Help Designing an Underground Dwarven Train for a Low-Magic World [3.5]

[Drenn]

I'm about to wrap up part Part 1 of a campaign that's been running roughly 1.5 years so far. My players are headed off for their Big Bad fight on a remote island and in order to get there, they've decided to save time going over the mountains to a port city and instead ask the dwarves for safe passage under the mountains.

I want the dwarves to have secretly built a high-speed train that can be used to travel under the mountains in less time, but I didn't want it to run on plain old steam and coal if possible. It's a low-magic campaign setting (though it does have lots of alchemy) where magic items are fairly rare (due to heavy restrictions on who can have and practice magic).

I was thinking I could have them trap a fire elemental and a water elemental and have them continuously generating steam, but if there's a simpler way of moving the train (ie. just use this mundane wondrous item and hook it up to such-and-such) then I'd rather do that.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Eloel]

How mundane do you think Decanter of Endless Water is?

Alternatively, storm elemental. Run the train on electricity!

[Drenn]

Decanter of Endless Water is mundane enough. Mostly magic's been restricted due to a series of recent wars.

Storm elemental could work too, but I'd also have to justify the existence of an electric motor, which might be a bit of stretch, since this whole "train" thing is the first of its kind.

[ArcanistSupreme]

Have it pulled by undead or have undead turning a crank for the engine.

[Ferronach]

Might I suggest something a little simpler?
Gravity could help you out a whole bunch. Adding some sort of human powered device for uphill sections should help too...

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/565474/565474,1276579854,11/stock-photo-old-railway-two-seats-pump-trolley-55217236.jpg
http://antiquehelper.rfcsystems.com/Full/526/63526.jpg

EDIT: sorry I am bad at adding images apparently...

[ArcanistSupreme]

Might I suggest something a little simpler?
Gravity could help you out a whole bunch. Adding some sort of human powered device for uphill sections should help too...

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/565474/565474,1276579854,11/stock-photo-old-railway-two-seats-pump-trolley-55217236.jpg

http://antiquehelper.rfcsystems.com/Full/526/63526.jpg

EDIT: sorry I am bad at adding images apparently...

You could also use zombies/skeletons for this. Just sayin'.

[Zaq]

Bound elementals could work. Do be aware that elementals are sapient creatures, so this more or less amounts to slavery. Some people think of elementals as being sufficiently "other" that they're okay with that, but I wouldn't be surprised if you had a Paladin or two get really pissed off about this. Especially if it's a Pally of Freedom.

Mindless constructs might be better from a moral standpoint. You wouldn't have the same fire + water = steam setup going, but they could be turning cranks, pulling or pushing, or something like that. I just had a cool mental image of a setup like (the Hollywood image of) a Viking slave ship, with a whole bunch of constructs rowing away, with that work somehow powering an underground train rather than an oceangoing boat. (I guess it would be more cranking and less rowing, but whatever.) You'd need a lot of them to actually get any real power going, but you're the GM. Physics works the way you say it works.

Instead of elementals themselves, if you're comfortable having semipermanent planar rifts, you could just have conduits to the Elemental Plane of Fire and the Elemental Plane of Water providing your steam, without needing to actually get any creatures involved. Or you could have just one fire elemental sitting in/under a conduit to the Elemental Plane of Water, making steam that way. Instead of making him/her (/it? Do elementals have gender? I'm just gonna say "them") a bound slave, you could make them a highly paid and respected member of the operation. You could even have a whole team of them, and they swap out after each shift.

Maybe you could have it be less like a train and more like a stagecoach in terms of power. So you could still have tracks and rails, but it would be pulled by animals (/magical beasts/outsiders/whatever) rather than propelled by a locomotive. I'm sure you could find some kind of interesting critter to harness up a team of and have them pull you through inky black subterranean tunnels. Maybe specially-bred thoqquas (bred for size and power), if you could teach them not to just randomly go burrowing? Bulettes would be a neat image, if you could find a way to train the buggers. Delvers would be cool, but since they're intelligent, they'd be employees rather than draft animals. Whatever you pick, you could say that the magic is in the tracks rather than the train or in the power—the tracks are specially made to make it easy for creatures to pull the trains along, so you can go a lot faster and get a lot more power from a team of thoqquas (or whatever you choose) on the tracks than you could from just hitching up a team of thoqquas outside of the tracks.

[nedz]

I used Iron Golem Locomotives for this purpose. These are just Iron Golems with Wheels, home-brew — but why not?. Mine were several centuries old.

Alternatively: Animated Objects Wagons

[Tvtyrant]

Pernanent animated objects, clockwork horse pulling a carriage, effigy pulling a carriage, one of the super engines out of Frostburn (no given weight capacity), slaves pulling the train, animated dead pulling the train, the train is a reanimated colossal centipede skeleton, decanter of endless water+permanent wall of fire boiler.

