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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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Are you guys avoiding getting too technical with the tech tree? Because even the creation of advanced steel alloys better than basic carbon steel require a lot of weird metals/minerals sometimes. Then you have to test how that mixes with fiend blood... :whistle:
 
Absoloot said:
So now that you have magi-tech space/plane ships, when do we start strip mining asteroids? The really obscure metals and minerals might be hard to find in PoE because they have next to no value before industry develops and the asteroids are likely less defending than random veins in PoE.
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We're probably going to focus our attentions more on colonies in other planets when we get to that stage. The Plane of Earth would still be a better place for the Imperium to purchase rare metals due to a literally endless supply.
Absoloot said:
Are you guys avoiding getting too technical with the tech tree? Because even the creation of advanced steel alloys better than basic carbon steel require a lot of weird metals/minerals sometimes. Then you have to test how that mixes with fiend blood... :whistle:
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Yes, we're mainly sticking to D&D rules for the sake of simplicity.
 
Absoloot said:
Are you guys avoiding getting too technical with the tech tree? Because even the creation of advanced steel alloys better than basic carbon steel require a lot of weird metals/minerals sometimes. Then you have to test how that mixes with fiend blood... :whistle:
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At this point, our 'regular' ways of material enhancement create 'common' steel structures that are harder than adamantine found out in the wild.

With that said if you can create a decent write-up I'm sure DP will attach a Progress value to researching it. The more technical details/mechanical knowledge of the SRD, the better, actually, in terms of DP translating that into flavorful prose.
 
Absoloot said:
Are you guys avoiding getting too technical with the tech tree? Because even the creation of advanced steel alloys better than basic carbon steel require a lot of weird metals/minerals sometimes. Then you have to test how that mixes with fiend blood... :whistle:
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There is a lot of simple stuff that can be modified with magic to approximate high technology, but there is centuries of development between our current knowledge base and true advanced technology, such as complex metallurgy and non-Alchemical chemistry.

For IC reasons, we aren't pushing too hard toward such developments because we don't have any reasonable justification to make those kinds of leaps. There are just too many branches and forks on the tech tree that we can't skip over like that.

And besides, the magical means at our disposal are more than enough to make a mockery of modern day materials science, high energy physics, etc. We can produce magically augmented meta-materials, for example, which are far more resilient than any modern superalloy, and our ability to generate energy via Permanent spell effects, propulsion via gravity manipulation, etc., isn't far off from Star Trek levels of BS. Just wait until next month when Lya #2 can start working on developing a Greater Baleful Teleport spell. That'll give us the ability to create Teleportation Chambers to send people anywhere on the planet, then we'll be even closer to ST.
 
Of course. D&D magic was never really meant to be used directly to extend into a post-industrial narrative. There's a lot of silly stuff there that totally blows the top off of a lot of modern challenges. Still if you intend to go the route of magi-tech it'd be a shame to ignore the tech part of that word. With a magic handicap it'd only take a very basic understanding of magnetism to make a functional rail gun for example. Much better than a steam cannon.
 
Absoloot said:
Of course. D&D magic was never really meant to be used directly to extend into a post-industrial narrative. There's a lot of silly stuff there that totally blows the top off of a lot of modern challenges. Still if you intend to go the route of magi-tech it'd be a shame to ignore the tech part of that word. With a magic handicap it'd only take a very basic understanding of magnetism to make a functional rail gun for example. Much better than a steam cannon.
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If it's any consolation it's not like we won't be funding mundane science and tech research. It's just that in the context of the quest we can't really justify dropping magitech in favor of this.
 
For sure. I'm not complaining, I hope it didn't come across like that. Compared to magic, where spells to come to you in a dream, an industrial and science Renaissance takes years if you don't fudge all the numbers or drop a super engineer with eidictic memory and a penchant for Wikipedia benders in a medieval world.
 
Absoloot said:
With a magic handicap it'd only take a very basic understanding of magnetism to make a functional rail gun for example. Much better than a steam cannon.
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Not really. There's a lot more to making a functional and practical rail gun than some magnets and power. Azel tried his hand at working one out a couple years ago and the numbers just get ridiculous using any sort of magic to even try to make it work.

