Dire Panda
2013-03-27, 07:15 PM
Here's an interesting bit of physics for you: every precious metal deposit ever mined was deposited on Earth by an asteroid. Back when our planet was molten rock, the heavy metals and iron-loving elements sank to the core, leaving the outer layers depleted. Only once the crust cooled could it trap incoming asteroids' metals close enough to the surface to be mined. And there are still plenty of asteroids out there that are almost entirely composed of valuable metals...
So, thought I, if real-world billionaires are seriously considering asteroid mining, then certainly a world containing entire mining-centric races and inhumanly brilliant wizards could pull it off without the use of homebrew. Thus was born the Starhammer Clan, a wealthy dwarven family whose metal yields are envied throughout dwarfkind. Many adventurers have searched in vain for their secret mines, not suspecting that they lie not below the earth but deep into the sky.
The main difficulties for an asteroid miner to overcome are as follows:
Locating a suitable mineral-rich asteroid
Transportation of miners and ores to and from the asteroid
The vacuum of space
Lack of gravity on the asteroid
Oddly enough, locating the asteroid in the first place is the most difficult of these tasks without the use of technology - after all, scrying spells require a creature as their target. Since spyglasses exist in the PHB, we can reasonably assume that the Starhammer Clan has access to late medieval-era telescope technology. Galileo's telescope may have been barely able to see Saturn, but he didn't have the advantage of class levels or magic! The Starhammer Clan's grand astronomer is a 20th-level character with max Spot ranks, a +6 WIS modifier, Skill Focus (Spot), a masterwork item of Spot, and a +30 Spot magic item, totaling a +64 Spot modifier - quite likely enough to glimpse a nearby asteroid even through a fairly crude telescope if he repeatedly takes 20. Luckily, he also has enough ranks in Use Magic Device and Profession (miner) to investigate the asteroids; whenever he spots one, he uses one of his Greater Teleport scrolls to access it, surveys its mineral wealth, and returns with a second scroll.
Transportation is much easier for the Starhammer Clan than it would be in our world; they simply pay off a powerful sorceress to create two permanent Teleportation Circles between their well-guarded smelting plant and any new asteroid they intend to mine, allowing travel in both directions. The circle can't teleport objects, but it can teleport a creature carrying its maximum load, and so they also had the sorceress construct a greater stone golem to handle ore transport duties. Its Strength of 37 and Huge size give it a carrying capacity of 16,640 pounds. If we conservatively estimate that it can pick up that much ore from a designated point, walk through the circle, drop the ore off at another point, and walk back through the circle once every five minutes, the golem can theoretically move almost 5 million pounds of ore per day - easily more than even the most enthusiastic miners could extract. Thus, the one golem can handle multiple asteroid mining projects simultaneously assuming enough teleportation circles have been constructed.
The vacuum of space is cold and unforgiving, but a simple magic item solves any issues it might present. With a Necklace of Adaptation, any miner is perpetually surrounded by a shell of breathable air, negating pressure issues. Better yet, since the air is magically kept around the miner's body rather than allowed to diffuse outwards, it makes a remarkably effective thermal insulator. Since it can only lose heat to the vacuum through Planck radiation, the miner's body heat will almost certainly suffice to keep him warm. The necklace can be passed between workers when shifts change without the need for an attunement period.
Finally, Newton's laws become a concern in microgravity; any miner who strikes an asteroid with his pickaxe is going hurl himself into space. Luckily, magic comes to the rescue once more, this time in the form of the Spider Climb spell. Since its clinging effect can provide at least 1g of force (thus enabling walking along a ceiling), a Spider Climbing character can walk along an asteroid too small to have appreciable gravity. As it last 10 minutes per character level, a twelfth-level spellcaster was commissioned to create a self-resetting boon trap of Spider Climb near each mining site, enabling miners to work for two hours before refreshing their spell. (A break every two hours also satisfies the notorious dwarven mining unions!) Of course, should an inattentive miner let his spell duration expire, all miners are affixed to an emergency tether so they can be reeled back in.
