[Dragaera] The New Palace

[Philip Hart]

On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

>
> On Fri, June 4, 2010 14:20, Philip Hart wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Michael Wojcik wrote:
>>
>>> Jon%20Lincicum wrote:
>>>>
>>>> If a highwayman is clever, he never has to fire his weapon, anyway.
>>>> It's used as a threat, so I don't know that this is as big a drawback.
>>>
>>> This is an interesting point. Is a flashstone useful as a threat? If a
>>> random tough steps into the road holding a small rock, and claims it's
>>> a flashstone, would the fat[1] merchant in question believe it?
>>
>> This had occurred to me as well.  Also the question whether the merchant
>> might have a magic implement at hand that allows him to blow up any
>> in-range flashstone.
>
> There can't be any such spell; if there were, nobody would carry
> flashtones, and we know they do in that period.

There was such a spell for flash sticks iirc, and stones and spell could 
coexist at low densities - you just never pull the former on an Athyra.


>> But I would be inclined to suspect the merchant travels with a competent
>> archer who shoots anyone who tries to come within flashstone range.
>
> I don't think the Empire is rich enough to keep the trees and such pruned
> back THAT far from the roads.  There are perhaps worse problems in
> mountainous areas.

The scenario discussed (if I understand correctly) is a brigand openly 
approaching the merchant's party, drawing a flashstone or just a smooth 
rock, and saying stand and deliver.  Clearly being attacked from ambush 
is not going to be solved by a couple of archers, esp. if the bandits have 
(cross)bows.  But I doubt bandits in the days of pistols carried 
pistol-shaped pieces of metal, or pistols unloaded because they didn't 
have the technical skills to put in the black powder, making the threat 
ambiguous.

> This is one of the problems of city life, of course -- people have to come
> within knife range of each other ALL THE TIME.

Yes, this is a different problem for the merchant - I'm just thinking 
about the open road.  I assume that in the city there are either too many 
witnesses for holdups or the merchants' guild maintains groups of armed 
escorts at the city gates.