[MH] Caribbean by Night

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Sailing master?

I assume you mean a professional navigator, like the position of Master in the Royal Navy or a member of the Spanish Cuerpo de Pilotos, rather than someone in charge of the technical tasks involved in sailing the ship, i.e. master of sails, rigging and the like (which are the province of the bosun)?

Essentially, a warrant officer responsible for mathematical navigation and likely any duties related to cartography and hydrography (the latter perhaps not applicable on a skyship), but not an officer in the military chain of command?

With the captain, as a Spanish hidalgo, not expected to actually know how to do anything as mundane as a complex technical task, being exclusively a caballero, swordsman and courageous leader of fighting men?

In the case of Don Rafael de la Vega, he is actually a gifted 'seaman' and knows how to calculate a ship's position in the sky using astrolabe and compass. The ship's mage, Zancas, can also navigate, in his case using dowsing and divination magic to plot their position and steer toward a destination.

The position of Quartermaster on a pirate ship also implies responsibility for steering and navigation, in addition to being a counterweight for the authority of a captain. Still haven't decided which fictional character to use there. There are many good options, but I want to go with someone who appeals to a Chilean girl, which makes English pirates like Calico Jack Rackham less likely, as the traditional attitude of English pirates toward the 'Spanish' (including all inhabitants of Hispanic South America at the time) was as victims.

That being said, it's not exactly unknown for tweens and teeenagers to admire, idolize and fantasize about fictional or fictionalized characters who in real life would have been likely to rob, rape and kill them.

[dcarson]

How about some of Don Karnage's crew. https://talespin.fandom.com/wiki/Air_Pirates

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by dcarson

How about some of Don Karnage's crew. https://talespin.fandom.com/wiki/Air_Pirates

Huh.

I didn't know there was a television show where Baloo worked for an airline. Well, delivery service, of some sort. That's... very odd.

Yes, these pirates might be an interesting addition. Granted, the average crew member so far is rather more competent and decidedly more R-rated than this, but there's no harm in a bit of comedic relief.

I note that Gaspar, the already introduced First Mate of the Rocinante, might be fairly described as having a Fu Manchu mustache. He's also somewhat lackadaisical in demeanor (though admittedly this doesn't seem to diminish the authority of his less-than-formal orders), except in battle, where he fights as a man possessed. Or... a Mad Dog. Perhaps I should have the other pirates refer to him by the nickname 'Perro rabioso'.

There is easily space for a Dumptruck-like character, as well. Though not as the Quartermaster, that has to be someone who can match any man aboard in wits and cunning.

[Icelander]

In looking for the stats of the nightgaunts who'll no doubt ambush the PCs as they sail the pirate skyship Rocinante to Kadath and the ghouls who wait in tunnels below, I noted that in Christopher R. Rice's writeups for these, the ghouls have +8 Resistance to Metabolic Hazards and the nightgaunts have Immunity to Metabolic Hazards. The nightgaunts don't seem to breathe and the ghouls can hold their breath for ages.

Is it canonical Lovecraft lore that neither ghouls nor nightgaunts can be effectively poisoned or smoked out of their lairs with toxic fumes?

If it's not mentioned per se, where does the concept of them being more-or-less inorganic monsters come from?

I was just wondering whether another faction (these wacky Nazis) that fights the ghouls and nightgaunts of the Dreamlands might use chlorine gas, tabun or sarin against them in the tunnels. But not if the ghouls and nightgaunts are well known by Lovecraft fans and/or fans of later Mythos works to be immune to such weapons.*

*Creatures encountered in Ms. Delvano's version of the Dreamlands generally correspond to how she, a huge speculative fiction fan born in 1989 and raised in Chile, imagines they ought to work.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

. . . fights the ghouls and nightgaunts of the Dreamlands might use chlorine gas, tabun or sarin against them in the tunnels.

Chlorine is a liquid below -35°C so using it in the tunnels, which don't seem to have much ventilation, will leave you with pools of liquid chlorine all over the place. Walking in that and then going somewhere warmer is contra-indicated.

Sarin freezes at -56°C and Tabun at -50°C. With none of the mechanisms that normally degrade those nerve agents operating in the tunnels, the ASN will have to decontaminate them afterwards if they don't want future attackers tracking frozen poisons towards their bases.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Chlorine is a liquid below -35°C so using it in the tunnels, which don't seem to have much ventilation, will leave you with pools of liquid chlorine all over the place. Walking in that and then going somewhere warmer is contra-indicated.

Sarin freezes at -56°C and Tabun at -50°C. With none of the mechanisms that normally degrade those nerve agents operating in the tunnels, the ASN will have to decontaminate them afterwards if they don't want future attackers tracking frozen poisons towards their bases.

So, in other words, no toxic fumes in the tunnels, regardless of whether that would theoretically work on ghouls or nightgaunts.

Actually, I guess the ghouls should aim to stay in warmer tunnels than the ones directly down from the ASNs. As in, the ones 'merely' as cold as ice tunnels would be when the surface is about -70° C and not the ones within the area of effect of whatever is draining wind velocity and temperature around the gate pillar.

I mean, sure, they're magical ghouls and all, but if they're biological in any way, they would probably have to work extra hard to retain any body temperature if the environment was somehow leeching it away. Most of the tunnels ought to be warmer than the surface, but if you head directly down from the gate pillar, it just gets even colder as you get closer to the subglacial lake under the ice.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

So, in other words, no toxic fumes in the tunnels, regardless of whether that would theoretically work on ghouls or nightgaunts.

Not really, no. You could use straight fluorine, which is happily gaseous at those temperatures, but I'd rather be eaten by ghouls. Fluorine will react with the ice of the tunnel walls, and the ghouls, and any Nazis so unwise as to be around, forming hydrogen fluoride and releasing heat.

