Re: (TFT) Guns in TFT - A big expansion.

[Jay Carlisle <maou.tsaou@gmail.com>]

>
>
>
>
>
> Sulfur-free powder does work. Not as well - some of the carbon
> dioxide gets made into potassium carbonate so there's less gas - but a
> larger charge of sulfur-free powder ought to work more or less like regul
ar
> powder.
> At least, I can't see why it wouldn't.

I guess there would be more fouling. Maybe you want to ignore
> this inconvenient fact.
>



> Ignore facts after speculating with 'em up to this point? Does it suddenl
y
> smell of Denmark in here?
>
lol

More notes.

Okay, it's set up that dragon dung is a "chief" source of sulfur.

"Gunpowder IS known in this world. However, due to the presence of a
sulfur-metabolizing
microorganism, it is rare, expensive, and unreliable. I suppose this has
something to do with the technology vs. magic conflict eluded to in several
places. For the longest time I thought this was simply a contrivance until
I ran across some vague references to a sulfur metabolizing microorganism a
while back.

Well shut my mouth thought I, it IS possible.
I got an interesting info off of Nat Geo's Naked Science this week.

In a programe on life in the solar system they brought up an
extremeophile found
living in the sulfuric acid effluent in a mine in CA. The bacteria does in
fact metabolize iron sulfides but in the process they excrete the sulphur. 
Now
this could be useful, as long as we dump the VERY BAD idea of a
sulfur-metabolizing
microorganism. In exchange for making gunpowder rare and expensive (it was
unreliable) which makes gunpowder worthless for war, except perhaps for
special siege equipment, the sulfa drugs are more or less out.Coccidiosis,
cholera, dysentery. live stock worse than people but no check on them for
the "green" revolution in agriculture.

No paper, or a common medieval ink.
No one is vulcanizing rubber cheaply.

My goodness! Sulfa drugs became available just in time for WWII. I'd hate
to even THINK about the lack. limbs hacked off all over the place. However,
an extremeophile that eats the iron outta fools gold and poops the sulfur
sounds very interesting.

A dragons gullet is a pretty extreme environment I'd think.
If I make their blood green oil of vitrol.
No carbon. Gargoyles "have a silicon metabolism" and both fly.
Hummmm.

Natural occurrence

Ammonia is found in trace quantities in the atmosphere, being produced from
 the
putrefaction of nitrogenous animal and vegetable matter. Ammonia and ammoni
um
salts are also found in small quantities in rainwater, whereas ammonium
chloride (sal-ammoniac), and ammonium sulfate are found in volcanic distric
ts;
crystals of ammonium bicarbonate have been found in Patagonian guano. The
kidneys secrete NH3 to neutralize excess acid. Ammonium salts also are
found distributed through all fertile soil and in seawater. Substances
containing ammonia, or those that are similar to it, are called ammoniacal.

The calorific value of ammonia is 22.5 MJ/kg (9690 BTU/lb) which is about h
alf
that of diesel. In a normal engine, in which the water vapour is not conden
sed,
the calorific value of ammonia will be about 21% less than this figure. It
can be used in existing engines with only minor modifications to
carburettors/injectors.

In the form of sal-ammoniac (nushadir), ammonia was known to the
Muslim alchemists
as early as the 8th century, first mentioned by the Persian chemist Jabir
ibn Hayyan, and to the European alchemists since the 13th century, being
mentioned by Albertus Magnus. It was also used by dyers in the Middle Ages
in the form of fermented urine to alter the colour of vegetable dyes. In
the 15th century, Basilius Valentinus showed that ammonia could be obtained
by the action of alkalis on sal-ammoniac. At a later period, when
sal-ammoniac was obtained by distilling the hooves and horns of oxen and
neutralizing the resulting carbonate with hydrochloric acid, the name
"spirit of hartshorn" was applied to ammonia.

Ammonium chloride

The substance occurs naturally in volcanic regions, forming on volcanic roc
ks
near fume-releasing vents. The crystals deposit directly from the gaseous
state, and tend to be short-lived, as they dissolve easily in water. Biolog
ical
applications include using it as a nitrogen source for microbiological
growth of organisms (including yeast).

