there's CL in the mix. Seawater has it, fresh water doesn't.

Geophysics and chemistry aside, I decided on another route for this one.

They found that someone had apparently spent years inside the flume of the volcano, deep inside the mountain, chiseling out a shelf and narrow ledge all arount the perimeter of the opening, and then carving it with magic runes. In essence, they turned the entire thing into a single magic item, one embued with the Rage spell. Oddly, while many things are immune to mind affecting spells, magic items made with those same spells will work on them.

So the bad guys made the opening giant "magic ring" to enrage the spirit of the volcano.

And to stop it, the party had to blast their way through a few dozen feet of solid stone (just to get inside), peotect themselves from poison gas and horrible heat, fight through some guardians, then spend most of a day defacing the thing. To deactivate it, they had to break the magic item. Do you know how many hit points a volcanic rim has? Particularly after its hardness and hit points have been enhanced by being enchanted?

Yeah, takes time.

The enemy will have to repair the damage then re-enchant it if they want it active. Oh, and replace the guardians, of course.

Plus, the PCs cast a couple of Forbiddance spells around the area, to make it hard for the opposition to even access it.

And on that note, a Lyre of Building can chisel a lot of stone in a reasonable time frame, has no alignment, and isn't an extra-dimensional intruder.

At 300 man-days of work per half hour, it will be ready for re-enchantment in under two hours. And with Rage being a fairly low level spell, the cost/time of the enchantment is fairly reasonable.

 

[n00bdragon]

If the volcano is being caused by underground pressure nothing short of letting out the pressure will solve your problem. You simply need to excavate a few holes in the ground around the volcano deep enough to let some molten rock out. Move Earth should be fantastic for this. You should hit rock fairly quickly so having some people casting Soften Earth and Stone will also be helpful. It might take a lot of spells and work to fix one volcano and the thing will still erupt when you're done, but you can cause it ooze out gently in a harmless direction instead of exploding.

On the other hand if the volcano is caused by an imprisoned efreet as you hinted just teleport to the efreet and free him with a couple spells. That's easy mode.