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11-18-2015, 10:15 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
After one of the PCs in my fantasy captain encountered Baron Ak'Zuma, the local lord of the fearsome sahuagin, also known as sea devils or shark-men, he wanted to know what TL2 to TL4+1 materials would make for the best tools and weapons to trade to a race who lives underwater, in salt water.
Coral spearheads or knives may be sharp, but they are more or less single use. Bone spearheads, weapons or tools are sub-par. Magical enchantment can easily produce waterproof tools and weapons that are equal or even superior in durability and strength as steel, but is very expensive. What non-magical methods are available to surface dwellers to produce tools and weapons that are worth trading to undersea races? Metals will rust or corrode over time. Granted, even if a metal spearhead corrodes or rusts into uselessless within a year of hard use, that's still a an improvement over a coral spearhead that breaks the first time you hit bone while killing a whale or sea serpent. What metals provide the optimum balance between corroding or rusting slowly underwater and having desirable properties compared to bone or coral? Is there a meaningful difference between the durability of copper, brass or armour- (or weapon-) grade bronze under water? Does steel last longer than bronze or does rust ruin items faster than corrosion? Is steel better or worse than wrought iron? Are there non-magical alloys possible with TL4 technology that would be worth the extra trouble of making them, in terms of durability and quality? What about TL4+1 metallurgy, provided with a dormant volcano enchanted with a system for trapping magical fire, melting metals, mixing them and purifying? Research might yield TL4+2 metallurgy from that magic. How hard is it to make stainless steel if you have the Measurement spell, high skill at Metallurgy/TL4+1 and a way to melt iron down to liquid form? Assume that sahuagin live at depths of 100' to 1,500' in a subtropical salt ocean, generally fairly close to shore. It might be possible to store tools and weapons between uses under slightly difference conditions, if it is worth it, but the lifestyle of sahuagin is generally very mobile, with males hunting, raiding or patrolling almost constantly while they are awake.
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11-18-2015, 10:45 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
Including most typical TL1 tool, weapon and armour tin bronze alloys?
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11-18-2015, 10:54 AM | #4 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
Tin bronze is pretty resistant to seawater, yes, unless you had something that produced a galvanic effect. Some early bronzes would be arsenic bronzes which are less resistant.
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11-18-2015, 12:25 PM | #5 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
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More recently, copper sheathing for ships was proposed at late TL4 and implemented in early TL5, which I suspect was when thin copper sheet could be made cheaply enough. Copper does not corrode in sea water, although it very slowly dissolves: ship sheathing had to be replaced after a decade or so as it wore thin at places where water moved at high velocity over a hull. Copper will also slowly leach from some alloys, such as Muntz metal, a high-zinc brass that was cheaper than copper. Tin bronzes should last long enough to be useful. |
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11-18-2015, 12:39 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
Aluminium might squeeze in to TL4 + 1.
Resins and fibre products could be valuable.
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11-18-2015, 01:06 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: The plutonium rich regions of Washington State
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Re: Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
In addition to corrosion, there's also biofouling. You would need to clean the blade regularly to avoid a buildup of barnacles, corals, polyps, mussels, calcerous tube-worms, and other clingy sea-life, while shipworms would eat away at any wooden hafts. Copper is known to resist biofouling - it is somewhat toxic, particularly to invertebrates, and living things don't like to grow on it. I don't know how copper alloys (bronzes) compare.
Luke |
11-18-2015, 01:04 PM | #8 | |||||
Join Date: Oct 2008
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Re: Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
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Note that in terms of saltwater resistance of steels at least corrosion tends to be the bigger problem and rust a lesser(but significant). Quote:
I do not know about bronze, but the copper sheathing proved fairly long lasting in ships (though as the corrosion process was not understood, the iron bolts had significant corrosion issues on the early experiments). Copper has a self protecting feature from corrosion where a less reactive surface forms protecting from corrosion. Iron does not form such (at least to a significant degree). And if you have a sacrificial anode to corrode away the corrosion is reduced to a small fraction. "You need to buy these magic iron talismans to fasten to your copper spear so it lasts longer" "You need to buy these magic zinc talismans to fasten to your steel spear so it lasts longer" All without any magic... Quote:
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If you have the ability to create very low carbon steel and have chrome available you may be able to create an alloy with enough chrome to be a proper stainless steel. Historically it was not until the aluminothermic(spelling?) reduction process for producing carbon-free chromium appeared just before 1900 that it could be done. Quote:
A lot of the things finally making "proper" stainless steel reality came from other TL6 developments and like most other science was a collaborative effort where one scientist discovers one thing and some other something else based on that. So depending on the cinematic level of you campaign(Ie. how close to quick gadgeter do you want to go), you should judge the probability of a single person coming up with all the needed parts. |
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11-20-2015, 01:59 AM | #9 | ||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
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What I'm wondering is if the alloying of copper with tin and other metals that make into bronze from which effective weapons can be constructed means that corrosion is hastened so much that the extra strength is not worth it. Is it better to sell the sahuagin pure Copper knives and spearheads or would Bronze ones last long enough for the superior quality of the materials to matter?
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11-20-2015, 02:52 AM | #10 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Low-Tech Weapons and Tools Underwater
Far as I can determine, copper-tin bronzes are at least as good as copper; gunmetal (88% copper/10% tin/2% zinc) is used specifically for corrosion resistance.
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Tags |
forgotten realms, low-tech, metallurgy, underwater |
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