Razi produced kerosene and various other compounds using an apparatus
called alembic. In his Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets), the physician and
chemist Razi described two methods for the production of kerosene. One
method involved using clay as an absorbent, whereas the other method
involved using ammonium chloride (sal ammoniac). The distillation process
was to be repeated until the final product was perfectly clear and "safe to
light," i.e. volatile hydrocarbon fractions had been mostly removed.

The Haber process, also called the Haber-Bosch process, is the
nitrogen fixation
reaction of nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas, over an enriched iron or rutheni
um
catalyst, to produce ammonia.

By using ammonia derived from the Haber process, the final product can
be produced
from nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen which are derived from air and natural
gas as the sole feedstocks.

Nitric acid is made by reacting nitrogen dioxide (NO2) with water.


If the solution contains more than 86% nitric acid, it is referred to as fu
ming
nitric acid.

White fuming nitric acid may be used as the oxidizer in liquid fuel
rockets with
kerosene as fuel.

Potash imports and exports are traditionally reported in "K2O
equivalent", although
fertilizer never contains potassium oxide, per se, because potassium oxide
is caustic and so highly reactive that it must be stored under kerosene, as
with metallic potassium.

.hummm
~1000 degrees @ ~300 atmospheres.
Let's look at atmospheres first. what IS 300 atmospheres?
Here's a fun reference!http://books.google.com/books?idDfdUbvm8mv&sigLwF&saepage&q00%20atmospheres%20depth%20in%20water&f�;
The gist of it is that 50c.c. pipettes shatter into powder at about 3000m d
epth
of ocean water which is roughly 300 atmospheres. 50c.c.'s is about a tenth
of a pint (u.s. eighth of a galleon) or around 3 cubic inches. 14.6psi ~ 1
atmosphere, 300 atmospheres is a bit over 2 tons per square inch.

~2.6 ST per square inch to ~766 ST per sq in. in pressure.
4 hex dragon is ST 30.

ST 30 exerts 165 pounds of force per 1 pt fST so 165ft lbs * 29 fST 4785 pounds
of force or ~870 ST One blast of "rocket fuel" under the right conditions
makes a 4 hex dragon pretty tired. or is it sulfuric acid?

1000 degrees f?http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20080247813

"A socketing material (16), or mortar, for speltering wire rope, strand,
and other tension members (14), comprising 35%-55% AL2O3; 32%-52% SiO2;
0%-20% CaO; and 0%-2% Fe2O3. The material (16) may have a
continuous-use temperature
of at least 1000 degrees, at least 2000 degrees, or at least 2500 degrees
Fahrenheit."

AL2O3 - alluminium oxide; commonly corundum, sapphire and ruby.
SiO2 - silicon dioxide; commonly sand and quartz. (Gargoyles)

CaO - calcium oxide; quick lime. lime-burnt calcium carbonate
(probably a curing
agent. so figure it being chalk in the organ. dragons excreting calcium
carbonate around limestone or dolomite make their own caverns).

Fe2O3 - iron oxide; rust


The gizzard, also referred to as the ventriculus, gastric mill, and gigeriu
m,
is an organ found in the digestive tract of some animals, including birds,
reptiles, earthworms and some fish. This specializedstomach constructed of
thick, muscular walls is used for grinding up food; often rocks are also
instrumental in this process. In certain insects and mollusks, the gizzard
features chitinous plates or teeth. The "rocks" in a dragons gizzard are
porous, enriched iron or catalysts and the chitin is made of corundum,
quartz, chalk and rust. It's gonna need nickel too, and the iron sulfide
eating extremophile keeps the catalysts in good shape. and is a REASON the
thing would poop sulfur. This gizzard and glandular stomach arrangement can
be used to help improve ammonia extraction from say eaten cattle, with the
gizzard both grinding bones, hooves, horn, and teeth as well as providing
pressure and containment for further Haber process ammonia enrichment
during the expression of its "fire"-breath. I figure it also needs a kind
of alembic still type organ system for distilling kerosene and some sort of
urea filter system. nitric acid is too useful here to pee out.

Do dragons pee at all?
If so then how much?

