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Full Item Description
The item can be any colour at all. It has a rough surface with swarms of air holes all over.
Its effect is not that it makes fire or helps it grow it is not even known how it works but once a fire is lit on this stone that fire will not go out if left completly undisturbed. When a fire is lit on a Charstone it will stay there stable forever not even affecting the Charstone in anyway. Of course if water is thrown on it or any deliberate attempt is made to stop the fire then the flame will go out.
And the flame will not grow on the stone so it is logical to pour some oil on it before lighting it. This is because the fire does not grow on the stone however the fire can be transfered to other objects just as well so a large fire is needed to start the light the charstone at first. The charstone can be used for torches in tombs, lanterns for adventurers or kept to light any that needs lighting. Through all this the Charstone will not be effected, in any physical manner.
However there is only a small quantity of stones (around 30) and the Stones are about the size of a lump of coal not to mention the fact that an accident could cause the fire to go out as well.
History
This stone was designed by a group of 3 young alchemists who made Charstones easily. They discovered a secret that made it simple to create them but they did not see how huge heaps of gold could be made from it. But you see they were part of an Alchemists guild and… well their teachers did see the money making potential of the Charstones. So they repossessed the young apprentices’ work and passed it off as their own. While making a fortune it was not enough to satisfy their greed. They found that although they sized a large amount of stones they could not duplicate them as the secret, ingenious and probably simple principle was not put down in the student alchemists lab notes because it was the key to all their work. When doing calculations they wrote the symbol A as a repersentation of it. So the Master Alchemists went to the youths and were about to ask them for the secret of the Charstone when one of the youths refused and enraged at the greedy alchemists’ nerve attacked….... foolishly, the Seniors over reacted and in the magical fire fight that followed two of the youths died and one was subdued. After refusing to say another word to the alchemists he was imprison in the dungeons below the guild hall of the alchemists.
His name was Inovus and there he remains refusing to reveal his secrets to the men that killed his best friends. All the while thinking about how to escape and get revenge. He has been imprisoned for three months already and the Alchemist are begining to think torture might bring them the riches that the secret Inovus holds might bring.
Magic/Cursed Properties
As stated above the Charstone sustains fire on it as long as it is not disturbed, by a gust of wind or water for example. If there is but one crack in the stone then it is usless.
The secret of the stone is as follows:
At first the fire burns the air and the oxygen within the air but also absorbs the air channeling it into the centre of the Charstone where a magical process takes place that recycles the air. The oxygen it then used again and again continually fueling the fire.
January 17, 2006, 18:49
Has the guild been able to produce any more of these? Or are there still only the originals that the three novices made?
I like the effect, and the backstory is adequate.
4/5.
January 17, 2006, 20:38
January 17, 2006, 23:02
January 18, 2006, 8:57
The History is pointless. In short, someone made some, then lost the secret of it. Nobody looked through their lab notes? Nobody scryed? No telepathy? In a world with that much magical booyah, the secret died with them?
So there is a limited amount of the stuff because of your psuedohistory. I understand that. But, the economic benefits of this stuff would casually pay for itself AND provide a tidy sum for the user, even with an obscene price. Put it in a forge. NO MORE FUEL. And the fire only needs to be "pumped up once" - since the fire will not diminish. Magic uber forges.
This is ghost rock without the side effects. blah.
Oh... and my favorite part...
"And there he remains refusing to reveal his secrets to the men that killed his best friends. all the while thinking about how to escape and get revenge. "
Well how long ago was this story? 3 months? 200 years? what? Pointless drama that leads no where. Are people trying to break him out to get more of this stuff?
Nope too many loose ends... it is a macrame after being hit by a weed wacker.
January 19, 2006, 6:36
2 Who said anything about magical booyah, the boys may have been foolish by not seeing the stones potential but for heavens sake not all alchemists are the organised type. I said nothing about lab notes which means there are no lab notes.
3 Oh and I definatly did not make this clear. The stones are small and you could not fuel a forge with with one or two it also needs oil to be poured on the stone at first to get it going. Even with all the stones put together the fire would not be sufficient to fuel a forge they need really hot fires and all the stone does is sustain the fire that is it.
4.Like I said the history was only meant to give the stone a bit of background and if the plot needs more detail then I will do that when I make it into an actual plot.
January 20, 2006, 20:00
Ummm No. Your history was not clear. The write up made it sound like there were a number of the stones, a good number. If that is not the case, that needs to be edited.
2 Who said anything about magical booyah, the boys may have been foolish by not seeing the stones potential but for heavens sake not all alchemists are the organised type. I said nothing about lab notes which means there are no lab notes.
Okay. So no alchemist had a potion of telepathy or truth forcing in their posession? What do these guys make?
Alchemists are psuedo scientists, lab notes are implied. That aside, the kids experimented a couple of times and didn't keep track of what worked and what did not. Was it just a one time accident? (If it was, you should put that in the history).
3 Oh and I definatly did not make this clear. The stones are small and you could not fuel a forge with with one or two it also needs oil to be poured on the stone at first to get it going. Even with all the stones put together the fire would not be sufficient to fuel a forge they need really hot fires and all the stone does is sustain the fire that is it.
Then fix it. If that is the case, then the best fire you can get out of one of these things is the spark of the tinder, since the fire can not grow. So there is a inconsistance there.
