Re: Alternative helm creation (major and minor helms)

I just got in from work and read your posts, it is amazing that you have hit
on the exact methodology that I used in my campaign ten years ago with
plogiston being the secret ingredient and the time constraints of building
one in the flow. I thought the cost of helms was too cheap so I bumped the
price up triple. The Arcane have a monopoly on the making of helms that
keeps them in power. My players (like the elves), did not like this fact and
took steps to remedy this imbalance of power. First a note about how I ran
my system. I took the star trek route, no primitive worlds were allowed to
be influenced by the space faring peoples (prime directive) enforced by the
IEN. A world had to be united and have a functioning world government before
any kind of contact could be made. My guys actually accomplished this on
behalf of their emperor (much to my surprise). Next I took the Rock of Bral
and changed it from a seedy port town into a major industrial and military
colony. I mean after all, these people had made the jump to space! That
implies a lot of organization and high technological (magicological)
advancement. I set up shipyards and shipboard equipment factories. The
Arcane were dead set to have this haven of competition destroyed by any one
of the "evil" races (vodoni, flayers, beholders, etc...). besides those
races didn't buy Arcane (that's why they're evil of course) and strife
between them and everyone else was good for business. War equals money
influence and power. My guys never learned the secret of helm creation the
Arcane way, but they did come up with about two dozen workable alternatives
that were just cheap enough to build to allow Homeworld and Bral to build a
navy with their combined planetary budgets. Overcoming problems: furnaces
can't go in the flow; Wall of Force can be made permanent and shaped into
just about any form. Only about 30 days of air on a ship; Priest spell
purify air can be made permanent or placed into magic device "air purifiers"
that can run off of batteries or ship power tied into helm. Not enough food;
bags of holding will hold 1000cu ft of volume with no time lapse of items
stored within (the fruit you put in last week is just as fresh today as it
was when you put it in). no water; decanter of endless water run through a
piping system provides limitless showers, drinking water, and fire fighting
system. (those can be made by priests using create water spell as primary
action component). Furnace drive moves too slow insystem; go for a gravity
drive (this gets expensive and complicated, but is worth it) triple cast of
augmentation, reverse gravity on drive plate made permanent, contingency
spell ties battery power to controls and drive plate for acceleration
control, tie drive plate to yoke for direction control and voila you have a
gravity drive that moves the ship at 8 planetary gravities (for ease of math
I figured this at about SR 8 MAX but multiple drives increase speed by half
Max per unit). Pesky gravity plane messing up your cargo stowage; reverse
the reverse gravity spell on ship decks/overheads and you have matching
internal gravity planes and an inertial compensator when tied to ships
power. Constantly have to refuel the furnace; then use a plasma drive power
supply for energy to feed the furnace. Simply enclose a staff of power or
other retributive strike staff in a temporal fugit spell contained within a
cylindrical wall of force capped by another wall of force and break it, the
R strike will leak out over the course of several rounds funneled by the
walls of force into your battery charging devices, or directly into your
homemade drive helm. I just hit the bare bones of what my guys and I did,
these items worked for us in my campaign against the Arcane and the evil
hordes that they sent to wipe us out. If you want to know about FTL comms or
IFF beacons etc... then let me know. 

V/R FC2 Riley, James R. 
cel: 228-249-2967
e-mail: jamesriley@???.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Spelljammer Setting Discussion
[mailto:SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com] On Behalf Of David Shepheard
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 12:35 PM
To: SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com
Subject: Re: [SPELLJAMMER] Alternative helm creation (major and minor helms)

>From: Dreamer <dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk>
>Reply-To: Discussion list for the Spelljammer campaign setting

><SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com>
>To: SPELLJAMMER-L@??????.???????.com
>Subject: [SPELLJAMMER] Alternative helm creation
>Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005 10:15:01 +0000

Assuming I haven't put you off of the idea with my other posts, here are 
some thoughts on how to actually implement this.

>We are pretty clear, at least in AD&D terms, of how to get a
>working Minor Helm and Major Helm, of the standard varieties, as
>spells exist in the basic SJ rules. And, you just roll these into
>your favourite enchantment system.

This is not as simple as you make it out to be. First lets have a look at 
the item creation rules. I'll use the 3e rules. Lets use the Create 
Wonderous Item Feat as this seems to match the description of a spelljamming

helm best. Have a look at this URL:

http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/featsItc.html

Firstly I refer you to the scarey text: "Some wondrous items incur extra 
costs in material components or XP, as noted in their descriptions." This is

the line that has been keeping the arcane in business. There is a secret 
ingredient that needs to be added in order to create a permanant version of 
the minor or major helm. I'll come back to this but first lets look at the 
"easy" stuff:

1) "Enchanting a wondrous item takes one day for each 1,000 gp in its 
price."

>From memory the helm prices are 100,000 gp and 250,000 gp for minor and 
major helms, so your wizard/cleric needs to spend 100 or 250 days to make 
this. That is a really long time to be doing something without going off to 
do other work or otherwise being interupted.

2) "To enchant a wondrous item, you must spend 1/25 of the item's price in 
XP and use up raw materials costing half of this price."

So your wizard/cleric looses 4,000 or 10,000 XP and needs 50,000 or 125,000 
gp of stuff before he starts. Forgetting the XP for a moment, as your 
wizard/cleric can obviously afford to loose the points, that is a lot of 
stuff to buy. Don't forget this isn't just a matter of paying half the cost 
of a helm. Whatever this stuff is, it takes up room, it needs to be 
transported to the place where you are going to make your helm. Some of it 
could have a shelf life. There are logistics to think about.

3) "These costs are in addition to those derived from the item's base 
price."

Don't forget that you *also* have to buy a chair that the magic is going to 
be put into (because it is listed as a spell component). I would probably 
rule that this chair needs to be of mastercrafted quality in order to 
permanantly accept the magic. Anyone got an idea on the price of a nice 
sturdy handmade chair?

But the real killer is that scarey sentence I mentioned before: "Some 
wondrous items incur extra costs in material components or XP, as noted in 
their descriptions." From memory the Spelljammer Campaign Setting 
*specifically* states that these special components are unknown except to 
the arcane.

So what do you think we can put in there to fill in the blanks? How about 
this:

***********

The missing secret component needed to create a major or minor helm as a 
magic item is...

...phlogiston!

***********

If the would be helm must be continously bathed in phlogiston in order for 
it to become a magic item, then the helm would need to stay in the flow for 
100 or 250 days. Because the flow can not be captured and brought inside a 
sphere, the entire creation process would need to be done outside a crystal 
sphere!

*That* would explain why the arcane have managed to keep the secret *and* 
also make it possible but very difficult for anyone to make their own helms.

A wizard/cleric would need to be on a ship in the flow for 100 or 250 days 
while creating a helm. Because he would be unable to spelljam without 
interupting the process he would need an assistant to fly the ship for him. 
He might also need a crew to defend him from any passing ships or creatures.

Most ships only have 28 days of air, so he is going to have to find a way to

get over that obsticle. Food and water would also be a problem. I would 
think that he would need a supply ship to ferry air, food and water from a 
nearby sphere.

Maybe the arcane have found some way to exist without needing to breath. 
Perhaps there is an arcane archlich making helms for them and gaining enough

wealth to buy immortality from the gods.

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
easyInternet internet cafe
London UK

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