The Royal Artificery Society - OOC

[DeTess]

@windstruck, I don't have anything particular planned for the owl from this point forward. AS you're ready to bond it you can start treating it as an NPC pretty much fully under your own control. And yeah, after that you can meet up with Bolten again for another day of designing and working on clockwork.

@mrabdiel, what are your plans for the rest of the day, and what exactly will you be doing with the captured rat for now?

@everyone, also, you may have noted I posted significantly more over the past week than I generally do. This was due to an incredibly slow week at work, but that's over now, so I'm back to my usual +- 1 post a day, and usually none on monday.

[MrAbdiel]

@windstruck, I don't have anything particular planned for the owl from this point forward. AS you're ready to bond it you can start treating it as an NPC pretty much fully under your own control. And yeah, after that you can meet up with Bolten again for another day of designing and working on clockwork.

@mrabdiel, what are your plans for the rest of the day, and what exactly will you be doing with the captured rat for now?

@everyone, also, you may have noted I posted significantly more over the past week than I generally do. This was due to an incredibly slow week at work, but that's over now, so I'm back to my usual +- 1 post a day, and usually none on monday.

Congrats/Condolences on work picking back up, depending on whether or not you hate your job!

Aiden is going to keep bashing away at that leather armor he's making for Misha - getting close to the point where he'll need measurements to fit it properly at this point. He'll keep the rat's cage uncovered so it can see out, in the workshop, near him most of the time, in full view of sceptical peers. He will talk to it as if it can understand him even though that's not something that he should assume; being very conversational; feeding the rat a tiny, rat portioned meal of whatever he's having for dinner. Let's say beef pie, with a side of carrots and peas. He threads little bits of each element of the meal through the bars. He's holding off on his proposition about the fate of the rats until he can hear a response with the potion; so he mostly just tells the rat who he is, and what he does, reassures that he's in no danger, asks if it wants more pie. You know; the way people talk their pets even know they know damn well the pets only understand their tone.

[WindStruck]

Well if I was being held hostage like that, I would think Aiden is affably evil.

[MrAbdiel]

Well if I was being held hostage like that, I would think Aiden is affably evil.

He's affably something! ;)

[DeTess]

another little roll: (1d20+4)[16]

[Prehysterical]

...Oh, right, I'm supposed to be rolling for Bolten's research for the next day, aren't I? Sorry, it's been a rough week.

Knowledge (Engineering): (1d20+12)[17]
Knowledge (planes): (1d20+7)[12]
Knowledge (Arcana) because why not: (1d20+12)[19]

Well, it looks like the dice are against me. Looks like we will have to make some compromises to the design.

[DeTess]

Well, it looks like the dice are against me. Looks like we will have to make some compromises to the design.

Seems so, yes. If you've got a different idea for a compromise than what I came up with feel free to propose it as well.

[Prehysterical]

How about supplementing it with some kind of consumable fuel source? Not my final answer, but wanting to know if that's on the table.

For the energy loss and wear and tear options, could you please provide a more detailed explanation of those drawbacks?

[DeTess]

How about supplementing it with some kind of consumable fuel source? Not my final answer, but wanting to know if that's on the table.

Something like that could work? Maybe the design uses water to keep cool, but this slowly evaporates and needs replenishing every couple of hours.

For the energy loss and wear and tear options, could you please provide a more detailed explanation of those drawbacks?

Energy loss means the device needs recharging at a suitable thermal energy source every two days even when completely not in use, and will have lost half its charge after the first day even with little to no use.

For wear and tear, after about 40 hours of actual operation the parts of the reactor would need to be replaced, or risks of misshaps start coming up (with any use past 100 hours being very inadviseable).

[Prehysterical]

Something like that could work? Maybe the design uses water to keep cool, but this slowly evaporates and needs replenishing every couple of hours.

...Create Water is a cantrip. Could we integrate a little magical tank that generates more water when depleted?

[DeTess]

...Create Water is a cantrip. Could we integrate a little magical tank that generates more water when depleted?

Then it wouldn't be a trade-off, would it :P

[WindStruck]

Well. I rather disagree. There's a tradeoff from a pure engineering standpoint.

But Bolten would be getting help from someone skilled at enchanting.

[DeTess]

Well. I rather disagree. There's a tradeoff from a pure engineering standpoint.

But Bolten would be getting help from someone skilled at enchanting.

You know what, fair. I'll let you make a spellcraft roll to see if you can make that solution to a design issue work.

[WindStruck]

Oh boy.. well I suppose I could make a single attempt at the roll, see if Shandara can do it off the top of her head..

Or if not, she'll probably have to spend a day in the archives again trying to figure out that divine magic crap, but I'd definitely go all out with investigative mind,too.

spellcraft: (1d20+16)[19]

The dice sure hate me for this project, don't they?

[DeTess]

The dice sure hate me for this project, don't they?

Seems so. I'll give you the day of research for a reroll, but otherwise between the two of you you're stumped on how to do this without some kind of unavoidable compromise.

[Prehysterical]

Aw... Maybe Aiden can find a nice rose bush for his new friends to start under so they can establish a little underground civilization for themselves. They're even talking about using swords already!

