[PnP] Dragon skinning blues...
Burton Choinski
bchoinski at comcast.net
Fri Mar 30 04:08:31 CEST 2007
Is that the double-size one in the mountains? We never know the
"official" name for it, but we named it "Slagg". I think the players
had a chance to meet it in our games in the 80's, but they ran like
little girls. :}
On Mar 29, 2007, at 7:58 AM, Sylverrs_ dragon wrote:
> 1) Would have some form of tanning needed to try the skin under the
> scales so they don't flake off and it doesn't rot.
>
> 2) On the god thing, Kototh has been mentioned. There is also
> Zuriti to directly consider. He is the eldest Elder Dragon, son of
> Kototh and sire of the race. Something of a brilliant, cunning
> battleship with a truly mean disposition and incredible greed.
>
>
> From: Burton Choinski <bchoinski at comcast.net>
> Reply-To: The Powers and Perils Mailing List <pnp at abroere.xs4all.nl>
> To: The Powers and Perils Mailing List <pnp at abroere.xs4all.nl>
> Subject: Re: [PnP] Dragon skinning blues...
> Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 23:06:18 -0400
> >I'm still trying to get a grasp on how long it takes to tan hide.
> >However, I think I'm looking at the armor in a different way...it
> >makes not sense to have the hide with scales stuck in...what if a
> >scale is broken or falls off? You get a hole (Smaug knows all about
> > that stuff). I'm re-envisioning it as scale mail with the light
> >(but tough) dragon scale instead of metal. A lot of the work is
> >therefor spent in drilling holes in the scale and attaching them to
> >the leather under them. In this case, the tanning process is more
> >to remove the scales and cure them.
> >
> >
> >
> >On Mar 28, 2007, at 2:20 AM, Tobie Bonahoom wrote:
> >
> >>Well, to start with - and I am sure you have thought of this,
> >>however just need to bring it up -- this was a Kotothi dragon, so
> >>that would make it a magical beast, which makes some of the
> >>possibilities come to the front of my thoughts.
> >>
> >>One, anything made from it would have the Kotothi alignment
> >>attached to it, unless the players can come up with a way to purify
> >> it.
> >>
> >>Two, Kototh might be a tad pissed off about one of his greater
> >>creatures being killed - especially if there was an elf of the
> >>Sidh alignment involved. He might just do something about it
> >>quickly (unless this dragon was of no real value to him).
> >>
> >>Three, are they going to haul all this hide and scales to a place
> >>or build the pits and curing and everything right there. As this
> >>will take a minimum of 30 or 40 days to just get the hide cured and
> >> tanned, before making anything with it.
> >>
> >>Fourth, don't know if you are taking any of the magical properties
> >>into place here, however because it was as dragon, most of them
> >>inherit magical affinities that can come into play. With that
> >>possibility you could also make the curing and armor making faster
> >>or harder, with having to have a mage helping the out with the
> >>process.
> >>
> >>Just my quick thoughts on the matter for what you put into this. I
> >>would definitely have the rest (teeth, bones, talons, blood) be a
> >>bit trickier as just getting those pieces off the dragon could kill
> >> them with some of the wild magics that can run through them.
> >>Also, I remember too that the blood still has properties even
> >>though they did not get it from the dragon while it was alive.
> >>
> >>Tobie Bonahoom
> >>
> >>>From: Burton Choinski <bchoinski at comcast.net>
> >>>Reply-To: The Powers and Perils Mailing List
> >>><pnp at abroere.xs4all.nl>
> >>>To: The Powers and Perils Mailing List <pnp at abroere.xs4all.nl>
> >>>Subject: [PnP] Dragon skinning blues...
> >>>Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2007 23:50:23 -0400
> >>>
> >>>101 ways to skin a dragon...
> >>>---------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>>Well, the last session was an interesting one, and all sorts of
> >>>plot undercurrents are springing up. The players managed to get
> >>>their 20- Hunfrithi force to the hills west of Caldo without human
> >>> detection. They left 10 at the chosen site and headed back
> >>>with the other 10 to make a report to the elder.
> >>>
> >>>On the trip out they been detected by something (they blew their
> >>>ambush chance, it made it). It followed and monitored trhem
> >>>until they left the Caldan area.
> >>>
> >>>When they arrived back, the players noticed an Elder dragon
> >>>(Kototh) flying high over head, sort of keeping pace with the
> >>>group, but not attacking.
> >>>
> >>>Silly players, they decide to taunt it in order to get it down to
> >>> where they can attack it. I have the main warrior character
> >>>make his case and make an influence chance ... 01! Holy crap --
> >>>you just flippled off the dragon and now he's coming in.
> >>>
> >>>Over the course of the battle the dragon pretty much flew at 100'
> >>>or so, huffing up a flame on the main tank. Now this character
> >>>has a very high MDV to begin with (character), plus he is immune
> >>>to 5 levels of magic as a special (yea, it's gross, but these are
> >>> our old 80's characters and we decided that if we reupped this
> >>>once-a-month game they would be doing big things).