4.Like I said the history was only meant to give the stone a bit of background and if the plot needs more detail then I will do that when I make it into an actual plot.
If you are going to include it in the post, hit all the major points. If you want to make it a scenario, then make another post with the major and minor points. If it is not worth including, then don't include it in the post./
January 20, 2006, 21:03
HIGH FIVE! YES!
January 18, 2006, 13:11
January 18, 2006, 14:11
It is an interesting item. That part works for me.
It will however change the world. See the Forge comment above. There are other uses that could be applied from castle defense to manufacutring. You should comment upon that in the post.
However, it is the history you included on the item that also totally does not work for me as well. It needs to be rewritten and given context for the items. If this all happened centuries ago, then there is no more of this stuff. If it happened last week, people don't yet know about the material (and will just be finding new uses for it) and you could "break the guy out" so he can make more for you. ..
I need you to put a little refinement on the history, to close a few open loops there, so we can focus more on the item.
January 18, 2006, 15:47
However, there are a lot of problems with this post, an I mean a lot.
1) Grammar. I have yet to carefully inspect your submission for this, but I did not notice a single comma anywhere. I suggest you go back and speak through it, adding a comma anyplace that you might pause.
Also make sure to fix capitalization spelling and any other grammar errors.
2)Format. You have the Magical properties with the full item description of the item. Worse offenses definitely exist, but I do think that the Description, History, Magical properties format does work very well. If nothing else, delete the Magical properties text so that it is not so blatant.
Now we have finished with the easy stuff. Let us move on to the larger problems.
3)Equivalent exchange. There is one fundamental law in all Alchemy. Equivalent Exchange: For every output, there is an equal input. Fire outputs heat, light, and energy. The input is fuel, air, and heat (which is partially self sustaining).
Now this rock does not use magic (which often fills the holes in equivalent exchange) because it is purely alchemical, therefore something has to be used up in this process, and that would have to be the rock. In other words, you have broken the most basic principal of Alchemy in the creation of this item, which of course, has lead to the accurate comments given by KendraHeart.
4)History (part one). I am not going to lie. I think that it is pretty bad, although some of that is probably the lack of grammar. Still, the plausibility of this story is pretty slim, and makes little sense.
The first problem is the total lack of detail. Who are these three boys, do they have names, aspirations or goals? What about the greedy teachers? What about the Guild itself? How old are the students in question? What year are they? On and on. Look at the submissions that have fours and fives next to them. These are the good examples. Use them. Learn from them. You never see a history this short next to a four or five.
5) History(part two). Three young alchemists have come across a secret that they do not realize is valuable. Now why exactly did the Teachers not inquire about the process as soon as it was discovered? If they are in fact students, then the teachers are practically entitled to know how this was done. Furthermore, I see no reason why the alchemists who made the stone, not realizing it's potential, would not be willing to part with it's secret, even without being asked.
Any aspiring student would want to show off how accomplished they are to their teachers for some recognition, unless they thought that the secret was somehow valuable. Which they did not.
And Kendra is right. They would have lab notes and journals everywhere. Where are those?
6) History (part three). Assuming that the teachers did not simply ask about the process of the Charstone's creation in the first place, the fight makes little sense.
Even if the student had no rational sense at all, how did he attack the teachers in such a way that two deaths could result? Are you honestly telling me that the student tried to kill the teacher? If you are, then this boy is demonstrating psychopathological behavior, in which case he should never have made it this far.
These students would have to be relatively well behaved in order to have made it to such a point. Just attacking the teacher represents, at best, an un-educated highschool mentality. I cannot imagine what kind of student would try to kill a teacher. These kids would have been taught for years exactly how dangerous the chemicals and potions in the lab are. Caution would be second nature, or else they would have had a serious accident years back.
As far as the teachers go, are you trying to convince me that they have no policy for protecting themselves from, and calmly dealing with out of control students? They have been enforcing rules and regulations for years. I would imagine that they would have a way to shield these boys off and deal with the problem.
It is not too hard to imagine that they would have protocols for dealing with juveniles in restricted areas that would also apply here. It just seems a little unrealistic to think that these people would over-react so strongly.
There is a lot that does not make sense here. I think that you need to seriously rewrite this post. I have tried to not repeat advice or criticism that you have received from anybody else, but that does not mean that I do not agree with it.
I suggest that you seriously rewrite this whole thing from ground up.
Poor history+lack of explaination+lack of plausibility+lack of care to grammar and spelling+potentially good idea=1.5/5.0 (Has a Seed of Usefulness
January 18, 2006, 15:49
January 20, 2006, 23:16
January 22, 2006, 9:28
January 27, 2006, 8:36
November 29, 2012, 11:46
It's sort of an interesting idea, or a potentially interesting idea: a fuel source that does not expire. You light it, it stays lit until it's put out, presumably forever. I doubt that's the first time someone's come up with that, but it has potential as an interesting object.
The alchemical story is a little odd. It basically is an artificial cap on why there's only a few of these things around. That could be a good thing, but it's not very well written.
So overall, a sub-par submission. Could have been fixed with a more vivid story, or some more details on its operation and usage, but lacking that, I give it a 2.5/5.
November 29, 2012, 15:06
Another comment I would like to make is how it works. Alchemy is the process of creating something without magic, with a completely natural process. I don't see how something without a healthy dose of magic could sustain a fire.
Anyway, that's my two cents.