Need help protecting a Decanter of Endless Water used as a fountain in my town!

[Gez]

It's not like it's going to happen anyway. If you're Iron Bodied, you're still going to get crushed. Look for Adamantine Body rather.

And the planar nexuses (nexi?) laugh at your puny dimensional anchor.

And it's not like it's a good idea to go the small part of sea that is between the gateway and the seafloor. You're very close to the innards of the world, you know, the place that is gnawed in by unnamed monstruosity, or what was the quote again?

Anyway, as a general rule, the deeper you go, the most alien and dangerous things are.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Snap!


On a tangent, what about the environmental impact of all these decanters endlessly flowing? The sea level should begin to raise, after all these millenia...

You're assuming the water is actually "created," not just transported from somewhere else on the planet. Honestly, would somebody notice if one decanter-geyser's worth of water was continually "missing" from Niagra Falls?

 

[Gez]

Is it a conjuration (creation) effect, or a conjuration (teleportation) one?

 

[MerakSpielman]

If it's conjuration (creation), maybe it's creating a teleport effect...

 

[Hypersmurf]

Is it a conjuration (creation) effect, or a conjuration (teleportation) one?

Good question.

The answer, unfortunately, is "Transmutation"

-Hyp.

 

[silburnl]

Ya know, thinking about it...

30 gallons a round is 300 gallons a minute.

18,000 gallons an hour.

432,000 gallons in a day.

157,680,000 gallons in a year.

That's one hell of a sewer system you better have. Never mind the long-term reprocutions on the local environment from a quarter of a billion gallons of water appearing from nowhere and being introduced into the ecosystem each year.

I prefer to work in metric. A gallon is about 4.5 litres so these numbers are:

135 per round
1,350 per minute
81,000 per hour
1,944,000 per day
709,560,000 per year

Converting for volume (where 1000l = 1m^3 at 'room' temp and pressure):

0.13 m^3 (a bath - 1.75x0.5x0.15)
1.3 m^3 (a paddling pool - 3.5x3.5x0.1)
81 m^3 (a 'learner' swimming pool or thereabouts - 10x8x1)
1,944 m^3 (an olympic swimming pool or thereabouts - 50x20x2)
709,560 m^3 (a decent sized trout lake - 400x350x5)

So I don't think having this thing spouting 24/7 is going to raise sea levels any time soon.

With regards to the original question it, protection of the macguffin falls under three broad categories - prevention (cementing or glueing the thing in place; putting locks on it; making it too big to carry, hiding it within a secluded area etc), detection (magical or mundane alarms, a watchman, the macguffin being easily observable by lots of people, the macguffin being easily identifiable etc) and reaction (curses that are triggered when you touch or remove it, guards who respond to an alarm, bounty-hunters who can track the macguffin, mobs of outraged citizens, rewards for the macguffin and or the culprits etc).

A sensible security set up will use elements of all three in several mutually reinforcing layers. An unsensible set-up will rely too much on a single element (usually prevention 'cuz that's the most visible) and will have neglected the others.

Pick the former set-up if you don't want the macguffin to be stealable, the latter if it's intended to be the focus of a heist scenario.

Regards
Luke

 

[MerakSpielman]

You know, I just thought of the awesome potential of a decanter of endless water set to geyser. Think about it. Perpeptual motion, endless energy, etc... You could use it to propel a boat effortlessly through the water, or even propel land vehicles, though you're leaving a trail of water behind.

Think about combineing decanters with Sorcery and Steam for your magical industrial age, and see where your mind takes you...

 

[Conaill]

An idea I had in an ancient thread on the topic:

What if the Decanter gets its water by sucking the moisture out of the surrounding area, in a several mile radius? You wouldn't notice at first, but after a couple of years, the area will be bone dry, with the exception of the little river that starts at the Decanter. Sounds paradoxical, but essentially you're concentrating all the water vapor and allowing it to flow out of the region in a concentrated stream. Once the area desertifies, a local microclimate sets in that could easily reduce the amount of moisture even further, possibly even drying up the Decanter itself in the end.

Instant (well, in geological terms anyway) ecological disaster. Not to mention the fact that bringing in more Decanters will in the end just exacerbate the problem. How's that for a plot hook / campaign twist?

 

[Macbeth]

The answer to all your sewage problems: Sphere of Anihilation. Lets assume that there is a huge surpluss of water. It runs beneath the city. It runs all the way down to where the sphere waits. It ceases to exist. Problem solved.