05-19-2023, 03:37 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pioneer Valley
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Re: Wet torch
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(Come to that, the question's near-to-moot in low-tech fantasy. An Ignite Fire item is about as cheap as magic items get. Barring serious restrictions on item creation and/or availability, I can't see any non-broke/non-pyrophobic PC without one.)
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My gaming blog: Apotheosis of the Invisible City "Call me old-fashioned, but after you're dead, I don't think you should be entitled to a Dodge any more." - my wife It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I disagree with what you're saying. |
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05-19-2023, 04:15 PM | #22 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
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Re: Wet torch
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I found one elaborate brass tinderbox alleged to have belong to Henry VIII which might be 16th century, but I can't imagine that Henry ever had to light a fire in his life (that's one of the many things servants are good for). I'd assumed that because iron furisons/fire strikers were a common medieval item that some clever medieval jeweler or locksmith had invented an airtight metal tinderbox, especially since fire pistons are an ancient (but never commonly adopted in Europe) invention. I was wrong. There isn't the selection of pre-1600 metal tinderboxes from archeological sites that I was expecting. Renaissance/ medieval images I could find only show domestic wooden tinderboxes. That's what I get for assuming "old and simple invention, could easily have been made with TL3 tech" is actually medieval/renaissance rather than being one of the thousands of 17th or 18th century refinements of earlier technology. FWIW, ancient to medieval people on the go appear to have kept their fire-starting materials in a waxed or greased bag. That might have kept out the rain but it wouldn't protect the tinder inside if you got soaked. |
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05-19-2023, 06:30 PM | #23 | ||
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Wet torch
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Obviously magic can light fires, but magic can create lights so you don't need torches in the first place! And in any case, "I light the torch with Ignite Fire" is a solution to the problem of how to light the torch after swimming with your backpack.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 05-19-2023 at 06:33 PM. |
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05-19-2023, 06:43 PM | #24 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Wet torch
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If you knew in advance and had time to experiment I am sure you could find a way to get a light source and a way of igniting it through a brief swim using low-tech means (seal them in a glazed jar with pitch? have a copperworker make that airtight brass tinderbox with a spring lid?), but if you just soaked a random backpack I think you would be in trouble making light with anything in it afterwards.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature |
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05-19-2023, 09:19 PM | #25 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Wet torch
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Realistically, trying to get yourself and your gear safely through an underwater passage is probably a full day project. It's not like torches are the only thing that would take exception to being wet. |
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05-19-2023, 09:37 PM | #26 | |
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Canada
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Re: Wet torch
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Oliver. |
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05-19-2023, 09:38 PM | #27 | |
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Canada
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Re: Wet torch
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Oliver. |
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05-19-2023, 11:46 PM | #28 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: Wet torch
It's certainly possible to construct a watertight container quite early, though the reverse of keeping a valuable liquid like a perfume [in] is probably more common. For tinder but I think most people were content with good enough to keep the rain off, as frankly most hikers still are. You don't plan on immersing yourself in water, that's a serious river crossing accident that might very well get you killed, not something you should plan around.
Lacquer boxes can be watertight, and I've seen examples from the 14th century. Lacquerware itself is neolithic, but I don't know when people first made [boxes] from it. It'd be fairly expensive for carrying tinder, but I bet some people did. Certainly there are lacquerware tobacco/snuff boxes at a later period, though they can't very well predate the introduction of tobacco to the orient.... Bamboo tubes can be pretty airtight too. Even in the west watertight scroll cases are much more ancient. Jewish mezuzah cases, hung on the door out in the weather and traditionally checked "twice every seven years", so clearly expected to hold up through multiple storms, are a 2000 year old tradition at this point. Is a waterproof tinderbox going to be normal? No. Is it particularly strange and difficult by the standards of specialty equipment your typical dungeon delver carries around? Probably not.
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05-20-2023, 07:05 PM | #29 | |
Join Date: Jun 2022
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Re: Wet torch
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Wooden matches can dry and work fine, cardboard matches are basically destroyed for use as a match, but if dried work fine as 'quick start' tinder material. These matches only date back to 1826. Slow and black matches, the old rope wicks kept alight and used to ignite cannons and firearms would be useless if wet. Though as long as they weren't vigorously soaked, they'd probably still (mostly) work once properly dried out. Wooden strike anywhere's are easily turned into waterproof matches by just coating them with wax. I kept a 10 pack in my bag for emergencies, ironically they're in a watertight case... which also has a lighter in it. |
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05-20-2023, 10:00 PM | #30 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Wet torch
And if someone wants to buy a special waterproof tinderbox they are welcome to spend the money weight and time that this requires, if they get a $5 item out of the Basic Set they get whatever is commercially available. They absolutely do not get to pay no attention, spend the default amount of money and weight, and retrospectively announce that they have a special tinderbox which can withstand not just rain under rain gear but prolonged immersion or even diving (the OP says swim underwater, the deeper you go the more pressure from the water outside).
People I know who do a lot of camping with 18th c. and earlier kit seem to think that a light, sturdy, and rain-proof tinderbox is the Holy Grail.
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