Non-Gunpowder Explosives in Fantasy

[Rechan]

I don't know, if we're dealing with fantasy, why bother with just hot explosions? Why not a substance mined from the shadowfell that explodes with necrotic energy and rots things?

Look at the second post of this thread.

 

[barbaraloqw]

if magic doesn't exist they need gunpowder. I really like these quiet without warning, or sssss BUM. Of course as long as I'm GM not player

 

[Krensky]

And the answer is "It's not nitroglycerin. It's Substance X." While Substance X has a similarity TO nitro, in as far as it's a contact explosive that is more stable when cold, is as far as the comparison goes.

Or in other words, "It works like Nitro in its base form, but you ain't getting dynamite, sorry."

The method of stabilization involved in dynamite is physical and works with all shock sensative liquid contact explosives. If it works like nitroglycerin, it can be phlegmatized like nitroglycerin.

And muzzle-loading firearms and artillery and black powder explosives are not the world changing things you claim. The Chinese had them in the 9th century, the Islamic world in the 12th century, and Europe by the 13th. It's not gunpowder that changes things, it's the Gustavus Adolpus.

 

[Rechan]

The method of stabilization involved in dynamite is physical and works with all shock sensative liquid contact explosives. If it works like nitroglycerin, it can be phlegmatized like nitroglycerin.

... Unless the substance works differently.

The wiki entry on contact explosives says that it could be sensitive to light or sound, too. And then you get into the matter of if it explodes when exposed to magic.

The point of this thread was actually to brainstorm about possible substances, their properties, and roles in the gameworld. Seems people just want to quibble about gunpowder.

 

[Krensky]

... Unless the substance works differently.

The wiki entry on contact explosives says that it could be sensitive to light or sound, too. And then you get into the matter of if it explodes when exposed to magic.

The point of this thread was actually to brainstorm about possible substances, their properties, and roles in the gameworld. Seems people just want to quibble about gunpowder.

If you just want to make something up, make something up. Give it some stats based off alchemist fire and thunderstones and be done with it. You claimed you want to skip low explosives like gunpowder because you feel they change the world, despite real world evidence they don't, and go right to one of the most unstable and powerful high explosives. When the problems with that choice, within your stated parameters, you stated that you can just ignore the physics and chemistry.

Just call them fulminating salts, have them do 1d8 per ounce/pound/pick something with the damage halving every 10 feet. Making them is a very hard alchemy check, GM's call when shock sets them off, etc.

 

[Rechan]

If you just want to make something up, make something up. Give it some stats based off alchemist fire and thunderstones and be done with it.

As I said in the first post:

The trick, here, is fully developing where and how it fits in the campaign, and how the substance behaves. Not mechanically, but just setting the properties.

I don't care about the stats. That's irrelevant at this stage. I'm talking about discussing the game world information.

It would be the equivalent of if I said "I want to introduce alchemical items into my game. But I don't want it to just bamf into existence and everyone knows about it. The stats all ready exist, but what I want to know is who invented it, where does the stuff come from, and how to integrate it into the setting. In addition, I want to brainstorm about other alchemical things, not just grenade-like weapons. And, let's just talk about alchemy in a fantasy world."

Multiple times I have stated "It's a plot point or a set piece for an encounter, not just another normal commodity". The point is that it's part of the story, or cleverly integrated into an encounter.

So yes, the whole point of this thread is making up fluff and discussing its application in a fantasy world.

Can we please do that now?

I honestly don't get it. Am I a bad communicator? How is it that I say "I want to talk about non-gunpowder related explosives in fantasy, how they happen and what can be done with them story wise" and the rest of the thread is arguing about gunpowder and why I should ignore talking about non-gunpowder explosives and just use alchemy stats. I don't understand how to be clearer. What am I doing wrong?

 

[SKyOdin]

I honestly don't get it. Am I a bad communicator? How is it that I say "I want to talk about non-gunpowder related explosives in fantasy, how they happen and what can be done with them story wise" and the rest of the thread is arguing about gunpowder and why I should ignore talking about non-gunpowder explosives and just use alchemy stats. I don't understand how to be clearer. What am I doing wrong?

It is probably due to the fact that your opening sentences discussed the mechanical and story problems of having gunpowder in a campaign. Gunpowder in D&D is just one of those topics that draws a lot of controversy and heated discussion, mostly because it has rarely been addressed by official sources. The rest of the miscommunication is that you spend a few paragraphs talking about real world nitroglycerine, which got people thinking that you wanted to emulate real-world physics. Since you didn't ask any very specific questions in your opening post (you just gave a blanket "Discuss!"), people naturally latched onto the more familiar issues that were implied in your post.

Anyways, I am still a little unclear on what kind of help you are looking for, but I will try my best. It would help if you were a little more clear on what exact properties you are looking for in an explosive. You obviously don't want guns, but your opening post also implies you don't want easily-accessed bombs either.

Honestly, I don't think using volatile high explosives is a very good idea, since they are so woefully impractical for anyone, PCs or otherwise, to use. It is really easy to come up with a way to introduce such an explosive into your campaign: it can just be the product of an experimenting alchemist or other person interested in Natural Philosophy. However, a volatile explosive like Nitroglycerine is too unstable for any kind of practical use. For example, a character can put some in a flask and throw it to cause an explosion, but it would logically just explode just as a result of the jostling around that is associated with sitting in a traveler's backpack. A villain could conceivably pour a pool of Nitroglycerine designed to explode if the PC's stepped into it, but it still begs the question of how they got the chemical into the dungeon in the first place. I have heard that Nobel produced Nitro in an elevated tower, and then used gradually slopping pipes and gravity to transport it, but I can't remember the details. If you want to use a Nitro-like volatile chemical as an explosive, it probably won't be found anywhere except in the immediate vicinity of an Alchemy lab. Transporting the chemical overland by wagon on pitted dirt roads would be too dangerous.

