Fantasy worldbuilding : society / history / warfare

[Tenshinai]

Technology

We don't see a lot of this in the story, and what we do see has a rather wide range of sophistication, a possible plausibility issue. The navies of Windhaven are composed mostly of multi-masted cannon armed ships similar to late 18th century ships-of-the-line. The major nations have a dozen or so ironclads each; the ones we see look like enlarged (three times the displacement) versions of the Monitor and the Virginia. Deajan commanded a unit armed with rifled muskets; at one point Lyozar mentions stealing blueprints for a prototype 'self-loading volley gun'. In various interiors we see candles, globes, pickled specimens, in the richest areas gas lights. The nations of Windhaven seem to have made less progress on global mapping than Earth did with the same technology; possibly because the stronger storms make crossing the wider stretches of ocean more hazardous (for both ships and bird-shifters). From the ease with which they start shooting at flying monsters, it seems that Windhaven navies are used to having to open fire on enemy bird-shifters, although the prospects for bringing one down with grapeshot out of late 18th century naval artillery seem somewhat limited.

About plausibility issues for tech disparity, it´s unlikely to be a problem. Think about todays earth? Especially in the last decade, depending on where you are, a guy riding a donkey in the middle of a desert, enroute to a straw hut home might be using a mobile phone or a laptop to chat online...
Technology is very much not linear.

Are you sure you want ironclads of that style? They were very much a paranthesis and an exception in history and unlikely to ever become something "normal".
( The Virginia style by the way is called a casemate ironclad )

And the main reason for that is because their seakeeping sucks terribly. With storms more common and with open sea being the norm, either of those ships makes for likely shipwrecks very quickly. They are coastal or river vessels only. (and coastal only in reasonably calm conditions)

For a world with so much open water and storms, you either go for something like La Gloire or HMS Warrior if you want "ironclads"(Warrior is technically allmetal, but it´s the same style at least), or you go with the pre-dreadnought style or possibly in the direction of armoured cruisers.
There´s also what you might call a hybrid style, like the Huáscar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu%C3%A1scar_%28ship%29
Or the Devastation class floating battery(the original ironclads, but not really ships even if they did spawn the later ironclad ships much as a result of the experience with these):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lave

A "Monitor" style ironclad made seaworthy looks pretty much like an armoured cruiser. Compare with Erebus and Terror.

You should also probably decide wether anyone has come up with the idea of a torpedo yet.

By far the most advanced things seen are the airships, which look like first world war Zepplins. They are powered by lightweight steam engines, filled by hydrogen, exist in relatively small numbers and are considered
valuable enough that major nations hesitate to risk them rescuing populations from monster attacks. They are able to carry hundreds of people and probably use lots of magically enhanced components beyond the engines.

You may want to consider some magical way or something to keep the hydrogen safely apart from everywhere else, because steam engines mixed with hydrogen may be a big risk due to open flames and sparks. Or simply even get rid of the hydrogen. Good side of magic is that it can do what you want it to do.

As a sidenote i might mention that there were a few historical airplanes meant to be powered with lightweight steam engines, uncertain if any flew, but the problem was more one of funding and development rather than being impossible.

How about a much higher incidence of ocean floor nodules than Earth?

Difficult but may be something for nations with problems getting access to easier sources.

Are there also practical oceanic sources for fabric fibre? I know kelp-based fabrics exist but not how practical they are.

Easily useful enough at least. It was never really an issue in real history and as such never developed, but it´s perfectly doable at a relatively low tech level.
It´s not quite as good but it´s good enough to be used.

I imagine sharpening bits of ancient scrap would be preferable for weapons but I agree that mass-production of ceramics should be an even larger part of the industrial revolution than it was on Earth.

Glass is a very useful material, not to be underestimated. It´s also surprisingly strong.

[Starglider]

Are you sure you want ironclads of that style? They were very much a paranthesis and an exception in history and unlikely to ever become something "normal".
( The Virginia style by the way is called a casemate ironclad ) And the main reason for that is because their seakeeping sucks terribly. With storms more common and with open sea being the norm, either of those ships makes for likely shipwrecks very quickly. They are coastal or river vessels only. (and coastal only in reasonably calm conditions)

I confess that I went for the US civil war designs because they'd be instantly visually recognisable to a lot of players, and they are visually very distinct from each other and the sailing ships, and because they're simple shapes that render with minimal polygons and are easy to procedurally generate.

For a world with so much open water and storms, you either go for something like La Gloire or HMS Warrior if you want "ironclads"(Warrior is technically allmetal, but it´s the same style at least), or you go with the pre-dreadnought style or possibly in the direction of armoured cruisers.

