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We know how to make them and they're useful, mainline production.

4 (33.3%)

They seem out of place and run rather counter to a fantasy setting, avoid them.

2 (16.7%)

Get outta here, nerd, nobody finds guns that interesting.

1 (8.3%)

Go ahead and have the NPCs make em, but not worth player input.

1 (8.3%)

Support, but they shouldn't be the standard weapons.

4 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 12

[Dustan Hache]

yes, spark is airborne, but the range of his fire is unknown, and the strength is assumed to be midway due to it's size.
at a spear length's distance, the only thing spark would be able to make would be... well, sparks. anything closer would put him within easy reach of other melee weaponry, and thus a easy target to swat out of the air using sheer numbers.
on another note, the stranger isn't going to do anything to the battlements. the mercenary soldiers already have that going for them because of a basic, necromancy based enchantment.

either way, if he wanted to attack the stranger right off the bat, he'd have to go through the mercs, who wouldn't hesitate to swat spark out of the air.

this is sort of a Xanatos gambit anyway. either he gets past, and ends the battle early by achieving his mysterious goal, or the fortress gets decimated by a horde of living, soon to be undead infiltrators leaving few dorfs capable of defending, and fewer capable of rebuilding.

[TheBiggerFish]

You underestimate the energy contained in several days' worth of ambient heat. 

Irradiance

Because of the distance from the sun and the earth's size (relative to the sun) only about 1/2 of one billionth of the energy produced by the sun reaches the earth.

In order to quantify how much energy this is, we define solar irradiance as the amount of radiant electromagnetic energy emitted by the Sun over all wavelengths that fall each second on 1 square meter (m2) outside Earth's atmosphere.

This amount is known as the solar constant; its value is approximately 1,367.7 watts per square meter.

I don't know how bad absorption is from air, but still.  That's a lot.  Even assuming Spark only charged for half a day, at peak times, and that means "several days" when I say it...

Oh here we are:

368 Watts are either reflected away from the earth – or absorbed by the atmosphere, clouds, and sea – leaving 1about 1,000 watts (= 1 kW) per square meter that reaches the surface of the earth.

Yikes.  That is a lot of energy.  Even assuming Spark is only grabbing infrared.  Heck, Spark could be passively charging off of ambient heat anyway.   ...Oh Armok what have I MADE.

Working solely from solar power, total absorption: 4(peak hours)*1000*60(minutes)*60(seconds)*3 days = 4,320,000 J?  That...Can't be....What the flying skeletal carp...Even at half losses that is still A Lot. 

It doesn't even account for, say, parking near a forge at night, and something still screams "Overkill!"

Aaand now I want to pose "What would happen if the entire solar radiation of one square meter of ground receives normally was instead blasted all at once?" to xkcd's What If...

Also:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation

[Amperzand]

Assuming that you had a highly-efficient ambient thermal energy absorber stuffed inside Spark along with a high-functioning AI with its infrastructure, the machinery to actually make the construct work mechanically, and an actual breathe-fire-majiggy, which you don't, there is a major limit upon the actual capacity of energy storage you could, again, fit into so very little space. If you want to actually store and use that much energy, you should probably make a Baneblade Main Battle Tank to mount it as a main gun, not a two-foot ruby dragonhawk.

[TheBiggerFish]

Assuming that you had a highly-efficient ambient thermal energy absorber stuffed inside Spark along with a high-functioning AI with its infrastructure, the machinery to actually make the construct work mechanically, and an actual breathe-fire-majiggy, which you don't, there is a major limit upon the actual capacity of energy storage you could, again, fit into so very little space. If you want to actually store and use that much energy, you should probably make a Baneblade Main Battle Tank to mount it as a main gun, not a two-foot ruby dragonhawk.

Right.
*exhales*
So how much energy do I actually have to work with anyway?
(Also I am so going to make that next month...)
(Plus, it WAS a pretty big gimmick that moving-heat-around majjyks was a thing.  So I at least have a decent one.)

[Amperzand]

(Also I am so going to make that next month...)
(Plus, it WAS a pretty big gimmick that moving-heat-around majjyks was a thing.  So I at least have a decent one.)

In my knowledge, it takes several decades, if not centuries, to construct a Baneblade. I'm sure you could cut it down a great deal by not worshipping it and forgetting where the on button is, but something like going from plate armor and prototype steam engines to thermal-laser armed MBTs is going to take a while. Don't worry, I'll give you long periods to work with, but a month gives you one major action, not one major project completed regardless of actual possibility within the timescale.

Moving thermal energy is a great idea, I'm just not giving anyone genuinely retarded amounts of energy to play with this early, I don't care how logical the math is, nobody gets a nuclear reactor or a post-singularity AI within the first two years. By the same token, nobody gets to go demilich so soon.

I don't know about actual numbers, Writers Can't Do Math, remember, but you've got a good amount of thermal energy that can be constructively used to light things on fire, or as a short-lived blowtorch. Not a titan-scale meltagun mounted to a large crystalline seagull.

[Gwolfski]

this means we can have tanks. 

[TheBiggerFish]

(Also I am so going to make that next month...)
(Plus, it WAS a pretty big gimmick that moving-heat-around majjyks was a thing.  So I at least have a decent one.)