Well that all depends on how I design them, which is gonna depend on
how I imagine
them. If I've got them using much if not all of the urea in "typical" urine
then principally what's left is phosphoric acid, potassium, chlorine, and
sodium.

95% water
2.5% urea
~0.625% each of phosphoric acid, potassium, chlorine, and sodium

Depending on diet but this is figured for a first world, middle class diet 
and
we eat a LOT of meat. I'm thinking dragons eat a lot more; also their not
decended from water buffalo.

A pressure type carburetor (w/inverted flight), basically a simple
fuel injection
type organ would be required.

So would some kind of valve or nozzle type organ.


1 square hex is 16 square feet so a 4 hex dragon can't cover more than
64 square
feet, a 7 hex dragon can't be more than 112 sq feet and etc. Cubic feet
depends on how dragons are shaped in the gameworld and how the GM imagines
their movements.

Musculature and skeletal structure to scale are a real problem.
Didn't Galileo do a femur for a giant?
How did Asimov tweak scale for "The Fantastic Journey"?
Good enough for Asimov is 99.99999999.% good enough for me.
I wonder about the limits of the idea of dragons.
When does the idea get so odd that  whatever it IS it's NOT a dragon?

Anyway, that alembic still has two chambers (one onion shaped and the other
 a
cylinder) and I suppose the volume of breath attacks I want a big one to be
able to make will help tell me how big to make them, and that will tell me
a little bit about how wide they have to be.

Now I gotta go fetch my lego's.

Nonetheless I've already got a MUCH more interesting picture of dragons
than I started with. "Old fool! Why there is a large patch in the hollow of
his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!"

I'm thinking of having them attracted to natural sources of sal-ammoniac li
ke
volcano's and also having them attracted to areas with large seams of coal
that they can burn for the sal-ammoniac. "There are hundreds of coal fires
burning around the world. Those burning underground can be difficult to
locate and many cannot be extinguished. Fires can cause the ground above to
subside, their combustion gases are dangerous to life, and breaking out to
the surface can initiate surface wildfires. Coal seams can be set on fire
by spontaneous combustion or contact with a mine fire or surface fire. A
grass fire in a coal area can set dozens of coal seams on fire. Coal fires
in China burn 109 million tons of coal a year, emitting 360 million metric
tons of CO2. This contradicts the ratio of 1:1.83 given earlier, but it
amounts to 2-3% of the annual worldwide production of CO2 from fossil
fuels, or as much as emitted from all of the cars and light trucks in the
United States." That plus excreting calcium carbonate makes dragons big
cave complex developers AND fits with magic vs. tech because they are
burning up all the coal before coal burning tech is available.

Hee hee hee, dragon hunters carry soap to test the streams for hard water.


I don't know, maybe it's (and now for) something completely different ;
it's not my place to dictate what you should imagine.

Some stuff needs to be objective though.

A world is an objective gametool. like a die.

"Cidri is BIG. No complete map of its surface is known."

The Cidri mapping project.

"Astral Projection" (s): Let's the wizard send his "astral body" to
another place
while he (apparently) sleeps. The astral body can go anywhere the wizard
knows about if he knows (approximately) the path. Distance is no barrier.
The astral body can observe events in other places for one hour; at the end
of that time it automatically returns.

.

A wizard in the astral plane can cast a spell on himself, or on another ast
ral
Figure, exactly as though he were physically present."

So it's like this.
I go outside on a clear day, lie down and look up.
WAY up.

I Astral Project up there then use stuff like Far Sight, Mage Sight, and Ey
es
Behind to map her. This should tell me SOMETHING. usually that the GM's
"gameworld" isn't really a gameworld at all. It's a little late at such a
point to be thinking-up answers to questions like "what's on the opposite
side of the gameworld from my "campaign" area, or what's the diameter of
Cidri. In a large battle a wizard with this kinda set up gets to see the
whole battle field.

Magic can be a HUGE imbalance in how a genera is expected to function.

Full blown TFT magic in the middle ages turns the whole genera into a
Flintstones
thing, literally.

MUCH better to use the real world Earth for examples when Cidri hardly exis
ts
at all. I know more about Oz. including an interesting backdoor. don't some
little people have a map of the holes in time whensomewhere are they
running about these days do you think?

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