Our Steam Cannons are already extremely powerful, inflicting 10d10 damage over a very long range. To get a sense of how much that is for a weapon, just look at the damage values from D20 Modern starship weapons.

They're only able to perform so well because the entire apparatus is heavily reinforced with ritual magic and a ton of enchantments.

EDIT: BTW, A Steam Cannon Battery has ten cannons, with each able to fire once per round.
 
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Uhh. With Steam? Is it magic steam? I can't really understand how steam could be used to make a particularly good(as in as good as a railgun or gunpowder) unless you use magic to play with projectile mass to accelerate up to speed, then reacquire mass at target. There's a hard limit on the energy stored in steam(assuming you aren't going nuclear) and it's proportional to water mass.
 
Absoloot said:
Uhh. With Steam? Is it magic steam? I can't really understand how steam could be used to make a particularly good(as in as good as a railgun or gunpowder) unless you use magic to play with projectile mass to accelerate up to speed, then reacquire mass at target. There's a hard limit on the energy stored in steam(assuming you aren't going nuclear) and it's proportional to water mass.
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Basically...magic.

The cannons use a magical flame to instantly convert a cubic meter of water into steam and use the resulting explosive expansion to propel the projectiles of magically Hardened steel. It wouldn't be possible without a significant amount of magic. Each battery is a huge complex which costs 11,000 IM for us to enchant, which would be 110,000 gold in D&D terms, so they're not minor objects.
 
Uh, alright. Its not a big deal. I'm pretty used to suspension of disbelief with regard to tech in fiction... It's just that steam isn't very good for the role you guys are using it in. In really simple terms you're only utilizing a state change and a portion of the heat generated as pressure. But pure water isn't all that energy dense and it's heavy besides.

Gunpowder works well because it's self igniting, utilizing chemical energy, heat, and state change energies, and it does so fast.
Magnetic fields work really well hypothetically because they can be infinitely energy dense, the issue again being the timescale.

I suppose if there weren't time delay associated with changing water to steam, and you could magically generate as much heat as you like with no need for a cold reservoir, there'd be no limit to pressures you could achieve. The issue is you need Power more than Pressure. Low - High Pressure instantaneously is the key to high projectile velocities. Dunno. I'll think about it more.
 
There is some earlier discussion of how exactly they work, and a write up of the general end result. These things aren't exactly primitive little iron boilers; a lot of thought went into them IC and OOC.

I found one of the initial proposals, but I'm not sure how to share it without pinging Azel. Anyone know if using the permalink generates an alert?
 
BronzeTongue said:
There is some earlier discussion of how exactly they work, and a write up of the general end result. These things aren't exactly primitive little iron boilers; a lot of thought went into them IC and OOC.

I found one of the initial proposals, but I'm not sure how to share it without pinging Azel. Anyone know if using the permalink generates an alert?
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Here's the basic write-up for them that I have saved on the Imperial Infrastructure page. I need to clean it up to be a bit better ordered and more presentable, but the information is all there. Maybe I'll get around to it next week while I'm on vacation.
Mechanics
Range increment: 400ft; 10d10 physical damage for standard ammunition; 20/4x crit
Keep in mind that this is for direct fire at small targets. Firing at a ship would require the siege-engine rules and most likely still hit at larger distances. This also doesn't take into account specially trained gunners operating the thing.

Description
The basic principle is to heat water beyond its boiling temperature within an enclosed vessel and then to open a valve to cause a directed steam-explosion that propels the projectile. The system has two major components for that. The first is a closed water cycle that circulates super-heated water (ca. 500°C) between the heat source (usually a Everflame Engine) and the cannon. It bears mentioning here that, beside the effects of the heat, the water is very corrosive in this state, so all piping must be constructed of thick, hardened steel with an inner layer of hardened quartz to prevent the water from corroding the piping. The quartz can be easily made from transmuted stone and steel is plenty available.

On the cannon side of the cycle, there are two tanks that contain 1m³ of water and are connected to the closed cycle by heat-exchangers. Usually, only one of those heat-exchangers is actually in use at any one time, the other being in the process of being re-filled after a shot is fired. The process of filling and heating a tank takes 12 seconds, so with two tanks, the cannon can fire once each round.