[Drenn]

Have it pulled by undead or have undead turning a crank for the engine.

The paladin would object almost certainly, and the party just came from a three-session journey through a ghost forest. They're a bit... prejudiced against the undead just now. Might make for an interesting moral dilemma though.

[Drenn]

Bound elementals could work. Do be aware that elementals are sapient creatures, so this more or less amounts to slavery. Some people think of elementals as being sufficiently "other" that they're okay with that, but I wouldn't be surprised if you had a Paladin or two get really pissed off about this. Especially if it's a Pally of Freedom.

Mindless constructs might be better from a moral standpoint. You wouldn't have the same fire + water = steam setup going, but they could be turning cranks, pulling or pushing, or something like that. I just had a cool mental image of a setup like (the Hollywood image of) a Viking slave ship, with a whole bunch of constructs rowing away, with that work somehow powering an underground train rather than an oceangoing boat. (I guess it would be more cranking and less rowing, but whatever.) You'd need a lot of them to actually get any real power going, but you're the GM. Physics works the way you say it works.

Instead of elementals themselves, if you're comfortable having semipermanent planar rifts, you could just have conduits to the Elemental Plane of Fire and the Elemental Plane of Water providing your steam, without needing to actually get any creatures involved. Or you could have just one fire elemental sitting in/under a conduit to the Elemental Plane of Water, making steam that way. Instead of making him/her (/it? Do elementals have gender? I'm just gonna say "them") a bound slave, you could make them a highly paid and respected member of the operation. You could even have a whole team of them, and they swap out after each shift.

Maybe you could have it be less like a train and more like a stagecoach in terms of power. So you could still have tracks and rails, but it would be pulled by animals (/magical beasts/outsiders/whatever) rather than propelled by a locomotive. I'm sure you could find some kind of interesting critter to harness up a team of and have them pull you through inky black subterranean tunnels. Maybe specially-bred thoqquas (bred for size and power), if you could teach them not to just randomly go burrowing? Bulettes would be a neat image, if you could find a way to train the buggers. Delvers would be cool, but since they're intelligent, they'd be employees rather than draft animals. Whatever you pick, you could say that the magic is in the tracks rather than the train or in the power—the tracks are specially made to make it easy for creatures to pull the trains along, so you can go a lot faster and get a lot more power from a team of thoqquas (or whatever you choose) on the tracks than you could from just hitching up a team of thoqquas outside of the tracks.

I like basically all of these ideas.

[Drenn]

Pernanent animated objects, clockwork horse pulling a carriage, effigy pulling a carriage, one of the super engines out of Frostburn (no given weight capacity), slaves pulling the train, animated dead pulling the train, the train is a reanimated colossal centipede skeleton, decanter of endless water+permanent wall of fire boiler.

"Reanimated colossal centipede skeleton" made me giggle out loud. Players would freak out so badly. But that's really what a DM lives for anyway.

[Drenn]

Might I suggest something a little simpler?
Gravity could help you out a whole bunch. Adding some sort of human powered device for uphill sections should help too...

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/565474/565474,1276579854,11/stock-photo-old-railway-two-seats-pump-trolley-55217236.jpg

http://antiquehelper.rfcsystems.com/Full/526/63526.jpg

EDIT: sorry I am bad at adding images apparently...

Simple. Simple is good.

[Ferronach]

Simple. Simple is good.

could be fun to get the players to lend a hand. make the bruisers feel useful for a change.

Alternatively, you could also make them clockwork.

Or you could have it like a rollercoaster. "Free falling" until a point where you need additional pull to get uphill. Have a chain system that pulls the carts along until they can roll on their own again. Power the chain system with a water wheel that is fed by one of the underground rives that the dwarves use for fishing and such.

[Vhaidara]

Bound elementals could work. Do be aware that elementals are sapient creatures, so this more or less amounts to slavery. Some people think of elementals as being sufficiently "other" that they're okay with that, but I wouldn't be surprised if you had a Paladin or two get really pissed off about this. Especially if it's a Pally of Freedom.

Mindless constructs might be better from a moral standpoint. You wouldn't have the same fire + water = steam setup going, but they could be turning cranks, pulling or pushing, or something like that. I just had a cool mental image of a setup like (the Hollywood image of) a Viking slave ship, with a whole bunch of constructs rowing away, with that work somehow powering an underground train rather than an oceangoing boat. (I guess it would be more cranking and less rowing, but whatever.) You'd need a lot of them to actually get any real power going, but you're the GM. Physics works the way you say it works.

This is actually just a more subtle form of slavery in many cases. The most standard mindless constructs are golems, which are powered by a bound elemental.

