Subject:
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Re: [CW] More new pics ... and guns in CW
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle
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Date:
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Wed, 9 Feb 2000 21:59:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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1410 times
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In lugnet.castle, Jeff Johnston writes:
> Pawel Nazarewicz wrote:
> > The one question that I do have (which should be applied to everything) is
> > about the gun.
>
> I figured there'd be a question about that...
>
> > Did we ever have a verdict on guns in general? I know that
> > historically they were used in the samurai ages, but does that mean that we
> > will be using them in the Oriental section of CW? And going along those
> > lines, in the whole CW (which they would soon be used after they were
> > brought from the orient). Guns would then seemingly make bows and arrows
> > almost obselete, and cannons would make walled-in strategy different. I
> > think for now, guns (unless very, very rare and almost magical - like
> > brought from the future) are a very dangerous precedent ...
>
> OK, here's my line of thought:
>
> 1) Historically, pistols were around in Europe in the 1500s, and arqebuses
> and cannon even earlier (1300s). China discovered gunpowder well before
> that. Sain travels extensively...
My blacksmith (Atsidi) learned how to (create? and) care for firearms during
his years of sea travelling. He have learned firsthand how destructive,
opportunistic, and dishonorable they are, and take that knowledge into his own
practice of weaponsmithing. His own original culture used bows and arrows, and
hatchets.
> 2) Early guns didn't make bows obsolete for centuries because of the
> difficulties. A well trained bowman can fire a score of shots in the time
> it takes to reload a gun.
Repeating firearms should be banned from CW, in my opinion. It should take as
much effort to load a gun as to reload a crossbow.
> 3) If he had thrown a fireball or a lightning bolt, nobody would have blinked.
> On the other hand, I agree with you that if everybody is toting guns, or if
> entire armies are outfitted with cannon and musket, the 'feel' of Castle World
> will change significantly. So, I also *definitely* agree on the need for the
> rarity and near-magicalness of them.
I had one of my subcharacters be a gunrunner for Atsidi's extra weapons, but
I'm going to scale that back to non-firearms.
> (Aside: Do we need 'magic control laws' to prevent people from
> fielding an army of wizards, or is common sense enough? Why or
> why not does that apply to guns as well?)
Well, as gods, we should be able to come up with something to neutralize
another army's advantage. Or, watch with dismay as our army is wiped out
(defeats happen, and can make for _very_ interesting story lines).
> So, here are some suggestions:
>
> 1) Gunpowder is not widely known. In fact, gunpowder as we know it doesn't
> work in CW. The mixture used in Sain's pistol is a magical powder made by
> alchemy - a secret known only to a select few.
Well, Atsidi for example learned a lot of ancient arts of war from a race which
is now all but extinct in my realm, its recorded knowledge completely
destroyed. It's possible that Atsidi is one of the few people left that knows
secrets along the lines of gunpowder, and the contruction of firearms.
> 2) It's very tricky to make a working gun - the metallurgy is fairly advanced.
> There are very few people in the world capable of doing it, and most of them
> don't want to.
This I think is our best line of defense, along with John's use of
gunpowder-artillery in a purely defensive role (otherwise, why build castles?)
> 3) Thus, the acquisition of a single gun should require a pair of ballads.
> Duets, if we can find people willing to have characters to be the alchemists
> and blacksmith that are capable of creating these weapons. And whoever the
> smith is, he should be unwilling to make mass quantities of these guns - heck,
> he should be unwilling to make even *one* gun, and require a lot of talking
> and a good reason to do it.
My blacksmith (Atsidi) learned how to (create? and) care for firearms during
his years of sea travelling. He have learned firsthand how destructive,
opportunistic, and dishonorable they are, and take that knowledge into his own
practice of weaponsmithing. His own original culture used bows and arrows, and
hatchets, so maybe he was just experimenting with the guns he made, and decided
not to do it any more. But, he was the smith on the ship that travelled far and
wide, and many people in many lands learned who it was who created these
'fire-sticks'.
> I would encourage the people who 'own' the alchemist(s) with the formula and
> the blacksmith to also take into consideration the quantity and quality of
> the ballads the person has produced in the past.
The point being, if someone wants to field an army of repeating weapons or
sniper rifles, they should go to "Renaissance World" instead of "Dark Ages
World?"
In small quantity, less than half a dozen to a dozen per realm, guns aren't any
worse than dragons, that I can tell.
> With these 'Gun Control' laws in place, I think that guns will be, as you
> suggested, "very, very rare and almost magical". I realize that by dropping
> the pistol into my story I'm circumventing a couple of them, but rest assured
> that I intend to fill in the back story and present to all the tale of how
> Sain himself acquired the gun.
I don't mean to try to put myself in the position of being the only gunsmith in
Castle World, but I saw an opportunity to place my character in the story here.
:)
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: [CW] More new pics ... and guns in CW
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| (...) I was even thinking rarer than this. Here's the idea I had: Cornelius came up with the idea after hearing about the 'explosive alchemical powder' that someone had developed. He sent his idea to a bunch of other wizards, who basically laughed (...) (25 years ago, 10-Feb-00, to lugnet.castle)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: [CW] More new pics ... and guns in CW
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| (...) This one will be fine. Use the second picture and just clip out Sain - I don't think there's much I'd be doing to that anyway. Most of the 'fancying' will be in making the page look nicer - maybe a few minor things on the pics themselves. (...) (25 years ago, 9-Feb-00, to lugnet.castle)
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