Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TricMagic]

I kinda see our archers just presenting a wall against the enemy arrows, kinda like a tent..
That and a horseless cart just ramming and running over and into the enemy ranks..
Followed by some of our longswordsmen jumping out and carving through them from within while the rest attack from without.
And our archers picking off the rest while the chanter wrecks havoc.

Fun images for a horseless cart, which our chanters can actually power.


There is a reason cavalry are feared by infantry,

[Talion]

Revision Phase

Pavise Shield

A large rectangular shield, strapped to a crossbowman's back to protect him as he reloads---merely by turning away from the enemy our soldiers can be extremely well-protected from enemy missile fire. Based on our present wooden shields, it is made primarily of wood with a metal boss and metal reinforcements around the edge.

Roll: 6 (Normal)

Reinforcing our shields with metal and designing effective straps to fit them to the back of our crossbowmen did not prove a challenge for our engineers. The shields proved to be intuitive to train the men to use as they transferred lessons learned from war cart reloading.

War Cart Decomplexification

Our War Carts must be Sturdy and Robust, and most of all, we must know how to build them to a perfect standard.

Roll: 6+1=7 (Easy)

Standardisation fever reigns again. In fact, during the construction process, some suggestions by our Chanters leads to the creation of a modified War Cart with a backward-pointing hollow cylinder. When a chanter makes use of the Wind Chant with a cylindrical Shape Rune they are able to deliver an extremely strong tight cone of wind capable of propelling the War Cart at a walking speed. The provisional name for this variant is the Wind Cart, but you may give it another name.
War Cart Cost: Expensive (Land 3)
Wind Cart Cost: Very Expensive (Land 3, Mana 3)

It is now Autumn, Turn -2 Discovery Phase
This turn is a double turn, so you may take 2 actions each phase. There will be no Battle phase.

Command is preparing to shift resources over to the war effort next turn (Turn -1), you will be given a chance to pick a phase to be a double phase on that turn.

Resources: Land 2, Ore 1, Mana 2, 1x Hint Token

Spoiler: Rune Skills (click to show/hide)

Rune Skills are a measure of your nation’s understanding of the Runes. They are measured as Unskilled, Apprentice, Adept and Master. You cannot make use of Meanings or Elements until you have at least an Apprentice level understanding of them.

Meaning
Shape - Apprentice
Attack - Apprentice
Ward - Apprentice
Form - Unskilled
Control - Unskilled

Terrestrial Element
Air - Master - Chanting, Fate
Fire - Apprentice
Earth - Apprentice
Water - Unskilled
Wood - Unskilled

Celestial Element
Fate - Locked (Requires: Apprentice or better in all Terrestrial Elements)

Spoiler: Discoveries (click to show/hide)

Discoveries are magical effects you have discovered that you can put to practical use inside Designs.

Chants
Shape(Air), Ward(Air), Attack(Air) - Wind
An expulsion of wind directly away from the chanter. The wind generated is quite strong and grows more powerful the more mana is used to empower the chanter.
(Air Mastery) Our Chanters may direct the Wind as they will.

Shape(Air), Attack(Earth), Ward(Fire) - Wind of Embers
This chant transmutes the wind into embers like the sparks escaping a bonfire directed forward away from the speaker. If these embers land upon suitable kindling they can start fires, but they do not seem overly harmful on their own.
(Air Mastery) Our Chanters may direct the Wind as they will.

Shape(Earth), Attack(Fire), Ward(Air) - Spike of Smoke
A chant that concentrates smoke into a spike before projecting it forwards away from the speaker. The smoke does not disperse nor does it cause much damage on impact, instead forming into a cloud. It is possible to choke on it if the target remains within the effect for long enough.

