question about making a pre-electricity ice box

[Averis Vol]

hello playground, in a campaign i'm currently playing in as payment for clearing out some worshipers of erythnul we were given a run down estate to fix up (awesome right? free 300k estate) its three floors, a basement (which i plan to turn into a wine cellar) a base floor which is an entry hall with two wings of bedrooms and an upper floor with a conference hall and the master bedroom (mine). now i have the two top floors built and i have the bottom floor designed, only thing i still need to do is figure out how to keep the cellar icy cold for storage. now our party has casting easily available, is there any spell or something i could do/buy/steal/make to keep a whole floor 30 feet underground icy cold?

thanks in advance :smallsmile:

[deuxhero]

Frostburn likely has something that meets your needs. I think there was a special type of ice that didn't melt and "radiated" cold in the excerpt.

[Talesin]

Brown Mold (CR 2): Brown mold feeds on warmth, drawing heat from anything around it. It normally comes in patches 5 feet in diameter, and the temperature is always cold in a 30-foot radius around it. Living creatures within 5 feet of it take 3d6 points of nonlethal cold damage. Fire brought within 5 feet of brown mold causes it to instantly double in size. Cold damage, such as from a cone of cold, instantly destroys it.


From the SRD. Just make sure you've got it in a safe place and you don't bring fire next to it.

[2xMachina]

Bury it under 5' of dirt/stone. No chance of taking damage, or strengthening it.

[Averis Vol]

From the SRD. Just make sure you've got it in a safe place and you don't bring fire next to it.

that is actually perfect, i can bury it under the stone floor of the cellar and again under my kitchen, thank you.

on the off chance my DM makes finding mold hard on me i guess i'll be taking a journey up to the mountains for some never melting ice.

thank you for the suggestions.

[Flickerdart]

If you're loaded, you could just keep a magic item of Resist Energy at the entrance of the basement, and not care about where the mold spreads. Resist Energy 10 is enough to overcome the average damage it deals. Alternatively, a Necropolitan butler would be immune to the damage, at which point you can do away with the ring and use the mold as a theft deterrent too.

[Telonius]

You could also build a spring house (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_house) or an ice house (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icehouse_%28building%29). Wiki says the first ice house was built in 1700BC, so the typical D&D world would definitely have access to that even using mundane means.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Depends on what you're using it for. Angriz's Chest, and item in RotD (pg 124), is designed specifically for meat - it uses gentle repose as the required spell to halt all aging. It does specify only meat (dead flesh, actually) is preserved though.

[Psyren]

Forget cold - use Quintessence (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/quintessence.htm) and keep it preserved forever exactly how you put it in. That hot meal you just cooked? Still steaming when you take it out. Apples, bacon and french fries? Still crispy. Cake and pie? Moist and flaky respectively.

[Flickerdart]

Quintessence is tremendously expensive though. As a 4th level power, its value is 280gp per casting, and you could use that one casting to preserve, at best, a single french fry. And then have to scrape the quintessence off. Make sure you didn't miss any, or you take damage after eating it and can't stop being in contact.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'm away from my books, but I distinctly recall there being a spell that reduced the temperature of a room to about freezing, which I believe I put on my home brew Permanency spell list (in signature). Give me a minute to peruse it.

EDIT: Darsson's Chilling Chamber, a second-level spell from Shining South.

Also from Shining South: Darsson's Fiery Furnace. You can have an ice box and a stove!

[Big Fau]

Quintessence is tremendously expensive though. As a 4th level power, its value is 280gp per casting, and you could use that one casting to preserve, at best, a single french fry. And then have to scrape the quintessence off. Make sure you didn't miss any, or you take damage after eating it and can't stop being in contact.

1 ounce can cover quite a bit of surface area, and that's all you need to cover for the power to work.

[Psyren]

I assumed that, with a 300,000gp keep, that money might not be much of a limiting factor. Store your goods in style and all that.

[Averis Vol]

I assumed that, with a 300,000gp keep, that money might not be much of a limiting factor. Store your goods in style and all that.

let me state that its a pre built estate, just a little run down. all i have to do is buy furniture, repairs and stuff to stock it with. were only lvl 8 so my DM wouldn't give us 300k

and to everyone. thanks for these responses, really appreciate all the help.

[deuxhero]

1 ounce can cover quite a bit of surface area, and that's all you need to cover for the power to work.

You also run into the problem that it sticks the encased object in time. It makes it so your wine can't age, which really defeats the purpose of a wine cellar.