That gets you large puddles of hydrofluoric acid, which on the upside, will stop the ghouls, owing to it dissolving them, but its freezing point depends on the amount of water in it, so you'll have a horrible mixture of frozen and slush acid with all sorts of other stuff mixed into it all over the tunnel.

This isn't as bad as sarin snow, but any Nazi who has any idea what this stuff would be like will prefer some other weapon.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Not really, no. You could use straight fluorine, which is happily gaseous at those temperatures, but I'd rather be eaten by ghouls. Fluorine will react with the ice of the tunnel walls, and the ghouls, and any Nazis so unwise as to be around, forming hydrogen fluoride and releasing heat.

That gets you large puddles of hydrofluoric acid, which on the upside, will stop the ghouls, owing to it dissolving them, but its freezing point depends on the amount of water in it, so you'll have a horrible mixture of frozen and slush acid with all sorts of other stuff mixed into it all over the tunnel.

This isn't as bad as sarin snow, but any Nazi who has any idea what this stuff would be like will prefer some other weapon.

I just figured that there was a natural temptation to use the fact that Kadavergehorsam stormtroopers don't care about biological hazards and Lovecraftian ghouls, at least, seemed more like living (if odd) creatures than the walking dead.

I mean, the living ASNs will probably try to stay in heated quarters as much as possible, making the -2 IQ*, Hidebound, Slave Mentality stormtroopers handle the base defence. Only when someone with IQ 10+ who is capable of creative thought more complicated than judging when to charge is needed would living soldiers go down there. This means that they'd set up traps and check them, as well as following the progress of any changing tunnels or shifting terrain, but the only ones permanently stationed down there were from the SS-Kampfgruppe Totenkopf.

Maybe flamethrowers would be useful in the tunnels.

*But with Born Soldier Talent 2, making them no worse at Soldier and Tactics than normal soldiers, as long as they can rely on shock infantry tactics and not have to come up with new methods.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Maybe flamethrowers would be useful in the tunnels.

That is a better idea provided the Kadavergehorsam don't need to breathe.

Flamethrowers will use up the oxygen in a tunnel pretty fast, and providing breathing apparatus for living troops has the problem that compressed gasses cool as they expand. Cylinders that were at -80°C will release air that's even colder. That will freeze the troops' lungs, with fatal results.

[Gef]

Sorry, I've been away from the forum awhile and missed most of this interesting thread, but after skimming, it looks like one of the original questions was never answered: What's Houston like?

The area's beautiful, well watered by a river and lots of rain. It's a coastal plain, so pretty much flat, but with lots of trees. An untended lot quickly becomes overgrown. The summer is hot and humid; natives are fine but transplants hate it. On the hand, winters are mild and fall is gorgeous. The only downside is the occasional hurricane or tropical storm - what usually happens is that downtown gets flooded. There's just too much concrete. I live in a suburb that had a lovely park, lots of soccer fields, but it was actually a reservoir, and after Tropical Storm Alison, that park turned into a lake and stayed one for months.

Houston's the 4th largest city in the US and growing fast - it's outgrowing its infrastructure so traffic is always a problem, but Houston drivers are the most courteous I've seen. A 15-minute commute turns into an hour+ during rush hour. The city's huge, and even in the middle of night when the highways are clear, it'll take you an hour and a half to cross it, suburb to suburb.

There's lots of international business, banking and shipping and dinosaur juice, so Houston's cosmopolitan, though you can find the real Texas around the edges. You have a lot of non-native business people getting their tickets punched in the Houston office of their countries, trying to soak up the Texas scene while they're here but mostly interacting with others like themselves. You'll see 'em at the rodeo every year, dressed in cowboy hat and boots that look like they've never been worn. Texas is mostly conservative politically, but Houston is mostly progressive and politically correct, outside of run-down parts of the inner city.

As with most big cities, housing convenient to the center of town is very expensive, and housing in the suburbs is quite reasonable, although The Woodlands to the north has a reputation for wealth.

Texans don't think of Hispanic immigrants as a block: There are many who've assimilated, many who haven't and never will, and some who're violent criminals. A white Texan can sound racist when talking about some immigrants while holding others in highest esteem.

IT's big in Houston, in support of its other indurties. I need to go back and see if you've discussed hackers in the organization.

That's it off the top of my head, but feel free to ask for specifics if the issue is still current. -GEF

EDIT: A few more. You've probably heard that Houston has no zoning laws and therefore 5 skylines. It doesn't feel like that, though. There's a main concentration of skyscrapers downtown, some concentrations of tallish building at the outskirts of city limits (but still surrounded by suburbs), and Williams Tower by itself. I worked there, near the top floor, and the view was great but the elevator ride took half my lunch break. In most of the city, streets run north-south or east-west, but in the main downtown business district, they run diagonally, so it's really hard to find your way around without google.

The refineries are in the southeast, and you can smell 'em if you get close. Texas City is called Toxic City for a reason, but really, the area's far cleaner than it once was.

Galveston reminds me of the Florida keys. Both are subject to hurricanes. This means no private insurance, so the government insures properties that ordinary citizens could never afford with the taxes they pay. However, the process takes some time, and there's always a combination of the freshly remodeled and the shabby storm-damaged buildings side by side.

One more. The Battleship Texas is moored near the San Jacinto Monument; you can see both in an afternoon. She fought in both World Wars, and when I saw her with my uncle, he got a little misty and told me how he stormed Normandy Beach under the cover of her guns. It was the only time he ever talked about it. Perhaps that's why the visit affected me so, but I couldn't help imagining the ghosts of that cramped ship, and I've always wanted to use her in a modern fantasy campaign.