Quote:
Originally Posted by fredtheobviouspseudonym
. . . but you might want to have also a fairly lightweight (c. 60-65 caliber) fusee with wheellock or "spark-lock" for use in guarding these trains of smoke-powder.
Lit matches + wagons of highly-flammable explosives = bad idea.
Spark-lock -- a spring-loaded serrated metal bar held in tension. Pull the trigger, the bar zings! over a flint showering sparks into the powder pan.
Basically a horizontal flintlock. Might be easier & cheaper to produce & gnomish-dwarven metallurgy should be up to the task.
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Ignition and lock-types is an interesting subject. As noted earlier in this thread, the Church of Gond is famous for craftsmen who can make high-quality gears and even clockwork.
That means that ever since 1358 DR, the Time of Troubles, when Gond lifted his strict restrictions on the dissemntation of smokepowder and weapons using it, there will have existed wheellock mechanisms. Really no way to prevent it, when clockwork engineers are unleashed near matchlock firearms.
Before 1358 DR, there were some smokepowder bombards* in an isolated island in the far western ocean, Lantan, and there had actually been a fairly rapid evolution of technology relating to them in the century from their introduction. Unfortunately, most of the innovative research was made by Gond worshipping priests or lay engineers in the service of the church and was highly secretive by order of the deity.
In the far eastern lands of Kara-Tur, another variety of smokepowder was also known. It was less powerful and less safe than the more magically potent binary smokepowder, but on the other hand, it required less valuable alchemical reagents. Combined with the many, many alchemists in Kara-Tur, low-quality smokepowder was cheap enough there to be used in fireworks and other amusements for the rich.
Experiments with its use in warfare started a few years before 1358 DR. The first weapons were crude rockets and fire-lances, which were a huge waste of resources, but still popular with certain rich lords. As an incendiary, smokepowder actually contributed materially to a great victory over invading Tuigan in 1359 DR, burning a captured city with an army still inside. To the great disgust of traditional commanders, this resulted in further experimentation with its military use that has continued to the present day.
Kara-Turan weapons were all cannonlocks until very recently. The general TL in that insular empire is TL3 and while alchemists are tolerably respected and might even have a position at a noble's court, engineers and craftsmen are generally too common to ever interact with the aristocracy that forms the upper ranks of the military. The nobility of the robe, i.e. the bureaucrats and mandarins, are even less likely to listen to scruffy workers of their hands.
It is, however, a very large empire and the frontier provinces are beset by dangers that the cosmopolitan elite of the central provinces consistently underestimate. Unofficially, therefore, many frontier provincial nobles, military officers, merchant captains and militia commanders have found ways to improve upon the first primitive cannonlocks. Whether by encouraging clever local engineers or hiring foreign mercenaries with technical aptitude, they have fielded many solid matchlock designs.
Matchlocks were also the favoured type of lock for those who have obtained smokepowder from alchemists or wizards unaffiliated with the church of Gond in the 1350s and early 1360s. While many of those who hear about smokepowder also hear about such Gondish wonders as starwheel pistols (wheellocks), the average blacksmith may not be able to make a wheellock easily (nor, indeed, would he necessarily be able to make a sound barrel at the first try, but at least he has the tools and knowledge for that).
On the other hand, it is now the year 1373 DR in play. There have been fifteen years for blacksmiths and engineers all around the Inner Sea and Western Heartlands to obtain models of wheellocks, to experiment with firearm designs and to learn to make their own locks. And the Church of Gond has invented many intricate ignition mechanisms, some astonishingly clever.**
The PCs employ one Burgell Tavartarr, a mercenary gunner who has served in Kara-Tur, where he was employed as a miniature*** white devil military engineer and took part in designing matchlocks. He later learned to make wheelocks from Gondsmen, without officially joining the church, but his favourite lock is the flintlock, which he learnt from the Tethyrian master gunner aboard a stolen pirate airship in 1368 DR.
This being a fantasy setting, however, technological lock designs are not the sole alternative. As noted in the part of this thread on fuzes for bombs and grenades, alchemical self-lighting matches exist and cost around $10.
A long-term comrade-in-arms to the PC and co-owner of their merchant house, Karamazzar the Magnificent, is a gnomish magician of no small power as well as a superlative alchemist. He has designed a small nib with the same substance as such a match that can ignite the charge of a musket.
On being told that this was a very expensive method to replicate the performance of a much cheaper flintlock, he added a waterproof covering over the substance, so that until pierced with the hammer of the flintlock, it was protected from rain and spray. As the PCs have a large navy, that is not to be despised.
At the moment, such nibs cost $20, but the materials for them are not more than $4 per nib and might be found cheaper in bulk. Once Karamazzar has instructed his apprentices and all alchemists that work for the PCs on how to make these nibs, their price should stabilise below $10. As the alchemy involved is fairly easy, it might be possible to use apprentices and journeymen from trades such as distillers, glaziers, painters, decorators and apothecaries to perform many of the steps, meaning that the price could go down even further.
Smokepowder can also be ignited by magical means, i.e. a weapon enchanted with Ignite Fire. With a permanent enchantment and Power 1, such a weapon is far too expensive to arm soldiers with, but one PC and three of their NPC allies have firearms with such enchantments. If made of a material that can tolerate constantly being heated to a furnace level blaze, such a design is not only perfectly reliable and can be constructed without any weak points that went gasses, it is also all but self-cleaning, as all the smokepowder burns up inside the heated barrel.
A less expensive version of this Ignite Fire enchantment uses a fire opal with charges, either a Powerstone that recharges on its own or a Manastone which must be recharged by a wizard. An Ignite Fire enchantment can also be designed to allow use several times per day, which is fine for a hunting weapon or a back-up pistol, but not sufficient for a military firearm.
The PCs are calling all firearms using magical means of ignition Magelocks and their reliability around salt spray means that they are trying to equip all their marines with them. Unfortunately, a fire opal that allows 3 shots per day (and must then be removed to recharge) costs $1,500 and one that allows 30 shots per day (a reasonable minimum for a military weapon) costs $10,000.
It may well be that the alchemical igniters will be more practical, in the long run. As it is, the PCs are stuck using a eclectic mixture of guns, matchlocks, wheellocks, flintlocks, alchemical-ignitors and magelocks. They can't get magelocks fast enough to use them exclusively, even if they could afford it, and so far, they do not make alchemical nibs fast enough to supply many soldiers. They're building as many flintlocks as they can get, but, again, that will not be enough to replace existing wheellocks and matchlocks in service. At least not yet.
*The wizard kingdom of Thay, in the eastern Inner Sea, has had bombards for over a century, very likely copied from magical visions of those on Lantan. Thay, however, does not charge theirs with alchemical smokepowder, but instead uses a magical propellant, an explosive oil that can only be made by wizards.
**Though few of them are robust enough for field use or within the capabilities of any but a genius master craftsman to reproduce. Gondsmen are inspired inventors, but they generally only seek to prove a concept and find mass producing an invention to be disrespectful.
***He is a gnome.