Explosions, mundane and magical

Games Discussion Ars Magica
42

Without getting into the detail of how modern silos have dust control systems, following OSHA 1910.272, can I add to the "relatively easy" thing for gunpowder? During the Magonomia period, England passes laws that let nitre seekers just wreck your house because it is vital, and they still need to import it by the tonne from Morocco. Gunpowder production is only easy in hindsight and it's literally done by alchemists, which gave them the cachet to ask for money to do other research like the Philosophers Stone.

(And, yes, it's too easy to blow up flour mills in the game, but it's a game about ghostly vikings besieging a village. A certain amount of McGuyvering is allowed, surely?)

43

I always attempted to follow real history - also wrt to technological, economical, social and intellectual changes - in Mythic Europe. Yes, this is tricky already within the decades immediately following 1220.

But it is also a unique chance 1220 Mythic Europe provides: you can have your ahistorical characters with whom the players can identify live through these changes in detail. Consider the growing importance of cities, universities, banking and machinery, the expansion of population, cultivated land, road systems and the travels of ordinary men.

This requires also cosmological changes in Mythic Europe over these decades, like the advent of rational - that is Thomist or Scotist - theology, or ideas of the diversity and value of life and men.

It also rekindles thoughts on the historical development of mankind.

This implies, that already Mythic Europe in 1240 or 1270 has changed a lot, and many of the detailed rules in ArM5 have become obsolete and replaced.
That way longer sagas are a challenge, but they also don't risk to just revolve around the rise in power of PCs and their covenant.

44

Uhm. This just suggests that

  1. gunpowder is, indeed, mass-produced (at a later date); and that
  2. particularly under the pressure of mass-production, ingredients may have to be (mass-)imported.

Yes, this is one of the very few things everyone seems to agree in the thread. You need to know how to do it (in fact, you need to know that it can be done) before it's easy. The issue is not if hindsight is necessary, but if it's sufficient. I just can't find any reason why it wouldn't be.

Uhm, sure, because "alchemist" is how a "chemist" is called until relatively recently. And yes, like all scientists, some (al)chemists liked to perform research on crazy stuff. And ... ? I have the impression you are arguing some point, and you are supporting it with knowledgeable arguments ... but I just can't see what's the point you are making, my bad.

45

I am not sure what you mean by "McGuyvering". The issue is that some exceptional phenomenon here is described as if it were normal (without any relationship to ghostly vikings). The reader gets the completely wrong impression that all (medieval) mundane mills are incredibly susceptible to explosions. He also gets the impression that (only) for game-balance reasons the expert writer is bluntly handwaving such simple and obvious avenue to destructive power away from the grasp of the now-enlighened player.

Why not just say that due to some freak circumstance that particular mill will explode on the first spark? For example, one could have said that mills do explode on a spark, but only very, very rarely (thus providing the reader with correct information); and that's due to a particular faerie curse that attracts a faerie of explosions... and look, one is present, and ready to go boom!

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46

Can you actually point me to where that is written?

I'm not disputing that 10 doses of a reagent can have the same effect as 1 dose of the same formula with a +1 size modifier. I'm contesting that the +1 reagent can, as a general rule, be subdivided into 10 doses with a +0 size modifier.

Your's is not an unreasonable claim, and I really can't think of an example where the distinction isn't just me nitpicking... But alas.

Might be also an immediate reaction by comparing with size modifiers in hermetic magic. What you are proposing effectively creates a group of reagents instead of a reagent that affects more things, and on hermetic magic those are not the same thing... thankfully, this is experimental philosophy, not hermetic magic.

Still, looking again, the formula for greek fire does have a +1 size modifier, so what TSE does is indeed to subdivide it into 10 smaller doses. We probably shouldn't go below that (below size +0) for the minimum dose when dividing stronger doses, unless we are ok with dividing 1 dose of greek fire into 10,000 droplets, each creating a spark that causes +15 damage.

