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8 Votes

33xp

ID:4035
Hits:2793
Comments: 10
Ideas: 0
Rating:4
Condition: Normal

Submitted:
June 27, 2007, 8:36 pm
Updated:
July 29, 2007, 1:32 am





Voted Hall of Honour:
Cheka Man ( 1x )


Acid Grenade
By: Scrasamax

You can’t tell safe water from bad, well unless there is a pile of rotting bones in it with not a scrap of flesh left on ‘em and then it’s pretty obvious.

PVT. Quinn, memoirs

Full Item Description
Much like the Saristreea Grenade, the Acid grenade is an unassuming weapon. Coming in a wax sealed five gallon barrel it has similar warnings to keep dry and away from water at all times. Inside the barrel is a granular powder that has a white-blue color, and a scent much like powdered onion. Sniffing the powder or excess handling can cause chemical burns to the eyes, nose, mouth and hands.

History
Another weapon deployed by the siege crews of the Cheelstat militias, the Acid grenade was unique in it’s horror. As the battle of Nimz degenerated into a seemingly unwinnable stalemate that slowly bled both sides of young men and women, Cheelstat alchemists concocted an alchemical mixture that would turn standing water into a potent acid. Soon after rains, when the bottoms of the Nimzian trenches were a slurry of sucking mud and rainwater, the Cheelstater siege gunners would hurl casques of the powder into their enemies trenches.

In short order, the mud would be churned into an acidic slop that devoured boots, rotted wood in alarmingly short amounts of time and ruined many a man’s feet and hands. Sometimes water supplies would be hit, and the men would drink thirsty gulps only to be left bent over coughing up blood as the acid burned away their throats.

The acid grenades were eventually countered by the basic awning that kept the powder from entering the trenches, and by the use of steam powered pumps that kept the water sucked out of the bottoms of the trenches. A few grenades survived impact and now present a hazard around old Nimz as the wood has since rotted and permeation by ground water has turned these into leg breaking tubs of acidic paste.

Magic/Cursed Properties
The alchemical powder in the acid grenade turns standing water into a medium strength acid. As an organic acid, metal and glass are unharmed by the mixture while wood, leather, and flesh are rapidly corroded. The resultant acid pool can last as long as the ground remains wet and in large enough concentrations, renewed rainfall can be turned into acid again. Telling acidic water from mundane water is very difficult as once the powder has been mixed, it causes no change in the color or scent of of the water.

Much of the land around Nimz has been rendered contaminated and barren because of these grenades and after a strong rain, many of the puddles that form in low places have a varying degree of acidic potency. Most of the scavengers and thieves who now lair in the ruins of Old Nimz have developed techniques to test water for it’s quality. This ranges from the crass method of chucking something into the water to see if it burns in the acid to alchemist’s kits that detect the acid itself in the water.



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Suggested Submissions
Saristreea Grenade By: Scrasamax
Items » Ranged Weapons » Villanous

The cloud doesnt have much of a smell. It looks like fog until it’s on you and then it’s two late. A couple of sucking breaths and your chest is one fire and your eyes are bleeding. Terrible stuff, but if you think it is tough on the living, you should see what it does to the dead

PVT Thomas Quinn.

Comments ( 10 )
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Voted Pieh

2007-06-27 11:21 PM
Link: [4035#28313|text]
0xp
Yay! Burning goodness! I thoughly enjoy things that eat away at the flesh and boot. Now, a question: Does the acid ceated by this powder look and smell just like water? Or would it have the blue-white tint and smell of freshly chopped onions? Anyway, sounds fun. I vote a 3.5 but wish it could be higher. Unfortunatly there's nothing between 3.5 and 4. BAH! TO HECK WITH IT ALL! You get a 4. ]Error 1801[ :The Strolenite Known as Pieh has ceased funtioning, bring cheesecake immediatly:
 
Scrasamax

2007-06-28 05:29 AM
0xp
Good question, added it to the submission. Quick answer is that acid water and normal water are almost identical until you are exposed to them.

Sends cheesecake.
Voted Siren no Orakio

2007-06-28 06:43 AM
Link: [4035#28316|text]
0xp
Extra points for the vicious cunning and cunning viciousness of this submission. It sounds like the sort of brutal weapon that would be developed for trench warfare, given a certain level of tech.

The chemist in me feels compelled to note the following: Metals are not, whatsoever, proof against organic acids. As the chemist filling the barrel, I would probably tend to choose a salt of hydrogen floride(Hydrofloric acid), if available. Acids IRL are almost never as potent as portrayed in the movies, but hydrofloric acid is especially potent against the human body, and an exposure patch a few inches around can result in one of the most agonizing and painful deaths known to mankind, as it crashes the human nervous system and dissolves the skeleton in a self-restoring cycle.
Voted valadaar

2007-06-28 07:11 AM
Link: [4035#28317|text]
0xp
Not bad, though one could keep barrels of lye nearby to counteract the acid. Not sure how violent the reaction between the acid and lye would be.
Voted Cheka Man

2007-06-28 11:04 AM
Link: [4035#28322|text]
0xp
Unpleasent but very effective.
Voted MoonHunter

2007-06-28 05:19 PM
Link: [4035#28328|text]
0xp
I do like the extra details about the resulting environmental damage from using these things. Of course making acid is pretty expensive, but I guess the cost/ result ratio was high enough.
Chaosmark

2007-06-28 10:13 PM
0xp
Then again Moon, take into consideration alchemy. For all we know, the acid-making powder is a common byproduct that until the war wasn't useful for anything.
Voted Pariah
2007-06-28 09:39 PM
Only voted
Voted Chaosmark

2007-06-28 10:15 PM
Link: [4035#28334|text]
0xp
I find this to be much like the Saristreea Grenade: very very wrong. And yet, the exact sort of thing people come up with to kill each other in a war. I particularly like the setting that produced both of these items. I'd like to see more of it.
Voted manfred

2007-06-29 01:40 PM
Link: [4035#28344|text]
0xp
I wouldn't want to see anything of it. But read I could. :)

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The PCs encounter a strange set of artistic drawings done on the ground as they pass through a city. It has been done in chalks and no one saw who did it. Wizards might recognize the writing within the colored square as an obscure and dead language with a message stating that a prominent wizard and a retired bard have discovered how to populate Arcadia with the spirits of the dead! Is it a local hoax, or are the PCs crossing the path of a very deranged and possibly dangerous mage?
By: Scrasamax | UpVote