> >>>
> >>>As the battle went on, the tank was getting slowly burnt up. The
> >>>elf was doing his best with the bow and was getting the draggon
> >>>nibbled down (side note: this was the first time the new SIZE
> >>>rules were really felt and there was quite the heated discussion
> >>>on it. see below). The dragon was getting weaker, but since it
> >>>refused to grapple with an obvious combat monster the tank would
> >>>be done before it was. They gambled on another taunting to get
> >>>the dragon close whough for the law wizard to cast a spell --
> >>>killing light.
> >>>
> >>>And they did it. That kototh dragon had the biggest look of
> >>>suprise on it's 3 heads.
> >>>
> >>>-----------------
> >>>Ok, now they have the dragon and they want to "loot the body".
> >>>And of course, with no rules in the books on this it comes to
> >>>rule makeup time. Comments are very welcome, especially since
> >>>the next game is this sunday (the 1st).
> >>>
> >>>Okay, first off we figured this elder dragon was 30' or so. A lot
> >>> of that, obviously, is tail and neck. Nothing to go on for
> >>>weight, so I had to play with numbers.
> >>>
> >>>An eagle scaled to 30' would weigh 12,000#.
> >>>A Komodo dragon scaled to 30' would weigh 10,000#
> >>>A nile crocodile scaled to 30' would be 3,300#
> >>>A salt water croc scled to 30' would be 5,500#.
> >>>
> >>>Ok, splitting the difference from reptialian and large wingspan
> >>>bird, I come up with 7,500# or so. Looking at it again, and
> >>>rounding numbers for taste, we come to 8,800#. This means that
> >>>dragons weigh in at 100#/AHP.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>MEAT:
> >>>This all assumes that dragon meat is even edible, much less
> >>>Kotothi dragons. Assuming it is, the obvious plan is to preserve
> >>> what they can of the "best" meat and sell it as a novelty. I
> >>>presume they will be using the wizard's preservation spell to
> >>>keep it okay for now (have to investigate spell limits).
> >>>
> >>>presumably we are talking top-grade cooks for this. it looks
> >>>like EL20 is about fair for your normal trained cook, with EL40
> >>>for a "x2" cook. Assuming the meat is nothing special I suppose
> >>>that EL40 is sufficuent to cook it given the instructions on
> >>>preparation, but presumably requires character-class cooks to
> >>>actually figure out those instructions of how to cook, season, or
> >>> otherwise make it edible. I guess we can figure on losing at
> >>>least some of the meat in experimentation.
> >>>
> >>>Looking into it online, it looks like herbivores come in with a
> >>>wide range of "meat ratios" , but fumbling the numbers a bit and
> >>>rounding for ease of use it looks like wild herbivores come in at
> >>> 25% weight for meat and domestic herbivores at 50% weight. The
> >>> remainder is waste and non-meat products (bone, blood,
> >>>intestines. (Domestic is higher since it is raised for meat).
> >>>
> >>>From Wik: "Beef is first divided into primal cuts. These are
> >>>basic sections from which steaks and other subdivisions are
> >>>cut.When looking at a diagrams such as the ones below, note that
> >>>the closer to the middle back, the more tender the meat is. Since
> >>> the animal's legs and neck muscles do the most work, they are
> >>>the toughest; the meat becomes progressively more tender as
> >>>distance from "hoof and horn" increases."
> >>>
> >>>One would assume that would normally apply to other animals, but
> >>>dragons have a big honking set of wings that impact the area
> >>>where the sirloin would be. I guess by this rule of thumb, the
> >>>tail meat is what ends up being the tenderest, with the rest
> >>>being relatively tough. Also, I figure that as a flying beast at
> >>> least hal it's weight will be in the huge wings, and there will
> >>> be hardly anything usable in that, so cut all yields in half.
> >>>
> >>>With beef, "the good cuts" (Sirloin) end up being 10% of the meat
> >>> weight. About another 20% are "fair" cuts (roasts and chuck).
> >>>The rest is stew meat or burger.
> >>>
> >>>So this 8800# dragon will render 1,100# of meat, of which 110#
> >>>are the tenderest cuts and another 220# are decent steaks and
> >>>roasts.
> >>>
> >>>Preservation does not indicate a quantity limit -- Give the base
> >>>time I assume the original intent was a man-day of food (3FP, or
> >>>3#) that could be preserved for travel. To keep it simple, I
> >>>suppose we can figure the effect is a combined value -- at EL4 we
> >>> have an effect of 32 -- this is one man-day of food preserved
> >>>untouched for 32 days, or 32 man-days of food left safe and
> >>>unspoiled for 1 day (even if it's full of mayo :) or any range in
> >>> between. Presumably the caster can refresh the spell each day,
> >>>so if need be he can spend it all on quantity, but the time is
> >>>never less that a full day.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>HIDE:
> >>>The tank character is an armorer, so he wants the hide to make
> >>>leather armor from. An elder dragon's AV is 6, but this is on a
> >>>30' beast (of which we can figure that about HALF that is body).
