Post by Tllith on Sept 25, 2009 20:40:36 GMT -5
And They Shall Beat Their Dragons Into Plowshares
(OOC: My son is getting ready for bed, and I'm on duty and bored, so, this. It happened at some convenient time, probably not too long before Tllith's birthday and consequent chargen. I'm a potter by hobby, so this came to mind...)
Tllith had, for a while, been musing on the problem of getting a decent hoard. She had only the vaguest idea of what a decent hoard was like, having never seen one, but obviously it would have to include money and pretty things. Preferably pretty things that were immune to heat. And definitely some money.
So, how is a young and Good-aligned dragon in Elysium going to get some money?
A first-level mage can earn some for spellwork, but only a little.
A living excavation machine might be able to do a bit better, but that sounds, um, boring. So she asked around after such work, a bit, but not very diligently, and not of people she thought might actually have any.
But there's that heat breath. That wonderful, ferocious, massive, powerful heat breath, that has left a number of 50'x40' rectangles of dry grass and baked trees around the hillsides of Elysium lately.
So, who can use heat?
After a bit of musing on the topic, Tllith slithered herself off to the next town over -- actually, off outside of town, at the base of a very steep hill, where the potter Vassalo made his studio. She clattered her claws on the front door and chirped, "Hallo, Vassalo!"
Vasallo was a calm man, as potters often are. He dried his hands on a scrap of his daughter's old dress -- even in generous Elysium, cloth is made by work, and work is not to waste -- and answered the door. "Ah, you must be Tllith." He pronounced her name badly, as most people did. "I've seen you singing at the monastery. What sort of pots would you like? I could make you a sort of a big chalice, or a bowl on a short thick stem, which would probably be more comfortable for you to drink from than a mug or a regular bowl. Take a couple weeks though."
"Actually, I'm not here to buy anything. I'm here to bake anything!" said Tllith, poking her forequarters into the door. "If you want!"
"I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I don't understand," asked Vasallo.
So Tllith explained. "I'll bet they bake up nicely!"
"I still don't understand. What are we baking up nicely?"
"The pots! We'll bake the pots!" said Tllith. "I'll breathe on them and bake them! It'll be very good! Will it be very good?"
"Let me see if I understand," said the potter. "You breathe heat, I hear. So you want to breathe on pottery, to fire it? Well, that'd save my sons a powerful lot of chopping wood and carrying wood, if it works out."
"Exactly!" said Tllith, flapping her wings excitedly. There was a dull crash. "Oh, I'm sorry!"
Vasallo shrugged, and swept up the rack of ruined unfired bowls into the slip bucket. "Not a great matter; the clay is better the second time through anyhow. But could you please get out of my studio?" He thought a second. "I mean, let me show you the kiln, which is out back, so let's walk around the house."
Out back was the kiln. "Bigger is better for wood-fired kilns, up to a point: the bigger the kiln, the more pottery you can fire per unit wood. Lots of the heat from the fire goes into making the kiln itself hot, not into the pottery. So the more stuff that's not the kiln, the less wood we have to cut and haul for each pot we make," said Vasallo.
"But it's not big enough ... it's not nearly big enough!" cried Tllith, instinctively eyeballing the 50x40x20 region of her breath. "If I breathe at it, I'll kill the yard behind it, and your neighbor's fig tree!"
"Well, don't go killing the fig tree. I like those figs. What if you breathe into the kiln? Does fire-brick block your breath weapon?"
"I don't know!" chirped Tllith.
The potter looked around. "Well, nobody lives that way yonder, the hill's too steep. My sons and I can put up a little kiln in that side of the yard to test it out."
"Ooh, I can do better! I'll dig a hole in the side of the cliff!" And Tllith ran over and started burrowing, sending great cascades of rock and rubble into the yard.
"That's probably enough," said Vasallo when Tllith was up to her tail in hill. "I've only got so much spare firebrick, anyhow.
So they set up a small kiln inside the hole, just a box of firebrick, really, with a dragon-mouth-sized hole in the front, and a big slab of firebrick sitting next to it, ready to slide into place to keep the heat in. Tllith put some paper and a few clods of grass behind the kiln, to see if her heat would go through the firebrick. The potter put a dozen test pots into the kiln, ranging from his thinnest cup to a heavy cassole: half greenware, half glazed bisqueware.
Tllith put her mouth up to the hole and breathed her first-ever heat breath for some practical purpose. Then she rolled the firebrick over the hole, to keep the heat in.
"How long do we have to wait?" she asked.
"Dunno, really. My old man never talked about doing a firing with a brass dragon. We mostly get coppers here, y'see, and their acid breath is mostly helpful for glazework."