When the firing mechanism is triggered, a valve on the tank opens and the contents flash-boil with quite tremendous force. Through the valve, they travel through a thick, reinforced pipe to the gun-breach and thus behind the projectile. The projectile closes the barrel completely, thus the steam pushes it ahead while trying to expand and accelerates it to supersonic speeds (ca. 1,000 to 1,200 m/s muzzle velocity). The projectile itself is a thin, hardened steel spike, stabilized by fins (or more simply called fletching) and markedly smaller than the barrel. Thus, it comes with a wrapping of wood and cloth (a sabot) to fully close the barrel. These spikes can and will punch even through a few centimeters of steel, as they exert a lot of force on a very small area.

The cannon itself is mounted on a swivel, which also houses the piping, to traverse vertically and the whole construction in turn sits on a turnable platform to traverse horizontally. Barring restrictions of the surroundings, the cannon could turn a full 360* horizontally and realistically -20* to 45* vertical elevation. Usually, the cannon should be fully enclosed in armor plating to protect the crew.

Cost

Cannon (armored)
Communication Unit - 90 IM
Targeting Optics - 270 IM
Lubrication - 400 IM
Heat Protection - 200 IM
30 tons of steel

These are all enchantment costs, but they are all CL 1 and we can outsource the Communicator and the Targeting Optics to the Opaline Vault or Amun Kelisk, leaving us with 3 days of baby-enchanter per cannon.

Furthermore, the setup needs an Everflame Generator to provide the heat, with each one supporting up to 10 cannons and costing 5,000 IM for itself and two more Communicators for a total of 180 IM.

Lastly, the whole battery should have a command center, needing another Communicator and two independent spotters, requiring Communicator and Targeting optics.

Thus:

Full Battery (10 cannons, including two spotting stations and fire control center)
Communicators - 1,170 IM (outsourcable)
Targeting Optics - 3,240 IM (outsourcable)
Lubrication - 4,000 IM
Heat Protection - 2,000 IM
Everflame Generator - 5,000 IM

Total Cost (no outsourcing) - 15,410 IM / 52.05 enchanting days
Total Cost (with outsourcing) - 19,820 IM / 30 enchanting days
 
Absoloot said:
I suppose if there weren't time delay associated with changing water to steam, and you could magically generate as much heat as you like with no need for a cold reservoir, there'd be no limit to pressures you could achieve.
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If it helps, this is essentially the central conceit of it all. For one thing even made out of hardened steel, that only protects from the effects of the concentrated expansion in a small space, pushing out a projectile explosively. We have to use hardened crystal to line the pipes that channel the water or it would be so corrosive, magically hardened steel or no, it would fall apart in minutes, at the latest.
 
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Crake said:
Only lacking Replicators... but then that veers hard into Tippyverse.
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True replicators that are energy -> matter would require Major Creation + Fabricate + Divine Insight + Whatever bonus we want to put so it really won't come cheap.

On the other hand we have the Steel Works which is a modern day foundry that also can benefit from the Hardening Chamber and make steel that are harder than adamantine. It just doesn't have the property to bypass DR/Adamantine because that's too much cheese for us.
 
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Canon Omake: Of Those Leal and the Learning
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    • Of Those Leal and the Learning​

    Twenty First Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

    Perwyn Frey was having an odd day. No, scratch that, he was having an odd life. He had assumed it was likely he would be carted off to squire and polish the boots of some halfway-decent sort of Knight, skilled or competent enough to not seem an insult to his Lord Father, but not important enough to be high up in the councils of Lords nor Princes. Oh how much simpler things would have been, Perwyn thought.

    No, while he still trained at arms, he had not gone on to train to become an officer in the Legion or Fleet, he wasn't sure which way their feet would take them, like Alesander, or a squire learning the arts of Knighthood and battle from famous Sers and warriors like Robert or Bryan. He had heard the latter gush about Ser Lonmouth's rare displays when he deigned to spar with anyone who wouldn't crumple in an instant, and the taint of bastardy hardly dimmed recognition for one with skill impressive enough to merit a White Cloak, had circumstances been different for Ser Criston Storm. Even Ser Kennos, who had arrived on the island a bit chunky to really cut a dashing figure, had shed multiple stone in weight and become some kind of fanatical madman and a demon in the ring. The place seemed to attract fearsome fighters like flies to honey, like calling to like.