So, basically, if you use golems, it's the same as enslaving elementals directly, except now you're lying to everyone about it.

[Hamste]

If you are ok with a less trainy feel they could make the track go down hill both ways by just having the starting place higher up in one mountain than the end place in the other and not having the end place and start place meet up like normal terminals. Then all the dwarves have to do is push the cart at the end of the track up again...which isn't exactly easy still.

[Inevitability]

How about the dwarf engineer who build the tracks made a deal with some fiend, who send a couple of Fiends of Possession to make the train work, in exchange for the soul of the engineer? Maybe you can make a nice little sidequest where the players encounter a message left by said engineer detailing how to free him from his infernal bargain.

[Maglubiyet]

What about a dwarven pneumatic tube system instead. They seal the tunnel, pump a massive billows to build up pressure, then open the valve. *POP* -- the sealed cart shoots to the other end.

You could use bound air elementals too.

[Th3N3xtGuy]

DM in a rare material that is highly volatile but produced atomic level horsepower. I got it nuclear powered bullet train! :P

[Zaq]

This is actually just a more subtle form of slavery in many cases. The most standard mindless constructs are golems, which are powered by a bound elemental.

So, basically, if you use golems, it's the same as enslaving elementals directly, except now you're lying to everyone about it.

Mmm, yes and no. You are using a bound elemental spirit, but golems are explicitly mindless. The kind of elementals you get with Planar Binding and the like are sapient creatures, but there's nothing that says that you're putting the same kind of elemental into a golem. I'd argue that the fact that golems are mindless indicates that the elemental spirit you're binding is also mindless, which means it's not a person, which means it's not slavery.

There's room for GM adjudication on that front, certainly. It's not really explicit one way or the other. Given that the OP is the GM in the game in question, it can go whichever way they decide.

[GilesTheCleric]

If you're planning on going with the horses-for-horsepower option, consider a Maug (FF 121) with the rollers graft (FF 213). That gives them a 60ft speed, but make them unable to run. I'm not sure what the carrying capacity multiplier would be for having rollers instead of legs, but it should be greater than 10 (looks like my warbeast hunting spider (MM2 219, MM1 289) has a multiplier of 10.5, which I think was based on the monstrous spider mount in AaEG 90; its push/drag is 9 imperial tons). You could also (I think reasonably) rule that maugs+rollers have the same ability as dwarfs to not move at a lower speed under heavy loads.

Somehow the spider can carry a heavier load than my ashworm mount (x3 carrying capacity multiplier), so basing the multiplier on a spider rather than a worm seems like the way to go.

Actually, just using a trained team of spiders to pull the train could work, too, especially given that they have a climb speed, so if the train needs to make some wonky manoeuvres, they can handle it. Pick up the Vermin Trainer (DotU 53) and Knight of Lolth (DotU 51) feats for the driver, and Run (SRD) for the mounts. If the train is cylindrical, then it can fit perfectly through a burrowed tunnel, and perhaps webbing all around the tunnel could provide lubrication that might be superior to the friction of tracks (does anyone know what the friction coefficients are for track oiled/graphite dusted track? I also recall some sort of web that had a liquid on it that made it immune to fire, but don't remember where it was from). With warbeast, the spider has 40ft base and 30ft climb; I think there's other faster spiders, but not with the same carrying capacity (all of the other spiders in DotU have much lower carrying capacities).

Footpad lizards (DotU 136) also have a decent push/drag: 6 tons.

[Drenn]

Or you could have it like a rollercoaster. "Free falling" until a point where you need additional pull to get uphill. Have a chain system that pulls the carts along until they can roll on their own again. Power the chain system with a water wheel that is fed by one of the underground rives that the dwarves use for fishing and such.

I think a combination of this and a steel golem might be the solution.

[Drenn]

If you're planning on going with the horses-for-horsepower option, consider a Maug (FF 121) with the rollers graft (FF 213). That gives them a 60ft speed, but make them unable to run. I'm not sure what the carrying capacity multiplier would be for having rollers instead of legs, but it should be greater than 10 (looks like my warbeast hunting spider (MM2 219, MM1 289) has a multiplier of 10.5, which I think was based on the monstrous spider mount in AaEG 90; its push/drag is 9 imperial tons). You could also (I think reasonably) rule that maugs+rollers have the same ability as dwarfs to not move at a lower speed under heavy loads.

Somehow the spider can carry a heavier load than my ashworm mount (x3 carrying capacity multiplier), so basing the multiplier on a spider rather than a worm seems like the way to go.

