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[NJW2000]

"Inherent vice is the tendency in physical objects to deteriorate because of the fundamental instability of the components of which they are made, as opposed to deterioration caused by external forces. All objects have some kind of inherent vice as a result of the baseline law of entropy. Inherent vice can be used as a justification for refusing to insure an item, as its intrinsically self-destructive nature may make it unacceptable risk to a carrier or insurer."


'Ello ello. As a test for a game I plan to run, I'd like to try and test out one of the features and see how easily it can be circumvented by someone of munchkin-like leanings. Syv.

The feature is, as explained above, Inherent Vice.


Rules

You are an overworked wizard with a lot of money and power but no great deal of time, who has been given a crate of glass containers filled with various volatile potions and elixirs.

When smashed or heated too much, or generally meddled with, they may explode magically, and are likely to make any nearby magical liquids explode or react as well.

Your job as players is to suggest methods of quickly, safely and easily storing these liquids, which right now reside in a wooden crate, and thus neutralise the inherent vice in them. I will try to poke holes or expose flaws in these methods.

[Ragenaut]

Use Telekinesis. Carefully place a few bottles at a time into a sturdy cabinet with magic resistant runes carved within. Alphabetize the potions based on power and lethality.

[somemildmanneredidiot]

PTW

[Parsely]

How do I work safely with flammable and combustible liquids?

[syvarris]

Put them in a watertight container, filled with water.  Preferably with some sort of framework to prevent them from jostling too much.  Water makes the crate harder to accelerate, acts as something of a force dampener, absorbs a lot of heat, makes it obvious if containment is pierced.

I'm not really being creative here, I just read once that this was how molotov cocktail caches were stored in the past.  Primary difference is that these are actually explosive, so if containment is breached, water would probably make everything significantly worse.

Hmm.  Maybe improve the crate by storing stacks of bottles in metal cylinders, but keep the top of the crate weak?  That could mean that if a bottle goes off, it'll set off the other bottles in the same cylinder, but the force will mostly be directed up and away, rather than setting off everything in the crate.  Would prolly be volume and cost hungry, though.

[MidnightJaguar]

You guys are being waaaay to practical

Teleport the box into a pocket dimension that has no gravity or heat.

[NJW2000]

Use Telekinesis. Carefully place a few bottles at a time into a sturdy cabinet with magic resistant runes carved within. Alphabetize the potions based on power and lethality.

This is expensive, takes a long time, requires a magic resistant cabinet. Also, if the cabinet falls over, they'll probably smash.

You guys are being waaaay to practical

Teleport the box into a pocket dimension that has no gravity or heat.

This works, unless the liquids have some kind of reaction to pocket dimensions. Wait, no heat? How do you get them out again? And how do you safely reheat them from absolute zero?

How do I work safely with flammable and combustible liquids?

Yes, but how do you do it?

Put them in a watertight container, filled with water.  Preferably with some sort of framework to prevent them from jostling too much.  Water makes the crate harder to accelerate, acts as something of a force dampener, absorbs a lot of heat, makes it obvious if containment is pierced.

I'm not really being creative here, I just read once that this was how molotov cocktail caches were stored in the past.  Primary difference is that these are actually explosive, so if containment is breached, water would probably make everything significantly worse.

Hmm.  Maybe improve the crate by storing stacks of bottles in metal cylinders, but keep the top of the crate weak?  That could mean that if a bottle goes off, it'll set off the other bottles in the same cylinder, but the force will mostly be directed up and away, rather than setting off everything in the crate.  Would prolly be volume and cost hungry, though.

So racks of metal cylinders, with weakened tops? Fine, but in the event of an explosion, the roof will catch fire, or at least be weakened, and posibly fall down on a crate. Of course, you can put it outside, I guess, though that has its own risks.

And explosive force coming out of one bit of a crate would give it a big push in the opposite direction, which could be an issue if the cylinder was at the side, as it might make the entire crate tip over.

Still, this is a pretty foolproof way of doing it. Any other ideas anyone, or should I move onto another example?

[somemildmanneredidiot]

Only things I'd suggest are ways to make previous methods safet/easier.

You've stated that we have a lot of money and a lot of power, presuming that this continues to be the case, can you define what those mean?

[Parsely]

How do I work safely with flammable and combustible liquids?

Yes, but how do you do it?

See the doc. I follow those guidelines.

[NJW2000]

Only things I'd suggest are ways to make previous methods safet/easier.

You've stated that we have a lot of money and a lot of power, presuming that this continues to be the case, can you define what those mean?

You can buy pretty much any nonmagical item less than $2,000 in today's money today. That one could get hold of in, say, the 18th century or so. Law is not really a problem, neither is getting people to do your bidding.

[syvarris]

See the doc. I follow those guidelines.

Isn't that link mostly just about flammable materials, and not really shock-sensitive materials?  I could easily have missed something, but I didn't see stuff specific to shock sensitives.

Also, most of those guidelines are clearly made for this world, where proper containers and storage and such are all quite common and easy to obtain.  We got a bunch of highly volatile explosives in a generic wooden crate.  It's more about common sense handling and use, rather than engineering a solution to the problem.  :\

...It does point out the most significant flaw in my idea, the complete lack of any venting ability.  I'm not sure what a good fix for that would be, offhand.

So racks of metal cylinders, with weakened tops? Fine, but in the event of an explosion, the roof will catch fire, or at least be weakened, and posibly fall down on a crate. Of course, you can put it outside, I guess, though that has its own risks.

And explosive force coming out of one bit of a crate would give it a big push in the opposite direction, which could be an issue if the cylinder was at the side, as it might make the entire crate tip over.

Still, this is a pretty foolproof way of doing it. Any other ideas anyone, or should I move onto another example?

Hmm.  An improvement could be to put a metal tank of water on top, with the ceiling of it being an inverted pyramid.  Fill the tank with water (to absorb the heat of the explosive), and put relief holes around the perimeter of the top.  That would mostly prevent setting the roof/surroundings on fire, and help stop outer tubes from rocking the whole thing. 

Of course, this is expensive, and makes it very difficult to open the crate to get at the explosives.  It also doesn't have any nice way to prevent shocks from things ramming the crate, or dropping it; countermeasures would be possible (wetted sawdust packing?  Springs?), but they'll only be helpful for weaker forces.  Oh, and if this assembly is dropped hard enough to set off multiple explosions, it's basically a giant fragmentation bomb.

...Probably, the best solution to your listed problems would just be heavy weights at the bottom, and storing outside on soft ground.

Next thing?  I'm curious.

[MidnightJaguar]

Just make the roof weaker, i.e. Weak enough that it just tears apart at an explosion. While reinforcing the walls. That way the explosion is directed upwards.

[Egan_BW]

Shove the crates off a cliff into the ocean, become a farmer.

[Ragenaut]

Levitate myself and the crate to the top of my tower. Bubble the crate, and set it to float above the next country over's capital. Then have the bubble pop. Watch the mayhem through my magic mirror while eating dragon pepper flavored popcorn.

[RoseHeart]

Drink 'em(we' re magical).