Tllith stared at him. "... really? There's a copper dragon here?"
Vasallo chuckled. "Nah. You're the only dragon I've heard tell of in these parts."
"Oh," she said. "Let's sing something while we're waiting."
"You can sit in the yard and sing all you like," said Vasallo. "I've got lots of work to do. I'll leave the door open so we can talk."
Three hours later -- that's thirty soup bowls and two hundred pounds of clay recycled for Vasallo, or thirty hymns and several dozen curious questions for Tllith -- they rolled back the big sheet of firebrick, (and glanced behind the kiln) and they saw ....
So, to figure out what they saw, I guess we've got a couple DM questions.
Does firebrick block heat breath?
How much heat does a hatchling's heat breath produce?
My best guess -- which is not very good -- is:
ObDeviousness: I'm not trying to maneuver you into picking my favorite choice; I don't even have a favorite choice. I will come up with insidious things to do in either case. One way, I can attack through walls; the other way, I can arrange to make small things extremely hot. They both sound useful in the right circumstances.
(Well, that went way past bathtime, and got way more complicated than I expected. Hope it's OK.)
(OOC: My son is getting ready for bed, and I'm on duty and bored, so, this. It happened at some convenient time, probably not too long before Tllith's birthday and consequent chargen. I'm a potter by hobby, so this came to mind...)
Tllith had, for a while, been musing on the problem of getting a decent hoard. She had only the vaguest idea of what a decent hoard was like, having never seen one, but obviously it would have to include money and pretty things. Preferably pretty things that were immune to heat. And definitely some money.
So, how is a young and Good-aligned dragon in Elysium going to get some money?
A first-level mage can earn some for spellwork, but only a little.
A living excavation machine might be able to do a bit better, but that sounds, um, boring. So she asked around after such work, a bit, but not very diligently, and not of people she thought might actually have any.
But there's that heat breath. That wonderful, ferocious, massive, powerful heat breath, that has left a number of 50'x40' rectangles of dry grass and baked trees around the hillsides of Elysium lately.
So, who can use heat?
After a bit of musing on the topic, Tllith slithered herself off to the next town over -- actually, off outside of town, at the base of a very steep hill, where the potter Vassalo made his studio. She clattered her claws on the front door and chirped, "Hallo, Vassalo!"
Vasallo was a calm man, as potters often are. He dried his hands on a scrap of his daughter's old dress -- even in generous Elysium, cloth is made by work, and work is not to waste -- and answered the door. "Ah, you must be Tllith." He pronounced her name badly, as most people did. "I've seen you singing at the monastery. What sort of pots would you like? I could make you a sort of a big chalice, or a bowl on a short thick stem, which would probably be more comfortable for you to drink from than a mug or a regular bowl. Take a couple weeks though."
"Actually, I'm not here to buy anything. I'm here to bake anything!" said Tllith, poking her forequarters into the door. "If you want!"
"I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I don't understand," asked Vasallo.
So Tllith explained. "I'll bet they bake up nicely!"
"I still don't understand. What are we baking up nicely?"
"The pots! We'll bake the pots!" said Tllith. "I'll breathe on them and bake them! It'll be very good! Will it be very good?"
"Let me see if I understand," said the potter. "You breathe heat, I hear. So you want to breathe on pottery, to fire it? Well, that'd save my sons a powerful lot of chopping wood and carrying wood, if it works out."
"Exactly!" said Tllith, flapping her wings excitedly. There was a dull crash. "Oh, I'm sorry!"
Vasallo shrugged, and swept up the rack of ruined unfired bowls into the slip bucket. "Not a great matter; the clay is better the second time through anyhow. But could you please get out of my studio?" He thought a second. "I mean, let me show you the kiln, which is out back, so let's walk around the house."
Out back was the kiln. "Bigger is better for wood-fired kilns, up to a point: the bigger the kiln, the more pottery you can fire per unit wood. Lots of the heat from the fire goes into making the kiln itself hot, not into the pottery. So the more stuff that's not the kiln, the less wood we have to cut and haul for each pot we make," said Vasallo.
"But it's not big enough ... it's not nearly big enough!" cried Tllith, instinctively eyeballing the 50x40x20 region of her breath. "If I breathe at it, I'll kill the yard behind it, and your neighbor's fig tree!"
"Well, don't go killing the fig tree. I like those figs. What if you breathe into the kiln? Does fire-brick block your breath weapon?"
"I don't know!" chirped Tllith.