47

I can't find a reason why it would. Everything I find just points out to how the ingredients weren't easily accessible in large scale and early production was risky. It takes time to solve those issues, and some of them require an entire structure geared towards solving the problem (for example, solving lack of material by importing it in large batches from distant lands, which is no small enterprise).

Why do you assume a "dose" is 1kg? Why not 1000kg? Why not 10g? Do you have any evidence, except for you gut feeling, that there was tons of gunpowder being produced? And isn't the lack of evidence enough indication of the actual difficulties of mass producing gunpowder, even if you can't agree with what is being pointed out?

Saltpeter should be the trickiest one, I believe.

Let me step back a bit. Forget about doses, metric tons of produced gunwpowder each season, workshop safety, whatever, and focus on actual history. What is, in your understanding, the detailed timeline for this in Europe (the Levant and China are obviously outside of this)? Because what I'm looking at is, based on the historical evidence on the development of gunpowder and artillery that I can find:

~1220: there is a formula for gunpowder. A few, actually. All have defects, are not easy to produce, and you can easily lose a limb trying. A few people are experimenting with large cannons, small cannons, and the dumb ones are trying hand cannons. There are rumors they already have such things in the Far East, but you know how rumors are (and you are not even sure if this "Far East" actually exists).
~1320: first useful cannons, usage not yet widespread (you can't make that much gunpowder anyway).
~1350: more stable cannons. First firearms. You can produce more gunpowder (compared to 50 years ago), but still not mass produce it. At least less people are dying in the workshops.
~1400: stable enough firearms (for their time). Complex mechanisms, hard to manufacture and prone to problems (thankfully a botch is more likely to break the gun then to kill you). Your production of gunpowder has scaled up, but you still can't make as much of the thing as you'd want (and you are the king). You can equip an unit with these new weapons, but not an army. Earliest grenades.
~1500: from here on we are into Ars Modernica territory, and many Ars Magica rules are not fitting anymore.

48

The one I know of off-hand is Alchemical Steel. There you use a bunch of smaller doses to handle the volume in the same way increasing volume could. Looking back at them, Cement works the same way.

Yup. It's all consistent with a formula with +1 size creating the same as 10 smaller doses.

I would agree to never go below the base size, just like in Hermetic magic. In Hermetic magic you wouldn't, for example, allow Group -5 size (or more, probably) to manage a swarm of bees, for example. ArM5 works with minimal effective Targets. One dose should do what it does, though the thing affected may be quite small.

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49

In terms of the questions of setting making things more hazardous, am I the only one who thinks gunpowder would be like crack for fire elementals? That could be a serious obstacle to any attempt at mass production.

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50

Can I question the root assumption of the method of making gunpowder being widely known? Examples exist, but in England for example there's no known written source before 1540, which is the publication date of a seminal work in Venice. (This is from David Cressy, Saltpetre, State Security and Vexation in Early Modern England", Past & Present issue 212.)

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51

I guess I have to tackle the risks of having an explosion...

As I said, to have dust explosion, you need dust in the air and ignition.
Dust in the air (flour in a mill or a silo, saw in a sawmill) will require a relatively dry atmosphere and something to spread dust in the air. In a working mill, it will happen naturally (I am not talking about modern mill, just old mill). A draft, or possibly a fight can help to put more dust in the air. Now, you have good condition for a Boom.

Ignition - in mundane, normal circumstances will happen through because of two main cause: open flame or sparkle. Open flame is a candle, an open lantern, a torch - any miller worth is salt will know not to enter a mill, especially a working mill, with an open flame, a trigger happy Flambeau chasing a demonist, maybe not.

A sparkle can be triggered by a shock between a metal tool (again, i won't go in the details of which metal does sparkle) and a hard object (stone, metal, other) - the little bit of metal can turn into a spark, and this spark will be several hundred degrees (or more) hot, enough to set fire to dust that it will touch, initiating the explosion. Think of a fight with swords or axes - any metal blades.