Personally though, I have no problems with gunpowder in a setting, so I am not so sure I can get into the right mindset to help you with your specific problem.

 

[Rechan]

Anyways, I am still a little unclear on what kind of help you are looking for

Take a look at Andre's post and my response. That is what I'm looking for.

But, let me set aside talk of explosives, to give you an example from a different direction. In one of the "Traps and Treachery" books, there was a trap that used a special metal alloy developed by dwarves. When exposed to light, the metal would grow very soft. They would craft metal hooks and place the hooks on the ceiling of a cavern. Then they would place large, weighted nets on the hooks. When light-using intruders walked underneath with their light sources, the hooks would uncurl and drop the net on them. Meanwhile dark-vision using dwarves would pass under unhindered. That, to me, is cool.

The rest of the miscommunication is that you spend a few paragraphs talking about real world nitroglycerine, which got people thinking that you wanted to emulate real-world physics.

I was using Nitro as an introduction to the topic, and as a sample model: Explodive liquid/paste that can detonate from application of heat or pressure, is extremely volatile, but its volatile nature can be suppressed by being frozen.

Substance state + Detonation circumstance - Force that can make it inert under certain circumstances = use in plot X, trap Y, or purpose Z.

I also just felt that its volatile nature limited its campaign application. It couldn't just be carted around and used casually. Or it could be useful for a trap. The fact that it has limited practical use is a bonus because it can't be extensively exploited. If the PCs want to use it, they gotta be damn careful, and its use adds an element of tension.

To use Nitro just for this paragraph alone, if the use of nitro in a game is impractical, then the only the impractical will use it. Goblins using the stuff because goblins are friggin stupid and/or crazy, or the goblins overlords think a few blown up goblins are worth a few blown up bridges, don't care.

That way, the stuff is just "Over here in this corner of the campaign world, they have this stuff that does this, but because of that circumstance, it's not useful for the entire world. That's what makes this area unique."

I used the example of Frost Giants sitting on a stockpile of the stuff, in its frozen state. To take it further: the giants use it to safeguard against fire-using enemies. They freeze it in a thin layer of ice, and if anyone uses a fire area affect, the ice melts, and the explosive thaws, suddenly becoming volatile. This knowledge is well known, so people are wary of invading the Frost Giants' frozen fortresses with fire magic, even if fire is effective against the giants. Where does it come from? Maybe it was mined from the earth, maybe it fell from a frozen meteor and they got as much as they could from the impact site. Or it could be harvested from some rare monster that survives in only the coldest places, a creature that uses the material like a bombader beetle.

In the second post of the thread, I used the example of Solid Rot (a better name is necessary). A hard substance that is entropy and decay solidified. It activates when hit with necrotic/negative energy, it decays whatever it touches. To further flesh it out (pardon the pun), when activated the substance melts. Anything organic that it touches to intense decay, as if whatever it touched had been left to the elements for a hundred years after expiring (read: it's hit with ongoing necrotic damage or a massive amount of negative energy damage). The touch of undead also activate the material. However, exposing the material to sunlight turns it inert, and it must be re-treated with (Insert something here) to make it viable again. It's a "naturally" occurring substance in the Shadowfell/Negative Energy Plane, and mined from races that dwell there.

There are elements in the real world that, when exposed to air or water, cause a violent reaction. Same could be said for fantasy elements. Like say, the center-most piece of a glacier (or a Frost Titan's heart), when exposed to room temperature air or water, results in an explosion of cold so intense it can freeze the air in a man's lungs.

Another solution is gas. Not methane or other explosive gasses, but alchemical/magical/whathaveyou substance which is in a non-liquid/solid state that reacts to something. Maybe it's produced when Gorgon's Blood and is mixed with Raw Elemental Air, resulting in a petrifying gas (or the resulting gas could turn to stone that fills the same volume after a period of time).

So, to an extent, the purpose is "Natural Sciences of a Fantasy World, and the applications of it for plot purposes and/or encounters", not "Real World History" or "Real World Chemistry/Physics". Brainstorming Fun Stuff. And especially with it going beyond the alchemist's lab, or the use for just a couple of adventurers plundering a dungeon - how can it be used to create interesting stories or interesting encounters. How does the Game World react to it/use it? How can it reinforce the feel of a fantasy world?

 

[op1983]

What about explosive potions? You can have something similar in effect to those but different in delivery.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Rechan, this is basically ripping off S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but it works. What about items that have been exposed too properties that change their innate being. So objects that have say been exposed to the Far Realm.

The object itself doesn't matter, it could be a piece of rock, glasses, etc. But what does matter is that it no longer reacts to the world the same way, instead it reacts violently or unexpectedly. The most common method of such would be explosively/implosive, because it can no longer interact with the rest of the world in a stable manner.

You could have various expeditions into areas exposed to the Far Realm to uncover these objects (good adventure for the PCs anyways). They can then be brought back and have their knew properties examined by scholars, and divided up accordingly. The explosive/implosive ones being used for well what those things be used for.

You could have illegal selling/expeditions going on to have these objects brought back and used by criminals or regular people and not city states/kingdoms who usually manage such things.

The nice thing with this, is that there is such variety in objects and it isn't duplicable so no stable progression of technology can happen. Beyond say... Figuring out to launch explosive ones by catapult.