> >>> The question becomes one of "how much of this AV is due to
> >>>thickness, and how much is due to properties?
> >>>
> >>>As a flying creature, weight does become a premium, so a good
> >>>portion of the AV is due to properties of the hide. many of the
> >>>larger reptiles that are ground based seem to hit around AV2, so
> >>>I can feal comfortable with have a base of 2 for larger creature
> >>>(increased for size, decreased for flight). If we consider
> >>>dragon hide to be scaled, an actual dragon's hide is a lot like
> >>>scale mail or lamilar -- AV2 in raw hide, with AV4 in overlapping
> >>> plates.
> >>>
> >>>Your average modern cow can be peeled for about 50 square feet of
> >>> hide. This is presumably fairly thin and needs to be doubled up
> >>> when making leather armor (to get AV1). When a cow is layed
> >>>out it's pretty much a squarish rectangle, but a dragon would be
> >>>more drawn out. Given a main body size of 15', we can probably
> >>>look at about 25' (body plus some usable tail and necks) by 6',
> >>>or about 150 square feet of hide and scale (about triple that of
> >>>a modern cow, or five times that of a medieval cow). It takes
> >>>about a week to prepare raw skin into leather, though a process
> >>>of soaking, scraping, tanning (often using the brains of the
> >>>creature as a part of the tanning mix) and smoking. Presumably
> >>>the dragon hide will need a bit more work. I think a good guess
> >>>is that it will take at least four times as long (twice as long
> >>>for the size and efort to soak and scrape, and twice as long for
> >>>the smoke time to cure it). In addition, one will be going
> >>>somewhat slower so as to not losen the scales before the hide is
> >>>fully cured, so ut the time by another 2 factor to SIX times as
> >>>long. My cost estimates have it at 1SC to cure a cow hide into
> >>>leather. A dragon hide will presumably require more expensive
> >>>(and probably caustic) materials, so I would have it be at least
> >>>1GC in materials as a minimum for the hide alone. Presumably the
> >>> scale would need even more treatment so that they would not
> >>>loosen from the hide, so I would up the material cost by 4GC more
> >>> for the scales for a minimum total of 5GC.
> >>>
> >>>Ok, so how much leather is needed? About 4# of leather go into
> >>>leather armor (by the books) which is about 8 square feet of 8oz
> >>>leather (8oz per square foot). Cow hide is easily thich enough
> >>>for this, but we obviously have to thicken it up by doubling over
> >>> when you make armor. Call it 15 square feet of cowhide for
> >>>leather armor. If we go by the same rule of thumb, the
> >>>underlying hide of the dragon is normally AV1 right off the bat
> >>>and thick enough to not need doubling (and in fact cannot be so,
> >>>since we havethe scales on the outside). The scales themselves
> >>>only provide AV3 since they are stiffer and don't provide the
> >>>coverage they did on a live dragon. Accounting for waste, call it
> >>> 10 square feet of hide for AV4 dragonscale leather, with a
> >>>weight of 10# for the hide alone. Assume the scales are tough
> >>>and thin, but with an equal weight, so this dragonscale armor
> >>>would weigh 20#.
> >>>
> >>>Construction?
> >>>Given all that wonderful dragon leather, how long will it take to
> >>> form? The underlying hide will take at least twice as long to
> >>>cut and sew. The armorer is not actually cutting the scales
> >>>(hard as plate and cannot be hammered or shaped like for metal
> >>>armors) but instead cutting out the leather underneath to form
> >>>the peice, which is then sewn together much like normal leather
> >>>armor.
> >>>
> >>>In my armorer rules I tried to figure out appropriate times to
> >>>make armor based on the sale price and material cost. If an
> >>>armorer makes 2GC per month then obviously that is the sale price
> >>> of all his armors after taking into account materail cost. By
> >>>my figuring, leather armor takes a tad less than a day to make
> >>>(1SC, with a material cost of 4CC. Labor value is 6CC.
> >>>200CC/30 days is 6.667CC per day). using the same concept and a
> >>>few assumptions, we can generate the numbers we need.
> >>>
> >>>Assuming a final price of 40GC, and materials value 200x that of
> >>>leather (for comparison, steel has a value of 10x that of
> >>>leather), I jiggered the material% until the numbers lined up. It
> >>> works out to 240 days of work to account the armorer's labor
> >>>costs in order to justify the 40GC of sale price. Now this is a
> >>>special item, so I'm tweaking the umbers a tad. One, any armorer
> >>> who can do this is obviouly skilled enough to justify a greater
> >>> rate. If we figure a rate of 5GC/month, that would assume
> >>>labor is actually 100 days. But that still seems awfully long
> >>>just for cut and sew (essentially) thick leather. I'm willing
> >>>to cut the time by a third (round to 30 days, or one month) to
> >>>call it a "luxury" peice...any armorer who has the chance to
> >>>make it can make one and then relax the next 60 days.
> >>>
> >>>That's enough for this tome. The other items of Question are
> >>>TEETH and BONES. Any suggestions there?
> >>>
> >>>
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