The potter looked around. "Well, nobody lives that way yonder, the hill's too steep. My sons and I can put up a little kiln in that side of the yard to test it out."
"Ooh, I can do better! I'll dig a hole in the side of the cliff!" And Tllith ran over and started burrowing, sending great cascades of rock and rubble into the yard.
"That's probably enough," said Vasallo when Tllith was up to her tail in hill. "I've only got so much spare firebrick, anyhow.
So they set up a small kiln inside the hole, just a box of firebrick, really, with a dragon-mouth-sized hole in the front, and a big slab of firebrick sitting next to it, ready to slide into place to keep the heat in. Tllith put some paper and a few clods of grass behind the kiln, to see if her heat would go through the firebrick. The potter put a dozen test pots into the kiln, ranging from his thinnest cup to a heavy cassole: half greenware, half glazed bisqueware.
Tllith put her mouth up to the hole and breathed her first-ever heat breath for some practical purpose. Then she rolled the firebrick over the hole, to keep the heat in.
"How long do we have to wait?" she asked.
"Dunno, really. My old man never talked about doing a firing with a brass dragon. We mostly get coppers here, y'see, and their acid breath is mostly helpful for glazework."
Tllith stared at him. "... really? There's a copper dragon here?"
Vasallo chuckled. "Nah. You're the only dragon I've heard tell of in these parts."
"Oh," she said. "Let's sing something while we're waiting."
"You can sit in the yard and sing all you like," said Vasallo. "I've got lots of work to do. I'll leave the door open so we can talk."
Three hours later -- that's thirty soup bowls and two hundred pounds of clay recycled for Vasallo, or thirty hymns and several dozen curious questions for Tllith -- they rolled back the big sheet of firebrick, (and glanced behind the kiln) and they saw ....
So, to figure out what they saw, I guess we've got a couple DM questions.
Does firebrick block heat breath?
- My first impression is that heat breath just, in effect, turns the surface of everything in the region of effect insanely hot: the heat being brought hither by the dragon, not directly exhaled. I got this impression because (a) the rectangular-prism shape of the region doesn't match the typical cone or narrow line shape of exhaled stuff like sleep gas, and (b) sleep gas is explicitly a gas, and heat breath isn't called anything like that, and (c) armor doesn't help against the breath. (Not very strong evidence.) With this interpretation, firebrick doesn't block heat breath; indeed, nothing does, since there is no moving substance to block.
- Alternately, the dragon does exhale heat directly. This might be described better as a wave of hot air (or something) than a wave of heat. Evidence in favor of this: most other dragon breath comes out of the dragon's mouth, that's why they call it breath. (Also not very strong evidence.) With this interpretation, firebrick does block it. Indeed, firebrick should channel the heat around, the way it would to any other heat.
How much heat does a hatchling's heat breath produce?
- Bisqueware gets fired at 1700-1900 Farenheit. Lower than that won't do very much. If it gets to about 2200-2300 F, cley will be high-fired and vitrified. Past that, it'll pretty much melt.
- We know that hatchling brass breath is enough to kill an unprotected normal person in a few seconds, from heat alone.
- Note that a regular wood fire isn't nearly that hot -- yet the heat from a regular wood fire, channeled properly, can be used to get a kiln up to 2300F (or beyond). The wood fire is a slow trickle of heat into the kiln which holds the heat there 'til there's enough. Dragon breath is hotter, but not maintained as long: it's one big blast of heat into the kiln (which presumably holds it pretty well).
- The point of breathing into a kiln is to contain the full breath's worth of heat into a single small space. If the heat is exhaled directly, this'll make the kiln very hot indeed.
My best guess -- which is not very good -- is:
- If brass breath makes things hot directly, the firing probably won't work; the breath heats up the hillside, but the kiln can't concentrate it, and I don't think it's hot enough to fire clay.
- If brass breath comes out of the dragon directly, then it'll all go into the kiln and ... make it really really hot in there. Tllith's breath puts out enough heat to make 50'x40'x20' = 40,000 cubic feet fatally hot. If that gets concentrated into, say, 40 cubic feet, that's a thousand times as much heat energy per unit space (minus the inevitable inefficiencies), which is going to be quite hot. Hatchling breath probably could bisque-fire clay. Adult breath would melt the whole kiln: firebrick is only so refractory.
ObDeviousness: I'm not trying to maneuver you into picking my favorite choice; I don't even have a favorite choice. I will come up with insidious things to do in either case. One way, I can attack through walls; the other way, I can arrange to make small things extremely hot. They both sound useful in the right circumstances.
(Well, that went way past bathtime, and got way more complicated than I expected. Hope it's OK.)