Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman
2000 metres of ice is roughly 200 atmospheres of pressure. That isn't enough to change the melting point of ice, but it's enough that those tunnels should close up quickly. It's just another of the things that ASN scientists have to not worry about.
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Well, the PCs don't know about any ASN base there, but they do have a theory that the place they are headed to in the Dreamlands will be analoguous to
Vostok Station and
Lake Vostok in Antarctica. After all, the Man With the Unfortunate Look, the sorcerer/cultist who kidnapped Alice Talbot (PC) and was the partner of Ms. Delvano, in whose dreams the PCs are, that man was a research assistant at Vostok Station when the Russians finally breached the ice and collected samples from Lake Vostok for the first time in millions of years.
Having seen a movie or two, as well as watched the X-Files, the players are pretty convinced that the Russians found
Something in Lake Vostok and the gate that has opened into the mind of Ms. Delvano (and hence her dreams and the Dreamlands that the PCs visit) is some kind of dream echo of what lies in the real Lake Vostok, below Earth's Antarctica.
Quote:
Originally Posted by johndallman
Permafrost depth is measured in soil and rock, below the ice, if I've understood correctly, so it's about 2700 metres down, and the ice tunnels get about 1°C warmer for every 34 metres of depth.
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The actual Lake Vostok is under about four kilometers of ice and the pressure is enough so that at a depth of about 500 meters below sea level, the subglacial lake is liquid.
It might well be that the stygian depths below Kadath reach this far down, though, of course, nothing could survive the pressures down there without advanced technology or powerful magic.