[Mkguild] Clarification Re: Fireworks and their alternatives

[JL Badgley]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 8:33 PM, Ryx <sundansyr at yahoo.com> wrote:
> There are many ways to replicate the effects of 'fireworks' (and they wouldn't be called 'fireworks' because the 'fire' that makes them work would not be so much a big part of the display).

I always thought the 'works' in the name was more akin to
'waterworks'... such that it is a 'work' of fire.  Thus, I see no
reason they should not be called 'fireworks'.

> There are many analogues that can be used to make a light show in the sky.  One of the earliest limits of Metamor was 'no gunpowder' and it's been that way since its inception, I would prefer not to set that aside.  The advention of gunpowder would lead to the introduction of those things that gunpowder allows (and this would happen in months, as another writer saw gunpowder but no guns... and sought to introduce them).

First off, I agree that you can't have gunpowder--you don't have guns,
so what would such a powder be for?  Second, I believe that there is a
date for a musket set at 300 years in the future.   Unsure whether
this is a matchlock or flintlock, but we have a date for guns that
could theoretically be extrapolated backwards to there being some sort
of combustible alchemical material that could be used to reproduce
'fireworks'.  You don't have to explicitly state what it is, and if
needed we could canonize the progression of firearms from now until
the muskets and thus have a timeline whereby different guns could be
introduced, assuming it is a problem.

That said, we are in a magical universe, with a master alchemist (or
two or three) in the Keep.  Shouldn't it be fairly easy to make things
that go boom (in some stories it seems to happen quite often, as a
rather unintended side-effect)?  And why worry so much about *what*
makes it go boom?  You don't have to write about the dragon sand, or
the mages who think this is or isn't beneath them--just craft a nice
scene about the finished product.  Let other people worry themselves
to death about what made it go boom in a world where there is no
gunpowder.

I *do* like the idea of some kind of aerial 'fire-tag'.  I thought
that sounded like a neat dragon competition.

-Tatsushu