Radish Hat

Alright, so about once a week I get together with some old friends to play D&D. Weve done a plethora of campaigns, from a scrap-it-together prison camp motiff, to an all-wizard, governmental sector 5 high-level nutter.

These days its pretty interesting. Theres 3 of us: Nick- the bat-man type race Rogue who uses a rifled, scoped, nastyily uber X bow to drop people from preposterous distances. Unseen, unheard, the bat knows all. ME? Im a walking plot device. Im a half human, half-fey (we all have wings, or flying capability), Rogue mostly, with a HUGE penchant for treasure hunting. Ive got the bullwhip, a resevoir of esoteric knowledge, history, geography, you name it. Im a tomb raider lora Croft and Iniana Jones WISHED they were. I also have a nasty whip designed to kill just about anything living. Combined with this, his highest skill is ALCHEMY. Hes a professional glass blower as well, keeps the costs down. Ryan is taking central role in this campaign currently because its easy. Hes this almost-dragon, half dragon...thing... Oh, and hes a Dragon Shaman prestige class, or something. Hes very dragon.

So, we work for this rogues guild. "The Guild". Mind you, theres other guilds like ours, but its your general run of the mill cross-regional, multianational entirely too wealthy, expert-filled guild. Anyone whos ever watch "LA Femme Nikita" knows what Im talking about. We might as well be Gov't funded.

Part of our mission was to scope out this isle, used by various independent nasties as a base. Scope it out, neutralize or reign in any and all freelance actors in the region. Its an isle maybe the size of Martinique's or something along those lines, at least as I can call. So we go.

We land on a part of the isle inhabited by Lzard men tribes, 7. So, Ryan being lizardy like he is, and a shaman of sorts, pretty proclaims to be dragon jesus, and goes about getting most of the tribes under his sway, through either miracles or showing off physical or tactical prowess. Slays the king, becomes king of the 7 tribes.

This is where it gets a little nuts.

These lizardmen ride giant wasps for their Air Cav.
I do the math.

Giant wasp poison has a market value. It also has rates for how often a wasp can deliver a dose. I do more math. It turns out that, with ONE wasp, working a 40 hour work week with its milker (fairly gracious of us, Id think), can in a year make enough poison to sell EVEN AT 1/4 MARKET PRICE enough poison to garner 520 MILLION. gold. (For anyone who actually wants to see the math, I can do it...)

The 7 tribes constitute maybe 10% of the isle.

The game quickly turned from hack and slash to policy politics and fiscal spending. I love it!

What I love more though is now, with some experts form the guild being sent from abroad to help us out, various ads posted around the mainland city we're based from and abroad thanks to the guilds network bringing in even non-guild experts to help has vastly improved our chances of some nasty R&D, research and development. Theres a lot of powers, nasty independant outlaw types on this isle. The other day we had to storm a plateau and neutralize a giant balista battery made by a hill giant clan. Nasty stuff.

OK SO WHATS THE POINT RADISH HAT?!

R&D! Thats what!

You all can help represent some of my great engineers, masons, metallurgists, techies, etc. My character is not only in charge of finding new temples to raid to increase our wealth, but also the tactical or at least buedgetary/logistics of our military. Ill do a follow up post and show you what Ive got so far and give you a sense of our technology. Its Forgotten realms, so its high magic, but Im all for some steam punk alchemy.

I thank ALL of you for anything you add! More to come!

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Radish Hat

Heres a starter list of what Ive come up with to some extent, for just my character, but I plan to incorporate it into some of our military units. Maybe special forces for some of it, maybe standard combat gear for grunts in other regards.

I use a combination of alchemy, science that I can understand myself, concepts of science I'm vaguely familiar with, ceramics, glassblowing, herbalism and to a larger extent botany and hybridization of natural ingredients, alloys, gem and mineral magic, clockwork, and traditional steampunk fantasy.

We dont have much of a navy at the moment. Theres no need, since only a tiny spot on the isle is exposed to real ocean. The rest is ringed by shoals. Flat bottom or very shallow drafted ships dare. We DO have an air force though. Its mostly lizard men riding giant wasps. Anything you can think up to come along with that would be great.

If setting helps, its a tropical jungle, with high slopes at times or very flat, jungle swaths. Some savanna and grasslands in the upper climates, like the plateau, which houses a nice redwood forest. We know little about the rest of the isle, but are sending our airborne reconnaissance currently.


IMPORTANT NOTE: I think it goes without saying, but just in case: Anything that my R&Ders come up with could theoretically be in development in other nations, guilds, regions, you name it. By careful selection and choice of scale, we can keep whatever genies we release under the safety of moderation.

IE: Dont tell me how to manufacture a nuclear bomb-like effect with a few ingredients from under the sink, a good electromagnet, and enough magnesium. 'Cause even if it DOES work, it means that it could fall into the hands of our enemies.

Right. Lets begin.

Grenades: A few shapes of clay or heavy glass grenade-like weapons. A hockey puck one, that can be greased to stick, or slide down a hall. One like a German "potato masher" from WWII, only spiky on the outside, to stick into wooden surfaces like doors, shields, or walls. Standard round one fills out the last. They're all ignited with an interior fuse tapped to a tingertwig. Snap the twig, toss.
- These also come in a flash-bang category. Dealing no damage, but stunning/blinding/deafening the opponent.

Infra red sun rod: Why not, I figured. A party with no spell caster has to figure out how to see in the dark and not be seen, eventually. Along with the infra rod, I fashioned goggles that saw in infra red. This allows you to illuminate a battlefield for your troops alone. Obviously something like darkvision works just as well, but we all dont have that.

A kind of repeating Xbow: Belt fed and crank fired, its almost a gattling gun of Xbows. Im sure its been done.

Gas Bombs: A double valve glass bomb. Ammonia and bleach, concentrated. That when combined upon impact, create a gas cloud of chlorine gas. Opponents choke and whatnot, its icky. But it also would lead to the development of the gas mask, just like WWI.

Cluster Bomb: A method to deliver multiple grenades onto a large spread. Picture a bowling ball, kind of. Thinner. Theres a slight amount of a parachute sticking out from a tube, which is timed by a mechanical clock setter outside of the shell. The timer is set, and the object is launched from a catapult or dropped by an aerial combatant. After the timer is through, the release to the parachute's full length will be released, opening the parachute and stalling the flight of the shell. As the chute opens, another release is triggered, which opens up the larger shell, releasing all the loosely consolidated grenades within.

So, fire away.

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Radish Hat

Guess nobody feels like playing with ole Radish Hat anymore ... *shrug*

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