Unfortunately a classic protected cruiser would fail the above criteria. However on reflection you've got a point about the seaworthiness being too awful for plausibility. I could try raising the main freeboard and putting a tumblehomed section above the main hull rather than a flat deck on the monitor-style ironclads. The Lave is a good suggestion, I could have the enemy ironclads (which are supposed to be less advanced but more numerous) look more like that and possibly be towed into position - presumably their chances of ocean transit are better if they're unloaded of weapons & fuel and towed by a sailing ship. I'll see what I can do and post some screenshots to the main game thread when I'm done.

You may want to consider some magical way or something to keep the hydrogen safely apart from everywhere else, because steam engines mixed with hydrogen may be a big risk due to open flames and sparks.

The steam engines use magically heated boilers instead of flames, making them much lighter and safer. We see this when some of them get shot to pieces.

Or simply even get rid of the hydrogen. Good side of magic is that it can do what you want it to do.

To be honest I've got too much payload loaded onto the airships to be plausible for hydrogen anyway, but they do burn spectacularly when destroyed. I won't give details, and interested players can assume it's some sort of magically enhanced flammable lifting gas (Windhaven magical items mostly work by enhancing natural properties rather than creating entirely new ones).

[Simon_Jester]

Technology

We don't see a lot of this in the story, and what we do see has a rather wide range of sophistication, a possible plausibility issue. The navies of Windhaven are composed mostly of multi-masted cannon armed ships similar to late 18th century ships-of-the-line. The major nations have a dozen or so ironclads each; the ones we see look like enlarged (three times the displacement) versions of the Monitor and the Virginia...

...Are you sure you want ironclads of that style? They were very much a paranthesis and an exception in history and unlikely to ever become something "normal".
( The Virginia style by the way is called a casemate ironclad )

And the main reason for that is because their seakeeping sucks terribly. With storms more common and with open sea being the norm, either of those ships makes for likely shipwrecks very quickly. They are coastal or river vessels only. (and coastal only in reasonably calm conditions)

For a world with so much open water and storms, you either go for something like La Gloire or HMS Warrior if you want "ironclads"(Warrior is technically allmetal, but it´s the same style at least), or you go with the pre-dreadnought style or possibly in the direction of armoured cruisers.

Yes- what you're likely to see is something that looks superficially like an 18th century ship of the line, but with funnels and screw-steam propulsion, with armor plate tucked in. Armor might be... I dunno, typically layered over a wooden hull.

The limiting technological factor might be a lack of reliable exploding shells. That makes wooden ships actually remain a credible threat to armored ones, believe it or not; CSS Virginia took some serious damage fighting the wooden warships of the Union blockade, and there were other similar examples at the Battle of Lissa.

You should also probably decide wether anyone has come up with the idea of a torpedo yet.

This is a big one, because in the absence of quick-firing guns with exploding shells, torpedoes become a rather dominant force in naval warfare.

I confess that I went for the US civil war designs because they'd be instantly visually recognisable to a lot of players, and they are visually very distinct from each other and the sailing ships, and because they're simple shapes that render with minimal polygons and are easy to procedurally generate.

If you have sailing ships present on the field, you can do ocean-going ironclads: just take one of those sailing ships, retrofit it with a steam engine, and put the armor on underneath.

You may not want to implement them, but think about them- make there be real disadvantages to the 'easily recognized' ironclads, perhaps, and keep this alternative in the back of your mind.

To be honest I've got too much payload loaded onto the airships to be plausible for hydrogen anyway, but they do burn spectacularly when destroyed. I won't give details, and interested players can assume it's some sort of magically enhanced flammable lifting gas (Windhaven magical items mostly work by enhancing natural properties rather than creating entirely new ones).

That's probably a good choice for the Steam Age magitech approach you're aiming for.

Do bear in mind that even a single armored warship is an immense investment in metal: hundreds and probably thousands of tons. Assuming decent access to timber for ships somewhere, there is a very real threat coming out of the fact that the enemy can build large numbers of steam-powered wooden ships at a much lower cost in metal.

[Broomstick]

By far the most advanced things seen are the airships, which look like first world war Zepplins. They are powered by lightweight steam engines, filled by hydrogen, exist in relatively small numbers and are considered valuable enough that major nations hesitate to risk them rescuing populations from monster attacks. They are able to carry hundreds of people and probably use lots of magically enhanced components beyond the engines.