In my knowledge, it takes several decades, if not centuries, to construct a Baneblade. I'm sure you could cut it down a great deal by not worshipping it and forgetting where the on button is, but something like going from plate armor and prototype steam engines to thermal-laser armed MBTs is going to take a while. Don't worry, I'll give you long periods to work with, but a month gives you one major action, not one major project completed regardless of actual possibility within the timescale.

Moving thermal energy is a great idea, I'm just not giving anyone genuinely retarded amounts of energy to play with this early, I don't care how logical the math is, nobody gets a nuclear reactor or a post-singularity AI within the first two years. By the same token, nobody gets to go demilich so soon.

I don't know about actual numbers, Writers Can't Do Math, remember, but you've got a good amount of thermal energy that can be constructively used to light things on fire, or as a short-lived blowtorch. Not a titan-scale meltagun mounted to a large crystalline seagull.

Oh, no, I'm just making the laser.  And the battery.
*apply Warning:Lasers Are Awesome sticker here*

[Amperzand]

Stiill gonna take a while. Trust me, you can't do as much in a month as you'd think.

[TheBiggerFish]

Stiill gonna take a while. Trust me, you can't do as much in a month as you'd think.

*shrug*

[TheBiggerFish]

In an effort to move things along, I did a post.
It nullifies the previous reaction to the necro's attack, as the situation changed rather a lot in the interim.
I may edit it a bit to officially state that I am still sniping at the enemy mages.

[Amperzand]

Thanks, Fish, making the GM double post is bad form.

Also, random thing, not all magic used by a necromancer carries the curse, only that used through or gained from dark ritual, though this includes things like tapping power off of living beings, regardless of the ritual content of that process.

Therefore, things like basic combat magic and anything cast directly from the Geothaum without an interim will usually be safe enough, though they also are rarely genuine dark magic, being the same sorts of fireballs and such as everybody else uses.

I'm going to wait to see if Dustan wants to post, or Murdoc wants to do anything about the necromancer in the fort, then updop, probably late tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

[TheBiggerFish]

Thanks, Fish, making the GM double post is bad form.

Also, random thing, not all magic used by a necromancer carries the curse, only that used through or gained from dark ritual, though this includes things like tapping power off of living beings, regardless of the ritual content of that process.

Therefore, things like basic combat magic and anything cast directly from the Geothaum without an interim will usually be safe enough, though they also are rarely genuine dark magic, being the same sorts of fireballs and such as everybody else uses.

I'm going to wait to see if Dustan wants to post, or Murdoc wants to do anything about the necromancer in the fort, then updop, probably late tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

He did specifically try to corrupt my spellwork with his taint.  So yah.
But yeah, that makes sense too unless it's something about necro brains or physiology.

[Amperzand]

Which it isn't. They're human- or dwarven, or elvish, or goblinesque -but happen to have been majjyked into immortality. If one of them becomes a Lich, things are different. Then they're straight-up undead.

[Dustan Hache]

I refuse to acknowledge biggerfish, due to the fact that he has repeatedly powergamed, and refuses to fix his posts thus far. (THERE IS A EDIT BUTTON FOR A REASON!)
as for necromancy messing with the brains, yes it does. if you delve deep enough into dark or morally questionable magic, it's going to leave a mark, and that mark draws all sorts of nasty things, but at the same time gives a little extra power in some ways.
for instance, messing with another person's soul (WHICH IS IN THE LINE OF NECROMANCY) is obviously going to have some very nasty effects associated with it, and probably draw attention from other dark beings, along with mages in general. speaking of which, that was EXACTLY what I tried to do.
 I tried to pull a chunk of net's soul through his magical mental link into spark, thus corrupting and incapacitating them with the painful process that it is. now, since it is not lethal, and leaves a originally psudosentient creature with a chunk of a soul in it, which brings with it free will and thought, this could go any number of ways. most of them result in net being less magic capable, but having a being that does NOT actively require a mental link that can be traced easily, because they are linked in a more intimate manner.

on the same note, said link in theory could be used to pull the rest of net's soul out his nose, but that once again requires a specialized, and rather powerful necromancer.

[TheBiggerFish]

There is an edit button.  There is also a reason I didn't use it and instead POSTED A NEW POST, namely the PAGE OF DISCUSSION BETWEEN ONE POST AND THE OTHER.  If you want edits, then START discussions here, I will see them.  And then we actually use the thread for its purpose.
You tried to access a function that's even MORE behind the firewall than just shoving taint in?  ...Yeah, still much nope.
And what exactly are you deeming powergaming?  My refusal to construct every single sentence around "would"?  Seriously?  I can think of exactly one powergamey thing.  That is the spell reflection.  And that is pretty much because I'm pretty sure technomancy and its countermeasures are not native to this universe, and thus unanticipated enough that frankly, you wouldn't have time to react to them before they hit back.
Dustan:
You said this.

*the stranger would turn, and focus upon spark, twisting and tainting the energy into an unholy mix that would fry the battery, and most likely twist spark's original being into something... different.

I reacted to that.
And now you say you were doing something else entirely.  (Trying to grab my soul via a telepathic link.)
For crying out loud, if it's not clear to the average reader, explain it to us in OOC text!