Post/Author/DateTime	Post
gensuke626 12-02-07, 04:45 PM	So. I was running a game of Eberron last night and my party's Patron tasked the group with retrieveing an Eberron Dragonshard of immense size. The problem is that it is currently claimed by Cannith North and being held in a secure location in Droam, near the borders of the Shadow Marches. They've discovered that the shard will be transported by Airship, and have decided that the best way to handle the situation is to Ambush the ship Mid-route from another Airship (The captain owes them a favor). So the party's artificer, with some assistance, came up with a magical device to aid in communication. The device has no name yet. Effectively what it is...It's a Use activated, unlimited use tinderbox that reproduces the effects of the Whispering Flame spell from Five Nations (I think that's the right spell...The one that lets you talk into a Candle and have it come out of another Candle.)...So basically you have two tinderboxes that act as Walkie-talkies. I priced the item at around 12,000 gp for a set. So, I'd like to know...what does everyone else think of this? I can see right off the bat that something like this is a world changing invention. I mean, she's basically invented the telephone...except she jumped right up to Mobiles... The player doesn't own creation rights to the device because she's a member of House Cannith and had to pull in a favor to get the resources necessary to construct the prototype devices... I guess what I'm looking for is either a slap on the wrist and someone telling me why it's not a good idea to let the players run around with such a device, or help with discussing what kind of impact the device would have on the world should it go to open market.
skrap-san 12-02-07, 05:29 PM	and now for an old old MMO joke made popular by world of warcraft /slap. well for one it would make it really easy to spy on each other, communicate in battles, in general talk to each others. But the high price should put a heavy stop to that. And I dont really see it as being that hard to figure out mechanics wise, take named spell, ad a cantrip involving fire, take a nice little masterwork box cast permanency a couple of times and calculate xp and gold loss...
gensuke626 12-02-07, 05:58 PM	I suppose... I had this idea though...after I had written the first post... Sivis currently runs a monopoly on fast message systems through the speaking stone network. Something like this could revolutionize the whole communication buisness... So since House Cannith controls the device and retains the rights and abilities to produce the device on a large scale...how much would house Sivis pay to buy the marketing rights to the devices themselves, allowing them to maintain a monopoly on long distance communication? I'm thinking of something in the realm of Millions of platinum pieces, a few favors owed to Merrix, and rights to Royalties on the order of 10-15%. Lucky for me, the player who made these is not buisness saavy or They could basically retire the character if they chose.
Vharuck 12-03-07, 11:42 AM	First off, what's the range on these tinder-talkies? Secondly, compare it to a preexisting item, House Sivis' sending stones. I think they're given statistics and a price in one of the books, maybe even simply the ECS. If you want to allow them to do this (because it is a cool idea) without upsetting the world, just make it less power than House Sivis' sending stones and suddenly it won't shatter the world.
Magicstar 12-03-07, 12:51 PM	Hmm, I think the catch with the whispering Flame spell is that the candles have to be lit. The duration is long enough but the candles burn out after a number of hours and the spell becomes useless then. If you consider the speaking stones they require someone who uses them to have the mark of scribing. The work at any distance and to any other stone. The catch with the Whispering Flame spell is the only to an attuned candle. I would say it's possible to make two endless candles and to tie the spell to it, but the problem remains that it's just those 2 candles. To make the spell continues active an unlimited times a day would be about 10k (spell lvl * caster lvl * 2000) add in something to persist a prestidigitation and you're at your 12k. Remember it's only between those 2 boxes and as you suggested House Civis will probably kill or worse to make sure this technique never makes it out. It won't completely ruin their business but would allow for more "discretion" in certain affairs and between certain people. See it as an scrambled and encoded red phone from Moscow to the President of the USA.