Actually, just using a trained team of spiders to pull the train could work, too, especially given that they have a climb speed, so if the train needs to make some wonky manoeuvres, they can handle it. Pick up the Vermin Trainer (DotU 53) and Knight of Lolth (DotU 51) feats for the driver, and Run (SRD) for the mounts. If the train is cylindrical, then it can fit perfectly through a burrowed tunnel, and perhaps webbing all around the tunnel could provide lubrication that might be superior to the friction of tracks (does anyone know what the friction coefficients are for track oiled/graphite dusted track? I also recall some sort of web that had a liquid on it that made it immune to fire, but don't remember where it was from). With warbeast, the spider has 40ft base and 30ft climb; I think there's other faster spiders, but not with the same carrying capacity (all of the other spiders in DotU have much lower carrying capacities).

Footpad lizards (DotU 136) also have a decent push/drag: 6 tons.

Drow are the big bads of this world, so spiders are definitely out, but some of the other solutions might work. The issue with any animal labor though is that then you also have to transport food and so forth, whereas with golems it's "Free" labor after the initial creation cost.

[endur]

Instead of a train, how about an underground river that barges flow down.

[Ferronach]

I know it is a low magic world but grease is a low level spell so I do not think that it would be unfeasible for the Dwarces to have someone cast grease on the wheels of the cart periodically. Or better still have them cast grease into a barrel that is attached to the front of the lead car. The grease slowly drips down a tube that has a brush attached to it (one on each side of the car) and "paints" the track with grease.

[nedz]

If you are ok with a less trainy feel they could make the track go down hill both ways by just having the starting place higher up in one mountain than the end place in the other and not having the end place and start place meet up like normal terminals. Then all the dwarves have to do is push the cart at the end of the track up again...which isn't exactly easy still.

A lift at each end, powered by water, should be well within their engineering powers. Water is used to fill a counter-weight tank, and then emptied out at the bottom. Mid-stations could be 'hills' in the track where the train slows and can be pushed off quite easily — no need to go full on roller coaster, unless you want to.

[PetterTomBos]

A lift at each end, powered by water, should be well within their engineering powers. Water is used to fill a counter-weight tank, and then emptied out at the bottom. Mid-stations could be 'hills' in the track where the train slows and can be pushed off quite easily — no need to go full on roller coaster, unless you want to.

I was thinking along these lines as well.

A system of "downhill" passages, where there are no stretch of uphill long enough for the train to halt.. I just read "The fifth elephant (Discworld)" where the dwarves trap mountain riers to drive lifts. Why not trains?

The dwarfs never waste an old mining tunnel. They build trains trough them, timing the breaking so that any small hill encountered can be driven over. Mastering the subtleties of this trade takes almost a human lifetime, and only let you run your route. Safely that is. At intervalls (roughly one day travel between them), you reach a point where there is a high mountain right above you. On the mountain there is an artificial lake, acting as a counterweight to drag the train back up.

These bottom holes usually contain an inn, or some other sort of civilazation, along with all the junk that nobody can afford to drag upwards again.

[Bullet06320]

What about a dwarven pneumatic tube system instead. They seal the tunnel, pump a massive billows to build up pressure, then open the valve. *POP* -- the sealed cart shoots to the other end.

You could use bound air elementals too.

yes, this, I love it
also doubles as battlerager initiation rites, lol

[lightningcat]

Mmm, yes and no. You are using a bound elemental spirit, but golems are explicitly mindless. The kind of elementals you get with Planar Binding and the like are sapient creatures, but there's nothing that says that you're putting the same kind of elemental into a golem. I'd argue that the fact that golems are mindless indicates that the elemental spirit you're binding is also mindless, which means it's not a person, which means it's not slavery.

There's room for GM adjudication on that front, certainly. It's not really explicit one way or the other. Given that the OP is the GM in the game in question, it can go whichever way they decide.

Or you are effectively preforming a lobotomy on them before enslaving them.
Plus, as least as I read it, putting a fire elemental directly in water kills it. While putting a water elemental in fire will either damage the elemental or puts the fire out.

A simple replacement for coal is heat metal, either as a permanent spell or a higher level version of it.
Or if you want to make it non-magical use a chain drive system similar to what modern roller coasters use, which can be powered by water wheels, waste heat from forges, and/or plenty of other sources.

[atemu1234]

Might I suggest something a little simpler?
Gravity could help you out a whole bunch. Adding some sort of human powered device for uphill sections should help too...

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/565474/565474,1276579854,11/stock-photo-old-railway-two-seats-pump-trolley-55217236.jpg

http://antiquehelper.rfcsystems.com/Full/526/63526.jpg

EDIT: sorry I am bad at adding images apparently...

You might want to spoiler those images, they're kind of huge.

[Ferronach]

You might want to spoiler those images, they're kind of huge.

I honestly never thought of that! hahah good idea! :)