Dust Explosion - Grain, flour, wheat

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Sounds like somebody's army just had a REALLY bad day. How'd everything go after the FWOOSH?

Originally Posted by Joe

Yes! How may enemy troops did it take out, and how's the siege looking now?

The other PCs actually held the breach and counterattacked. At the moment of the big fireball, they took advantage of a wavering among the enemy to seize the rubble-filled breach and even pursue those units who had been engaged at the walls before falling back. They captured the leader who ordered the assault on the breach, which was an emotional response and not part of the plan of the general who is in overall command (though he had finally moved to reinforce it).

The breach and the area in front of it is filled with dead and wounded. Some 1,500 of the enemy and 400 of the PCs side are lying there. There were a lot of smokepowder grenades slung there, some Alchemist's Fire burnt, a fairly brisk mechanical artillery shower and many, many volleys of musket fire from Marines. And, of course, a lot of arrows and slingshot. Not to mention the 20 minutes of desperate melee.

The immediate effects of the dust explosion blast were to cause the reinforcements marching toward a breach in the walls of Shussel to cease doing so. The light troops and skirmishers mostly broke, even if they may not have suffered all that many casualties, as they consist mainly of former Untheri slaves enlisted in church-owned slave battalions to fight their former masters. One 'Chessentan'* mercenary 'Lotus'** or regiment retreated in fairly good order, with flash burns among several.

One Chessentan mercenary Lotus (regiment) was at the epicenter of the blast. It is effectively destroyed. Perhaps five hundred men would have died immediately, with the rest at least not fighting any time soon.

I actually haven't figured out exactly how big the cloud of fire would have been, how much, if anything, secondary effects are worth and what the effects of sparks raining down would be.

I'd welcome further suggestions. One PC is going to want to go into the fires that remain after the explosion, because he loves fire and because he dropped a magic item worth more than $1,000,000 into them.

*Many in these regiments do indeed have Chessentan ancestors, but about half of the soldiers are born in Mulhorand and some have been living there for three or four generations.
**A Mulhorandi term for a regiment of 1,000 men.