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[Elagn]

"No thanks, the idea I have would actual require a one time usage of a good deal of power; I will elaborate. Water, as is well known, is made of 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen, though 16/18 of the weight of water is the oxygen. With the application of electricity, water can be broken into hydrogen and oxygen, and even broken so that the two gasses are collected separately. I, in essence, want to build a zeppelin, which would require a good deal of hydrogen, requiring a good deal of electricity, though a surprisingly small amount of water. Using earth terms, about 18 grams of water, when broken, should produce about 22.4 litters of hydrogen gas, and 11.2 litters of oxygen gass, at standard atmospheric pressure, which I assume is at least similar.

As this gas is lighter than air, I want to use it to build a zeppelin, probably with a hand-powered propeller for movement, but possibly steam powered. This whole construction will take a while, but I think it is worth it, though some time may need to be spent working on an air-proof cloth to hold the hydrogen. Unfortunately, however, using hydrogen has a few drawbacks. "Modern" airships, on earth, use helium, because hydrogen has a slight tenancy to explode when exposed to flames. Hydrogen, is, however, about 2 times lighter than helium, so less should be necessary.

This is what I will now dedicate myself to; I will take to the skies."

[MoonyTheHuman]

"... I wonder, do we have access to magma yet?"

[TheBiggerFish]

"We can proooobably get helium."

[Elagn]

"Why would we want helium? Hydrogen is lighter and better, and, in the even of enemy capture of the vessel, one incendiary shot can destroy all of the evidence, besides, hydrogen filled zeppelins worked great, as long as no-one messes with incendiaries near the hydrogen cells. Hydrogen is also a lot easier to obtain, and gets pure oxygen byproduct too, which is useful."

[Amperzand]

[Helium is extremely uncommon on planets with ~1G, since it's too light to stay in the atmosphere. All helium on Earth exists as a result of alpha-type radioactive decay, and we're running out. You could probably find some if you tried, and knew the right places to look, but it's not the easiest thing.]

[TheBiggerFish]

"Yes, but flaming arrows."

[Amperzand]

[Keeping it thoroughly ventilated, with the gas in separate sub-bags, reduces the likelyhood of fire somewhat. Still not the safest thing, but hey.]

[MoonyTheHuman]

(how long has this world existed in IC years? )

[Elagn]

"The plan is to have it in multiple cells, with one large exterior covering, not just a giant balloon. As to flaming arrows, simple solution, fly higher than enemies can shoot, and observe them with a spyglass, then drop rocks or bombs on them. The interior, hydrogen filled cells will be some sort of air proof cloth; either some derivation of animal skins/membranes/ect or traditional cloths coated in beeswax or tallow should work."

"Just think of the potential, we could be under siege, and get supplies, send messages, or more! Just tossing gravel from a few hundered feet up would be devastating for anything below."

[TheBiggerFish]

"We have to get it up first.  Then again, there's always magic, even if it's limited."

[Amperzand]

[I'm considering it to have showed up by standard armok-creationist methods, and then it ran for about 3000 years, and then the PCs started showing up, at which point the grand magic-drain-thing had been going on for about 60 years. It's been about 2 years, five months since the Homelanders started arriving.]

[The terminal velocity of gravel does not a lethal weapon make. The terminal velocity of steel crossbow bolts, perhaps more so.]

[MoonyTheHuman]

(i have a  5000 year old pocket world u can use for history if u wish)

[Amperzand]

[I've actually got a 3000 year old small, but I won't really be using a real world for history beyond basic stuff, and maybe screenshotting the map to show you. As you may see later, this world did some stuff current worldgen cannot.]

[Elagn]

I didn't say gravel would be necessarily lethal, but it would be very dangerous, for lethal, we would do something with explosives. And yes, magic from a zeppelin could be interesting, and, if we have the materials, a hydrogen powered zeppelin shouldn't be too terribly difficult to make. 1st, I plan to construct a small, 2-4 person hand powered zeppelin for proof of concept, that can carry a just a few hundred pounds of cargo/weaponry. Then, a much larger one for industrial-level transport and weaponize."

[Amperzand]

[It would be incredibly easy to make it run off magitech, with onboard electrolytes, motors, all that great stuff. Slight power issue, though.]