You may want to consider some magical way or something to keep the hydrogen safely apart from everywhere else, because steam engines mixed with hydrogen may be a big risk due to open flames and sparks. Or simply even get rid of the hydrogen. Good side of magic is that it can do what you want it to do.

If you have the hydrogen on the top of a zeppelin and keep the combusting engines down below, perhaps in nacelles beneath the rest of the ship, that should take care of most fire risk because any hydrogen that leaks will go UP, away from the engines. Historical zeppelins had engines after all, with sparks inside them to drive the combustion that made them go, and as a general rule did not spontaneously go >boom< from that particular source.

As a sidenote i might mention that there were a few historical airplanes meant to be powered with lightweight steam engines, uncertain if any flew, but the problem was more one of funding and development rather than being impossible.

\
At least one did, indeed, fly - there is surviving film of one of the flights. Gasoline/kerosine/ethanol engines are more efficient which is why we use them but if there were no alternatives then steam could be used. Range might be quite limited, however.

[Tenshinai]

If you have the hydrogen on the top of a zeppelin and keep the combusting engines down below, perhaps in nacelles beneath the rest of the ship, that should take care of most fire risk because any hydrogen that leaks will go UP, away from the engines. Historical zeppelins had engines after all, with sparks inside them to drive the combustion that made them go, and as a general rule did not spontaneously go >boom< from that particular source.

Not comparable, internal combustion engines are exactly that, internal. Normal steam engines means fire open to the air one way or another, internal combustion engines keeps all the flames inside it.
This is irrelevant though since he´s running with magical heating, so no issue.

**********

Unfortunately a classic protected cruiser would fail the above criteria. However on reflection you've got a point about the seaworthiness being too awful for plausibility. I could try raising the main freeboard and putting a tumblehomed section above the main hull rather than a flat deck on the monitor-style ironclads.

Well you could probably make a hybrid of sorts if the general shape is the important part.

Freeboard and size is the main things you need for that to work. Also remember that even the original Monitor had trim tanks that allowed it to change how deep in the water it lay.

You´re going to need to make them fairly big to allow them to be wide enough without being too wide compared to length to become slow and unwieldy ( and to be able to carry enough armour compared to total flotation, as a better freeboard quickly adds a lot of armouring needed, and when running with empty trim tanks for high seas, the center of gravity goes up quite a bit ).

I assume the ships uses the same magic heating for steam engines? If so, you can mitigate the problem a bit by using the weight otherwise needed for coal/fuel as keel depth centremounted ballast, that will do a lot of good for ship stability.

If you can also do magical cooling(for condensation) you can cut down a good bit more on the size of water tankage, as well as go for steam turbines rather than cylinders, as long as the turbine doesnt leak steam away from the system as a whole, with magical heating and cooling it wont matter if it´s not entirely efficient, which reduces total machinery size a good bit more, and especially allows it to be more manageable (a cylinder based machinery needs to be perpendicular to the shaft).

Magicbased machinery also means you can cut back on crewsize a bit. It also means you can bruteforce speed.

And as always, you can fluff around the issue by coming up with a "it´s magic" explanation.
You could say for example that you take the classic Monitor/Virginia, raise their freeboard by 1-2m, increase their size enough to make them viable for at least some tough weather and then add magic to limit how easily water can get into the ship, they will still not be good at fighting in poor weather (but the difference compared to a classic frigate will be drastically smaller than compared to original design), but they should be vastly better at getting through it at least.


Personally i think what i would do is to take HMS Warrior, cut the uppermost 2 decks(or at least the uppermost deck), masts etc and any frills, then add back either a casemate (this is mostly how Virginia happened anyway) or 1-2 turrets on that, probably also increase the width to around 1/5 of length(~24m). Not perfect or quite as close to the look you probably want, not to mention being a ~10000 ton 120m long ship, but it should be a very nasty and realistic warship for a place whose tech has plateued around ironclads.

It can probably be squeezed down at least to 5000 tons in size maybe 70-80m long 17-20m wide. Not too far from Gloire which could also be a good starting point.

With Warrior and Gloire both managing 13 kts you can probably expect these ones to get at least 15 kts, 20+ kts is certainly not out of reach since you have "free" heating and possibly semi-free water tankage (the system will always loose water over time, but a good condensor setup should keep 70-95% in the system each pass) as well.

To be honest I've got too much payload loaded onto the airships to be plausible for hydrogen anyway, but they do burn spectacularly when destroyed. I won't give details, and interested players can assume it's some sort of magically enhanced flammable lifting gas (Windhaven magical items mostly work by enhancing natural properties rather than creating entirely new ones).

Sounds plenty plausible enough for a game.