    And that was all of no concern to Perwyn. For he was understudy to... he blushed at the thought, having heard some rumor that Lady Torchwood was formerly some sort of courtesan which he very swiftly learned after a few pointed--well, skewering--words shared by Tyene Sandviper on the matter. She must have told him to stop apologizing ten times by now, since he was still convinced she wanted to smother him with a pillow after he'd said some foolish things without thinking about it hard enough. Another thing he noticed, if you didn't know something, hardly anyone would mock you if you were trying to learn things properly.

    It wasn't like he looked down on either Lady by simple virtue of being a woman, either, one commanded thousands of people in a dizzying array of names and faces with different titles and responsibilities which made an entire Realm churn and steam ahead into the fearful prospect of a future which he couldn't make heads or tails of, which even still he struggled and forged ahead to memorize so he wouldn't make any more mistakes.

    The other could turn him into a desiccated husk in a flash.

    So quite a natural reaction to a sharp rebuke, in his mind.

    "Perwyn, postpone my third hour of the second turning with Lord Vaeth," chimed Lady Alinor's voice from the other side of the large office, and he scrambled to balance another dozen scrolls handed off by a stream of attendants, scribes and functionaries who she dismissed rapidly, organizing them by importance, categorized by department and bureau, and still learning the peculiar 'filing system' employed by his current master and, he was still grasping, mentor. For he had learned more about numbers than hours crammed into a musty room with the Crossing's Maester ever had managed in quite a short time... mostly owed to the fact that in Sorcerer's Deep there was magic to make you sharper than you were naturally, and you had no excuse to avoid studies like 'not having enough time in the day'.

    Not that he was supposed to spend all waking hours--quite literally in this case--trying to become better at scribbles and sums, he just didn't plan to embarrass himself after the private word of advice from his father 'not to be a fucking embarrassment like some of the rest of your kin'. Lady Alinor had to force him to leave when he lost track of time, even when he tried pointing out she worked far longer than he did, just as she pointed out that she got twice as much done in the same amount of time. Which really just shamed him into working even harder trying to discern if this was all some sort of strange test. A vicious cycle, really.

    "Why didn't you join the Legion, Perwyn? Or inquire after becoming a squire to one of the Knights in the Keep?" She favored him with a serene expression as she broke him out of his reverie like a bucket of ice water across his back, and for some reason raised the hair on the back of his neck, as though he knew there was more than simple idleness behind the seemingly innocent words, in the very back of his mind he was sure that his immediate future might hinge upon the response.

    "Because I asked for something to do that would help me stand out," Perwyn eventually settled on the truth. "And you made an offer."

    "You could have looked into other offers," she hummed while speedily signing another order. Their conversation lagged as the door opened and some more attendants filed in to collect paperwork and allow Alinor to dismiss them one by one with a flurry of commands, which Perwyn boggled at. He'd rarely seen men grown command such respect and exert such authority.

    By the time they had left, he had more than considered his own position. "I'm not bad with a blade... not terrible at intrigues, for all I try to keep my head out of them, and you don't survive long where I've lived by being totally clueless, my Lady," Perwyn replied. "But I won't make any mark by being 'good enough' or 'not terrible' at one or the other."

    "You're more than adequate," Lady Alinor bubbled back cheerily, making Perwyn struggle to fight off a blush. "Perhaps you deserve a reward. How about a bottle of Dawn Mead?"

    Perwyn blinked. "Err, aren't those w-worth a fortune, my Lady?" He had heard something about the King selling new and fanciful drinks, some made with magic. Dawn Mead was said to taste 'like heaven'.

    Lady Alinor gave another frightful grin. "You've earned it."

    ***​

    Sandor came trundling into the Keep's more trafficked courtyard, still covered in the results of all the previous 'excitement' he'd been wrapped up in. The Princess he swore to serve chirped a greeting towards... Wisdom Xor's way, before darting ahead to greet him. "Welcome back," she called up at him calmly, fighting off a smile that he suspected was more for his benefit than her own.