[Ormur]

If you only need it to preserve food (or other remains of living matter) then you can have a magic item or wondrous architecture of gentle repose. In the Stronghold Builder's Guide it's used for that purposes, called pantry of preservation. They price it at 3000 gp per 20x20 feet space.

[Skyrunner]

You also run into the problem that it sticks the encased object in time. It makes it so your wine can't age, which really defeats the purpose of a wine cellar.

Wine doesn't need to be time-preserved. If the cellar is already a 'wine' cellar, chances are it's good enough. Wine doesn't need to be refrigerated.

[Flickerdart]

1 ounce can cover quite a bit of surface area, and that's all you need to cover for the power to work.
The power explicitly states that "one very small object" can be covered with just one dollop.

[Tulya]

Lesser version of a Spell Clock (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a) that repeatedly casts prestidigitation for cooling purposes?

[Psyren]

And then have to scrape the quintessence off. Make sure you didn't miss any, or you take damage after eating it and can't stop being in contact.

You don't have to worry about that - just keep your food in containers. No quintessence will come into contact with your food, but the food will still be outside of time and thus preserved.


The power explicitly states that "one very small object" can be covered with just one dollop.

But it goes on to say that "large items and structures" can be covered as well, allowing for the use of multiple dollops.

And if you taught an NPC an infinite-PP trick, he would be obliged not to charge for further manifestations. (Or you could hire a cohort, or learn psionics yourself.)

[Melayl]

I believe the spell "Chill Metal" still exists, doesn't it? The alternate casting of "Heat Metal"? Or am I just flashing back to my 2E days? If it does, cast it on a large sheet of metal, cast "Permanency" and you are done.

Otherwise you can have some low-level lackey arcane caster cast "Ray of Frost" in there repeatedly...

[1stEd.Thief]

If you are interested in a wine cellar, all you need is a cellar. Wine likes to be stored in the dark at a constant, cool temperature (not cold). Those new fangled wine refrigerators are actually bad for aging because of temperature fluctuations and vibration.

30' underground and you're going to have a rock solid (no pun) temperature of around 60 F.

Edit: You want to keep food. cold. At level 8? Isn't that when you start having magic traps of delicious?

[Big Fau]

The power explicitly states that "one very small object" can be covered with just one dollop.

Most meals fall under the Diminutive size category, which I think is small enough for the power. At the very least, it can cover a steak with ease.

[Averis Vol]

Edit: You want to keep food. cold. At level 8? Isn't that when you start having magic traps of delicious?

not quite sure i follow, this is the first time this has ever come up in our group, is there something i'm missing?

[Flickerdart]

not quite sure i follow, this is the first time this has ever come up in our group, is there something i'm missing?
A magic trap of Create Food and Water and a magic trap of Prestidigitation can be combined to make deliciously flavoured gruel. At higher levels, you can do Hero's Feasts instead.

[Averis Vol]

A magic trap of Create Food and Water and a magic trap of Prestidigitation can be combined to make deliciously flavoured gruel. At higher levels, you can do Hero's Feasts instead.

ohh, alright, that makes sense. my warmage is actually the party chef, so theres really no reason to spend the extra gold, when i'm by most normal people standards a world class chef. plus i'm never happy when a few statues encroach on my territory. :smalltongue:

[Aasimar]

Just make sure it's deep and against solid rock. (none of that topsoil stuff) That's how they keep wine cellars cool.

Not icy though.

The simplest way to build a pre-electricity icebox is to construct something that's well insulated, then add cold things to it and replace them as they get warmer.

[ericgrau]

Ungent of timelessness preserves organic material for years. 150 gp for 8 uses.

The old fashion way was to ship in ice from a cold place. Given how cheap D&D labor is and how expensive magic is, this might be the cheapest way. Using an online calculator, a tightly insulated 20'x30' room, and the heat of fusion of ice I estimated about 4 pounds of ice per day. According to the online calculator a room with more floor area uses proportionally more ice. 40'x60' uses 16 lbs. per day. That doesn't seem exactly right to me but meh, it's a rough estimate. A 1'x1'x1' block of ice weighs about 60 lbs. A trip to the mountains or cold region and back could supply the cellar for months and only cost a few gold. Mostly to pay for their share of the armed escort in case an ignorant bandit doesn't realize there's only ice to steal. Everything else is silvers.

Naturally magic and so on could do it too. I mean does the major difficulty in obtaining and potential to kill commoners and several low level investigating town guards in any kind of earthquake or other horrible accident prevent an eccentric wizard from getting brown mold? Heck no.

A wine cellar's easier because you can pretty much put it 3 feet or more underground and it'll be roughly 50 degrees year round without any cooling.