Okay, NIMH reference aside, maybe a long-term plan that Aiden could do is when he buys the land for his house, he might be able to give the mice their own little space underneath.

[MrAbdiel]

Aw... Maybe Aiden can find a nice rose bush for his new friends to start under so they can establish a little underground civilization for themselves. They're even talking about using swords already!

Okay, NIMH reference aside, maybe a long-term plan that Aiden could do is when he buys the land for his house, he might be able to give the mice their own little space underneath.

That’s a good idea, if Merce doesn’t have something in mind! I’m starting to think the winning solution is to employ these rats as rodent ombudsmen/shepherds. Might be a solution to rat problems far and wide!

[MrAbdiel]

This is going better than expected. Aiden is going to need to find a lawyer on short notice to draft "The Hamelin Accords".

[DeTess]

@windstruck, @prehysterical, anything else in particular you want to do the current evening, or should I be setting up things for Bolten to go and visit Vaigr and Banbas?

[WindStruck]

I was just wondering about that. I'm not sure if there's any other discussion to have, or schematics to share?

Also, were we not going there together for the first visit?

[DeTess]

Also, were we not going there together for the first visit?

Right sorry, misread/misremembered. If the two of you have nothing else to discuss I'll set it up for the two of you (though that will be tomorrow)

[Prehysterical]

Yeah, there's no other schematics or anything to discuss. Not since Bolten couldn't figure out a solution on his end. (Shandara can introduce her new owl friend later, unless Windstruck wants to do that this very meeting.)

He won't be rolling a Craft check tonight. He's going to get some sleep before he commits fully to the drone.

[MrAbdiel]

Hooray! Happy ending for the rat community maybe! Glossing entirely over the possibility that the intelligence may be hereditary, and the possibility that this is a race of super rats to perpetuate forever, this might be the peaceful solution Aiden hadn't expected to require, but is glad was possible. After this, he ought to go to the Granary and speak to Overseer Evans. That'll be an interesting conversation, since Aiden might have worked himself out of actually qualifying for payment! Hahaha.

[DeTess]

@prehysterical, could you roll me a craft (clockwork)? @Windstruck, could you roll me a knowledge religion and either knowledge(arcana) or spellcraft?

[WindStruck]

religion: (1d20+8)[12]

arcana: (1d20+17)[35]

[Prehysterical]

Craft (clockwork): (1d20+26)[27]

Wow... Good thing I pulled out the spells and everything.

[MrAbdiel]

I think I'm gonna have to buy that property and build things on it, a piece at a time; barn first, which will accommodate Ambrose and the rats well and Aiden just fine while he works on the house proper. How much for a bare property, or even a property with a dilapidated building on it, in the Stormdrains district which covers, say, 10000 square feet?

[DeTess]

I think I'm gonna have to buy that property and build things on it, a piece at a time; barn first, which will accommodate Ambrose and the rats well and Aiden just fine while he works on the house proper. How much for a bare property, or even a property with a dilapidated building on it, in the Stormdrains district which covers, say, 10000 square feet?

10000 square feet is really going to cost you. That's enough area to start a sizeable storage/shipping business, or build a noble's mansion. You won't find that anywhere empty, and prices will be in excess of ten thousand gold.

Just how much in excess of ten thousand gold depends on the area. A dillapidated set of warehouses in the bad part of the harbor district might knock you back 10-15k, while in any residential district with mansions that big you'd be looking at 50-100k.

The only place you might get it for less is if you can get an unscrupulous landlord in the slums to evict a bunch of people, and I have a feeling Aiden might be opposed to that.

It also seems a bit excessive for what you need though... Like, a barn for your horse and home for the rats could fit in an area less than a tenth the size of that, and you could build a residence and workshop on top of that if you wanted.

[MrAbdiel]

...I wonder if we have a conflict of terms or something, here. 10000 square feet doesn't seem that big to me! That's 100ft to a side, a little shy of a 1000 square meter block of land which is a modern house in the suburbs with an impressive front and back yard, but nothing breath taking.

I punched out the footage of Aiden's house design, which comes out as 146 5ft squares for the lower floor of the house and a small barn; and with every 5ft square being 25 square feet, that pops up to 3650 square feet. I blew it out to 10000 because I figured it'd be good to have enough space again for a horse to plod around and (in the magical future in which the crappy stormdrains dirt grows grass, as Wisdom 8 Aiden imagines it) graze. But this is a tight urban area rather than a sleepy suburb, I guess! Average modern warehouses crop up around the 25k square foot mark, though I'm sure ye olde ones were closer to the 10k.

Now, if we were looking for property that was 10000ft squared instead of 10000 square feet... Well, that would be madness.

Has something been lost in translation, noble and powerful DM, or am I just trying to juice too much out of this tight packed, gritty slum?

[DeTess]

Well, we're talking about a densely populated renaissance city here, a modern suburban house without a garden would be for a pretty well off merchant or poorer noble, and trying to add the garden would easily push it into the footprint of a small mansion.

For comparison I used the apartment I currently call home, which covers about 80 square meters, which comes down to about 860 square feet, and this is a place I actually call a bit too big for just me.