[Icelander]

For the most part, cannon are not widely used in the Forgotten Realms. Bombards have been known for over a century, but early examples compared unfavourably to mages as weapons of destruction and accidents* around early experiments left a lasting prejudice against smokepowder among many people. Only in the last 15 years did that begin to change, with a combination of divine backing for the development of guns and the introduction of reliable, relatively safe smokepowder and handguns.

Large smokepowder weapons remain under-represented in the Forgotten Realms. Individual craftsmen and engineers may build marvellous examples, but the cost of smokepowder is so astronomical that no polity has been willing to adopt a military technoogy that requires the expenditure of many pounds of it per shot at the enemy.

A master bronzesmith in the service of the Selkirk family of Sembia has for the fifteen years made some dozens of falcons and sakers to arm privateering ships owned by the family and their allies and business partners, as well as developing prototypes of heavier bronze guns, but not many buyers for such big guns exist. Being early designs, these Sembian guns are extremely long-barrelled and heavy. Experiments have revealed that with carefully cast bronze guns that have been magically checked for quality and consistency, it is not necessary to use such massive weight of metal. In addition, more consistency in smokepowder quality means that barrel length of 30 times caliber is not actually necessary for the propellant to burn up.

Six years ago, a Lantanese alchemist and engineer built the first 9-pounder 'Drake', a light, but powerful bronze gun with a 6' long barrel. The island of Lantan is extremely unusual in that its small navy is extensively armed with smokepowder weapons and the 9-pounder Drake was adopted as standard armament for the most powerful Lantanese ships. Copies or stolen cannon were quickly adopted as chase guns by several pirate ships in the Nelanther Isles and wealthy privateers from Luskan, Baldur's Gate and (illegally) Waterdeep.

Lighter bronze guns of this new light pattern, such as 'Harpies' and 'Perytons', emerged from Lantan shortly thereafter. In 1370 DR, a light 12-pounder with only a 5' long barrel, dubbed the 'Wyvern', was the subject of intense public interest in the Tashalar after a marvellous schooner put into port with three pirate prizes and reports of burning a flotilla of piratical vessels under a pirate 'Admiral'. It was reportedly not built in Lantan, but the design principles behind this light 12-pounder are clearly analoguous to the high-quality bronze guns coming from there.

The absolute height of smokepowder weapon technology are the new Lantanese 24-pounder 'Dragon' and its slightly smaller cousin, the 18-pounder 'Wyrmling'. These are short, like the Wyverns, only 13 calibers in barrel length, but they fire their huge round iron balls at low supersonic velocities and can penetrate the hull of any ship afloat at a thousand yards. So far, the Lantanese navy has only fielded a single prototype 'Dragon' chase gun on a new ship designed to fire a single powerful cannon, but they have adopted four of the slightly smaller 'Wyrmlings' on their four most powerful existing ships.

Another exception to the limited military impact of cannon in FR are Thayvian bombards. Not only do the Thayvians themselves use them fairly extensively, but they even supply inferior versions of them to pirates on the Sea of Fallen Stars, their allies in Mulmaster and 'freedom fighters' in Unther.

Thayvian bombards are closer to late 18th century or early 19th century howitzers or mortars than they are to historical bombards. Muzzle velocity is low and fire at moving targets is difficult. Metal shells filled with Alchemist's Fire can reap terrible destruction aboard ships that sail within firing range, however. The Thayvians also like to use magical shells that unleash area of effect destructive spells on impact. Fireball shells are popular, but perhaps the most terrible one is the Cloudkill one, which kills by means of a lethal toxic gas.

Thayvian bombards exist in three versions. There is the magical version, the manufacture of which is a highly controlled secret of the ruling class of Thay, the Red Wizards. These bombards are less than 10 years old. These are very light for the weight of shot, the light model weighing only 500 lbs. and throwing a shell of 20 lbs. or a stone projectile of 30 lbs. They also don't require any propellant, as they propel their projectiles magically. This obviously means a great saving, enough to allow Thay to arm their navy with light bombards and even spend massive resources on magical shot. So far, no one outside Thay has managed to reverse-engineer their magical construction process and it may be that this is impossible for any power that does not have the wizardly resources and organisation of Thay.

Then there is the older (dating back to at least 1350 DR), now the 'export' version**, which is an alchemical weapon, but not a smokepowder one. It instead uses a liquid propellant which seems to be related to Alchemist's Fire, but burns faster, fast enough to propel low-velocity bombard shot. The REF of the explosive liquid is 0.5, which is lower than smokepowder, but it is much more efficient in short-barrelled bombards than even fine grained smokepowder. Maximum velocity is achieved using only about 1/12th of the weight of shot. Even with the cost of $1,000 per pound of the substance, this means that shells filled with Alchemist's Fire can be worth firing, especially considering what they do to ships.

Most of these liquid propellant bombards are quite heavy and mounted in seaside fortresses with fixed aiming points, to defend approaches to the ports. An ally of the PCs, however, is experimenting with using the liquid propellant for 12-lb to 24-lb short-barrelled, low-velocity cannon, much like historical carronades.

The third variety is an unlicensed copy using smokepowder, which emerged in 1359 DR, shortly after some priests of Gond were able to investigate Thayvian bombards among the pirates of Immurk's Hold. These bombards are mostly used by pirate lords out of favour with Thay, most of whom rarely fire the weapons, due to the massive cost of the smokepowder. These bombards range in quality from dangerously amateurish to quite good.

Light guns of up to 3-lb are usually enough to threathen ships on the Inner Sea. While no navy fields smokepowder cannon of any size, a fair number of Calauntan, Mulmastran and Sembian vessels have one or two small guns for emergencies. Such small guns also have applications for monster hunting and pintles and traversing firing platforms for such guns are unusually advanced for a TL4 world. Swivel-guns are particularly popular among adventuring sailors for shooting down flying monsters, competing with muskets, wall guns and heavy bore rifles in that role. This is particularly effective if combined with a ship's mage or enchantments, as that enables much more accurate fire at longer ranges, as well as lethal explosive shells with magical fuses.

The 3-lb 'Dragonet' is a Thayvian swivel-gun using the same liquid propellant as Thayvian bombards, which has been rushed into service in the Thayvian fleet in the current year, 1373 DR, as dragon attacks have increased dramatically, due to an ongoing 'Rage of Dragons', some sort of magical effect which drives dragons insane with fury. The Dragonet is longer-barrelled (in comparison with caliber) than Thayvian bombards and operates at the maximum velocity possible with the alchemical liquid propellant, around 900 fps. Loaded with grapeshot, it is a potent deterrent for the smaller types of dragon, and firing solid cannonballs or a magical bomb, it can theoretically seriously wound or kill even a big dragon at short range.

*Not actually accidental. Mages can be conniving rascals and some of them do not like anything that allows the common people anything approaching the power of wizards.
**Only supposed to be supplied to a few 'trusted' allies of Thay, such as certain factions among the pirate lords of the Sea of Fallen Stars and the most effective forces fighting Mulhorand in Unther.