    He'd come a long way from general suspicion of anyone who so much as smirked his way, but it was a struggle to not snap at her sometimes, when his mood became foul. He thought he mostly did right by her by airing those moods out in the yard where anyone on the wrong end of them could at least get healed up, and might actually benefit from a couple of thrashings, since there was worse than angry dogs around to nip at them.

    "Where's everyone at?" He asked back gruffly, falling into step with her as natural as ever, walking deeper into the Keep. He tried not to ask after the doings of Lords and Kings, but he might have finally met one who wasn't all piss and vinegar, so he tried to show at least that much interest.

    "The Riverlands," Princess Daenerys replied, turning around and walking backwards to look up at him. A moment later she darted up onto his shoulders as a silver dragon-thing, preening. "I'm happy to see that over and done with, even as we're all dancing around the subject still."

    "Even this Keep's thick with the tension," the Hound snorted, "I don't have to imagine how the fu--the Stag's court is reacting, probably pissing into the wind to spite their own faces." He paused, realizing perhaps that minding his own tongue around royalty wasn't working out so well as he'd hoped. "Sorry."

    "Don't be," she responded, tail batting his other shoulder. "Tell me about the Barrowlands?"

    Sandor eyed her warily, before belting out a sigh. "Alright. So it was like this..."
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • This clock discussion is fun. There are actually quite a few mathematicians that claim, in hindsight, that base 12 math and a base twelve unit system would be superior for everyday life, and have absolutely no affect on high level physics/math other than adjusting physical constants if you realigned the SI system. Again, I'm speaking of hindsight, not that we should try and make such a change today.

    The basic argument has to do with the number of factors of a given base. 10 only has 1, 2, 5, and 10 which makes thirds, and sixths and nineths really ugly in decimal (ie 1/3 =.3333...). 12 has factors 1,2,3,4,6,12 which makes all of those fractions really clean. 60 (as in our time system), adds 5 and 10 to the small factor basket which makes a fifth of an hour or a tenth of an hour a clean number.

    About the only thing going for decimal is that we have 10 fingers and toes. If we had done everything base 12, all the numbers and powers would make perfect sense to you too, because that would have been what you grew up on. Realistically there nothing more or less sensible about 100 things then 144 things. There's more two about the multiplication tables but this is already too long.
     
    Absoloot said:
    This clock discussion is fun. There are actually quite a few mathematicians that claim, in hindsight, that base 12 math and a base twelve unit system would be superior for everyday life, and have absolutely no affect on high level physics/math other than adjusting physical constants if you realigned the SI system. Again, I'm speaking of hindsight, not that we should try and make such a change today.

    The basic argument has to do with the number of factors of a given base. 10 only has 1, 2, 5, and 10 which makes thirds, and sixths and nineths really ugly in decimal (ie 1/3 =.3333...). 12 has factors 1,2,3,4,6,12 which makes all of those fractions really clean. 60 (as in our time system), adds 5 and 10 to the small factor basket which makes a fifth of an hour or a tenth of an hour a clean number.

    About the only thing going for decimal is that we have 10 fingers and toes. If we had done everything base 12, all the numbers and powers would make perfect sense to you too, because that would have been what you grew up on. Realistically there nothing more or less sensible about 100 things then 144 things. There's more two about the multiplication tables but this is already too long.
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    Base 10 does allow you to move the decimal place left and right though.

    10 > 100 > 1000 rather than 12 > 144 > 1,728
     
    Deliste said:
    Base 10 does allow you to move the decimal place left and right though.

    10 > 100 > 1000 rather than 12 > 144 > 1,728
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    If you use base 12 tho, then. .1 = 1/12(Dec) and .01 = 1/144 (Dec). So to move a decimal you still just multiply by 10(dodecimal-12) which is 12(dec). All the glory of the metric system still works, except we have two more objects to represent 10 & 11. Except now 1/3 = 4/12 = .4(dodecimal). You basically get less infinitely repeating decimal representations of common fractions and the multiplication tables taught to kids have far more symmetry making early education easier.
     
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