Spoiler: Equipment (click to show/hide)

Mundane Equipment
Longsword: A double-edged blade and a cruciform hilt. A versatile weapon capable of cuts, slices and thrusts. Requires training to wield, can be used one or two handed.
Expensive (Land 2, Ore 2)

War Axe: Can be used as a tool in a pinch, this is a single-handed weapon that does well against heavily armoured foes. Can be used with minimal training.
Cheap (Land 1, Ore 1)

Wooden Shield: Couples well with an axe, cheap, easy to replace. Works best in heavy melee. Can be used with minimal training.
Cheap (Land 1)

Pavise Shields: Metal reinforced, wooden shields designed to be worn on the back to protect a crossbowman while they reload their crossbow.
Cheap (Land 1, Ore 1)

Hide Armour: Constructed from the hides of sheep. Turns aside weak blows.
Cheap (Land 1)

Scale Mail: Scales of iron on a leather hide backing.
Expensive (Land 2, Ore 2)

Light Crossbow: Based on the bow and mounted horizontally on a frame. Powerful, but reloading is slow and dangerous. Each crossbow has been standardised, allowing even lesser skilled crafters to build a functional weapon of war.
Cheap (Land 2)

Standard: A flag used to identify units and maintain order in battle.
Cheap (Land 1)

War Cart: A four wheeled cart used to carry crossbowmen to battle. Unfortunately the lack of horses on the island leaves it unusable at the moment.
Expensive (Land 3)

Magical Equipment
Wind Cart: A four wheeled cart with a hollow cylinder in the back. This cart is designed to be crewed by a Chanter who is capable of propelling the cart at walking speed using a variant of the Wind Chant.
Expensive (Land 3, Mana 3)

[TricMagic]

Form+Control
Water & Wood to unlock Fate

[Madman198237]

…really? Warning so I could adapt the forge proposal would've been nice.

[TricMagic]

Form+Control (1) TricMagic
Water & Wood to unlock Fate (-)

Right... Form+Control lets us gain access to a certain fire spell, which will be used for steel production.

Elements unlock Fate, which is it's own reward.


Form(Air) Ward(Fire) Control(Air)
This is the spell in particular. It would be used in an Open Hearth Furnace design. Air is formed, followed by a fire ward. Air is then pushed via control to form burning gases, or a type of flamethrower.

The ease of use and control over any final products is the major advantage over that other design. That one produces brittle steel. This one can use scraps and regular ore to create ingots of steel, which can then be used to make steel weaponry. A vast improvement, since it can be kept for use for far longer, reducing replacement costs.

[Madman198237]

How did you figure out that form and control make some fire spell possible?

[TricMagic]

I assume Form is the native existence of the element. So Form(Air) would be air itself, it's generation. Control is fine manipulation, so this particular combination would form burning gas. That's the necessary component to an Open Hearth Forge.

[Madman198237]

Form+Control (1) TricMagic
Water & Wood to unlock Fate (1) Madman

I think it's best if we start like this, then make a rune or something so chants can be used in combat. Basically, more knowledge before more specific knowledge, so we don't invest work into something we later discover that we don't really want to use.

[TricMagic]

Form+Control (1) TricMagic
Water & Wood to unlock Fate (2) Madman, TricMagic

Right, we seem to be missing players. Eh.

[Talion]

Discovery Phase

Investigate Runic Component: Water Element

Water Element
The Element of Water carries with it aspects of envelopment, adaptation and pressure. Quite naturally it is the primary Element of liquids in all forms. It is represented by the colour black.

Investigate Runic Component: Wood Element

Wood Element
Aspected towards life, experience and growth, the Wood Element is most heavily concentrated in plants, though all living things contain some amount of it. It is represented by the colour green.

It is now Summer of Turn -2 Design Phase
This turn is a double turn, so you may take 2 actions each phase. There will be no Battle phase.

Spoiler: Rune Skills (click to show/hide)

Rune Skills are a measure of your nation’s understanding of the Runes. They are measured as Unskilled, Apprentice, Adept and Master. You cannot make use of Meanings or Elements until you have at least an Apprentice level understanding of them.

Meaning
Shape - Apprentice
Attack - Apprentice
Ward - Apprentice
Form - Unskilled
Control - Unskilled

Terrestrial Element
Air - Master - Chanting, Fate
Fire - Apprentice
Earth - Apprentice
Water - Apprentice
Wood - Apprentice

Celestial Element
Fate - Unskilled

[TricMagic]

Shape(Water) Ward(Wood) Attack(Air)


Also,

Chanter Prep Class
Our Chanters are holding a seminar, trying to find some new talent, as well as teach the basics. We do have that wind spell.. Time to pool our resources, and teach the next generation of Rune Users.