The second type of origin is electrostatic - but it is not very likely in a old mill: there is not much material part that can get charged and trigger an electrostatic discharge (known components at the time: certain metals, amber - many plastics can be static, but it is not relevant). Normally, a dry air, with a constant draft can slowly charge the appropriate material (but it is easily avoided now by just grounding the susceptible equipment) until it reaches a potential high enough to discharge. This kind of discharge is well known since Thales (6e c BC), so it is part of mythic Europe, but likelihood of happening spontaneously is really low.

The third item I can think of relevant for the period is obviously lightning. So an Auram mage having fun in a mill can be short-lived.

An additional bit of information.
This kind of explosion can occur in two stages: the first one is a "little", localised explosion, not too harmful. However, this explosion will have the consequence to spread a lot of dust in the air thanks to the shockwave. This is when the second explosion will trigger, ignited by the first one, and this one will be devastating. So it is possible that there is only a small area where all the conditions are met for an explosion, however, this first explosion can make that a much larger volume of a room or a structure gets filled with dust and then... KA-BOOM.
Only a fraction of second happens between primary and secondary explosion, so normally, people won't have time to react, but for a good action scene, you can give a Quikness test, or grant a round to jump into safety - who or what do you save ?

When spells are used to trigger natural explosion, you can require a Finesse roll to have the right optimal amount of dust in the air: the higher the value, the more damage it will do. By default, I would consider that spell allows to directly conditions for the most damaging explosion and there won't be the sequence primary/secondary explosion.

Again, I grossly simplified the mechanism behind all that, but I believe it is enough for those who want to introduce more booms into their saga.

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52

Again, no. I have toured modern sawmills as a board member considering how they could be improved. there is no anti-dust technology there, sawdust flies freely, and there aren't even any no smoking signs. Sawdust is collected with a small propane powered bulldozer because tehre is so much, and no safety precautions because there is no risk of explosion. Yes a sawdust explosion can be engineered to occur, but there is no actual risk f it in a working sawmill. Nor is there a risk of an explosion in a working flour mill- a flour (or grain* elevator has a minimal risk, but in a mill simply opening a window negates any such risk. This is Mythic Europe, not hollywood medieval europe.

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53

Roger Bacon publishes in 1267 his Opus Majus, where he describes explosives and a rough formula for them. Apparently he got this from his friend William of Rubruck, who witnessed them travelling to the mongol court in the mid 1250s (something he gives a detailed account of in his Itinerarium, addressed to the sponsor of his expedition, the king of France). Better formulas can be found in the byzantine Liber Ignium [ad comburendos hostes] from the last two decades of the 1200s.

And of course, the Islamic world obtains it a few years earlier. Hasan al-Rammah dies in 1295 after essentially devoting his life to the study of explosives. Some of the formulas he gives in his "Book of Military Horsemanship and Ingenious War Devices" he claims are not his own, but passed along from his "father and forefathers". He also provides the formula used by the muslim cannon at the battle of Ain Jalut (1260), which is almost identical to that of modern gunpowder.

And these are just (some) sources that got to us!

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54

Thank you for these sources. I have presumably misunderstood David Cressy, because Past and Present is peer reviewed, I believe. This is very useful to know.

55

I downloaded Cressy's article. On the second paragraph, it says:
Familiar in Europe by the thirteenth century, gunpowder was composed of ...

The passage you are referring to is, I believe:
Written discussion of the properties of saltpetre filtered into England following the publication of Vannoccio Biringuccio's De la Pyrotechnia in Venice in 1540.
This passage follows a longish discussion about the fact that, for quite some time after gunpowder was in use, the process of production of saltpetre was still not fully understood (though it had been mined in some specific volcanic areas since the Roman times). So it should not be read as "gunpowder formulas were unknown in England before 1540". In fact, little later, the article goes on to point out that Henry VII by the end of the 1400s had no less than 200 gunners (for his cannons) on his payroll!

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56

When you say modern gunpowder I assume you are talking about black powder, not nitrocellulose.

57

Obviously :slight_smile:

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58

Thanks again

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