And that, my friends, is how the dwarves won the space race.
TL;DR: Dwarves in space, all the catgirls die.
So, thought I, if real-world billionaires are seriously considering asteroid mining, then certainly a world containing entire mining-centric races and inhumanly brilliant wizards could pull it off without the use of homebrew. Thus was born the Starhammer Clan, a wealthy dwarven family whose metal yields are envied throughout dwarfkind. Many adventurers have searched in vain for their secret mines, not suspecting that they lie not below the earth but deep into the sky.
The main difficulties for an asteroid miner to overcome are as follows:
Locating a suitable mineral-rich asteroid
Transportation of miners and ores to and from the asteroid
The vacuum of space
Lack of gravity on the asteroid
Oddly enough, locating the asteroid in the first place is the most difficult of these tasks without the use of technology - after all, scrying spells require a creature as their target. Since spyglasses exist in the PHB, we can reasonably assume that the Starhammer Clan has access to late medieval-era telescope technology. Galileo's telescope may have been barely able to see Saturn, but he didn't have the advantage of class levels or magic! The Starhammer Clan's grand astronomer is a 20th-level character with max Spot ranks, a +6 WIS modifier, Skill Focus (Spot), a masterwork item of Spot, and a +30 Spot magic item, totaling a +64 Spot modifier - quite likely enough to glimpse a nearby asteroid even through a fairly crude telescope if he repeatedly takes 20. Luckily, he also has enough ranks in Use Magic Device and Profession (miner) to investigate the asteroids; whenever he spots one, he uses one of his Greater Teleport scrolls to access it, surveys its mineral wealth, and returns with a second scroll.
Transportation is much easier for the Starhammer Clan than it would be in our world; they simply pay off a powerful sorceress to create two permanent Teleportation Circles between their well-guarded smelting plant and any new asteroid they intend to mine, allowing travel in both directions. The circle can't teleport objects, but it can teleport a creature carrying its maximum load, and so they also had the sorceress construct a greater stone golem to handle ore transport duties. Its Strength of 37 and Huge size give it a carrying capacity of 16,640 pounds. If we conservatively estimate that it can pick up that much ore from a designated point, walk through the circle, drop the ore off at another point, and walk back through the circle once every five minutes, the golem can theoretically move almost 5 million pounds of ore per day - easily more than even the most enthusiastic miners could extract. Thus, the one golem can handle multiple asteroid mining projects simultaneously assuming enough teleportation circles have been constructed.
The vacuum of space is cold and unforgiving, but a simple magic item solves any issues it might present. With a Necklace of Adaptation, any miner is perpetually surrounded by a shell of breathable air, negating pressure issues. Better yet, since the air is magically kept around the miner's body rather than allowed to diffuse outwards, it makes a remarkably effective thermal insulator. Since it can only lose heat to the vacuum through Planck radiation, the miner's body heat will almost certainly suffice to keep him warm. The necklace can be passed between workers when shifts change without the need for an attunement period.
Finally, Newton's laws become a concern in microgravity; any miner who strikes an asteroid with his pickaxe is going hurl himself into space. Luckily, magic comes to the rescue once more, this time in the form of the Spider Climb spell. Since its clinging effect can provide at least 1g of force (thus enabling walking along a ceiling), a Spider Climbing character can walk along an asteroid too small to have appreciable gravity. As it last 10 minutes per character level, a twelfth-level spellcaster was commissioned to create a self-resetting boon trap of Spider Climb near each mining site, enabling miners to work for two hours before refreshing their spell. (A break every two hours also satisfies the notorious dwarven mining unions!) Of course, should an inattentive miner let his spell duration expire, all miners are affixed to an emergency tether so they can be reeled back in.
And that, my friends, is how the dwarves won the space race.
TL;DR: Dwarves in space, all the catgirls die.