[Madman198237]

The prep class isn't likely to work as written (it's written as a one-time thing which is really not an Arms Race design of any sort), so how about this:

Windforged Steel
To create proper arms and armor for our soldiers, we first build larger furnaces than ever before, heated by large fires and great bellows, melting iron and allowing impurities to run off the top, before pouring the molten remainder down into casting basins to make ingots for our smiths.

To improve this process, we start by making a few runes to hold mana for some of our Chanters, we can directly apply the Wind chant to steelmaking. We can replace or augment bellows with Chanters, creating greater heat in our forges. By doing the same thing in front of a sort of "waterfall" of the resulting liquid iron, we can literally blow almost all the impurities out of the iron.

Providing such pure iron to our smiths makes their jobs much easier---they do not have to heat and hammer iron into wrought iron, instead they simply make use of their own preexisting charcoal-heated forges to add the desired carbon content to the iron, making perfect steels for any purpose.

If I'm not mistaken this design makes more sense given what we know about runes.

Also, what if we use the Hint Token to learn about alternative means of utilizing magic? Specifically, enchanted or inscribed magics.

[TricMagic]

The issue here is that was already said to not work. Runes are single use, and very expensive to make.

That said.

Runic Chanter's Steelmaking

By holding, and breathing, our chanters can create steel over a course of eight hours, which can then be turned into ingots to create steel weapons.

This is done by using their master of Air to use Wind chants to push the wind into the flames, heating the fire to melt the iron and burn away the impurities. We then add slag forming agents to create the steel. The result is poured out, and the slag skimmed from the top to create pure steel.

The Regenerators in the forge are a key to it, but using wind in this way will achieve the necessary heat needed to melt scrap and pig iron.

As a more detailed process, please refer to this-

Spoiler: Open hearth process (click to show/hide)

The open hearth process is a batch process and a batch is called a "heat". The furnace is first inspected for possible damage. Once it is ready or repaired, it is charged with light scrap, such as sheet metal, shredded vehicles or waste metal. The furnace is heated using burning gas. Once it has melted, heavy scrap, such as building, construction or steel milling scrap is added, together with pig iron from blast furnaces. Once all the steel has melted, slag forming agents, such as limestone, are added. The oxygen in iron oxide and other impurities decarburize the pig iron by burning excess carbon away, forming steel. To increase the oxygen contents of the heat, iron ore can be added to the heat.

The process is far slower than that of Bessemer converter and thus easier to control and sample for quality assessment. Preparing a heat usually takes 8 h to 8 h 30 min to complete into steel. As the process is slow, it is not necessary to burn all the carbon away as in Bessemer process, but the process can be terminated at any given point when desired carbon contents has been achieved.

The furnace is tapped the same way a blast furnace is tapped; a hole is drilled on the side of the hearth and the raw steel flows out. Once all the steel has been tapped, the slag is skimmed away. The raw steel may be cast into ingots; this process is called teeming, or it may be used on continuous casting for the rolling mill.

The regenerators are the distinctive feature of the furnace and consist of fire-brick flues filled with bricks set on edge and arranged in such a way as to have a great number of small passages between them. The bricks absorb most of the heat from the outgoing waste gases and return it later to the incoming cold gases for combustion.

Point is, we need our chanters to use Wind, not runes themselves.

[TricMagic]

Shape(Water) Ward(Wood) Attack(Air) (1) TricMagic
WindForged Steel (-)
Runic Chanter's Steelmaking (-)
Chanter Prep Class (-)


Hint use- Enchantment (1) TricMagic

[Madman198237]

Shape(Water) Ward(Wood) Attack(Air) (2): TricMagic, Madman
Windforged Steel (1): Madman
Runic Chanter's Steelmaking (-)
Chanter Prep Class (-)