Post by Catsmate on Nov 26, 2016 11:19:47 GMT
Lightning, gunpowder and churches: an explosive mix.
I'd heard of the practice of using church vaults for storing gunpowder but hadn't realised how common it was until I was researching something completely different (as usually happens).
From this here are a couple of ideas to drop into a historical scenario.
Apparently storing gunpowder in church vaults was a common practice for centuries; it was believed that the bells protected the building from lightning and it was common practice to ring the bells to ward off thunder. This led to the deaths of hundreds of bell-ringers...
This didn't work very well, the high church towers tended to attract lightning strikes. Two excellent examples of this are:
1. Brescia in Italy. The town was levelled on 18AUG1769 by the detonation of about ninety tonnes of gunpowder that had been stored in the vaults of the church of San Nazaro. More than three thousand people died and about one-sixth of the town was destroyed. The event caused the Roman Catholic Church to withdrew it's religious objection to lightning rods.
2. Rhodes in the South Aegean (then part of the Ottoman Empire). A large quantity (probably over a hundred tonnes) stored in the Palace of the Grand Master and an adjacent church was detonated by lightning on 04APR1856, killing around four thousand people.
Then there's this interesting historical snippet. During the Battle of Torrington in the English Civil War stray sparks from the battle ignited about six tonnes of gunpowder stored in a local church, obliterating the church, killing scores of Parliamentarian prisoners held there and leading to a Parliamentarian victory. It also almost killed the noted Parliamentarian commander Sir Thomas Fairfax.
Game uses.
1. Exploring the vaults of a church, searching for the MacGuffin of the week, the players discover barrels of gunpowder. Do they realise why they're there? Or jump to completely the wrong conclusion? Do they realise how leaky powder barrels tended to be and take the appropriate precautions when exploring?
2. When the party is in desperate need of a large explosion (perhaps to kill something nasty) one the PCs with a smattering of historical knowledge remembers this practice. Now all they've got to do is entice the Big Bad into the church and detonate the gunpowder without killing themselves or (hopefully) any bystanders.
3. Were the explosions in Bresica and Rhodes really down to accidental gunpowder detonations? Or something different?
4. What if Faiffax's career had been ended decades early by that explosion in Torrington? An interesting opportunity for meddling with history, or an inadvertent change caused by a careless time traveller.
I'd heard of the practice of using church vaults for storing gunpowder but hadn't realised how common it was until I was researching something completely different (as usually happens).
From this here are a couple of ideas to drop into a historical scenario.
Apparently storing gunpowder in church vaults was a common practice for centuries; it was believed that the bells protected the building from lightning and it was common practice to ring the bells to ward off thunder. This led to the deaths of hundreds of bell-ringers...
This didn't work very well, the high church towers tended to attract lightning strikes. Two excellent examples of this are:
1. Brescia in Italy. The town was levelled on 18AUG1769 by the detonation of about ninety tonnes of gunpowder that had been stored in the vaults of the church of San Nazaro. More than three thousand people died and about one-sixth of the town was destroyed. The event caused the Roman Catholic Church to withdrew it's religious objection to lightning rods.
2. Rhodes in the South Aegean (then part of the Ottoman Empire). A large quantity (probably over a hundred tonnes) stored in the Palace of the Grand Master and an adjacent church was detonated by lightning on 04APR1856, killing around four thousand people.
Then there's this interesting historical snippet. During the Battle of Torrington in the English Civil War stray sparks from the battle ignited about six tonnes of gunpowder stored in a local church, obliterating the church, killing scores of Parliamentarian prisoners held there and leading to a Parliamentarian victory. It also almost killed the noted Parliamentarian commander Sir Thomas Fairfax.
Game uses.
1. Exploring the vaults of a church, searching for the MacGuffin of the week, the players discover barrels of gunpowder. Do they realise why they're there? Or jump to completely the wrong conclusion? Do they realise how leaky powder barrels tended to be and take the appropriate precautions when exploring?
2. When the party is in desperate need of a large explosion (perhaps to kill something nasty) one the PCs with a smattering of historical knowledge remembers this practice. Now all they've got to do is entice the Big Bad into the church and detonate the gunpowder without killing themselves or (hopefully) any bystanders.
3. Were the explosions in Bresica and Rhodes really down to accidental gunpowder detonations? Or something different?
4. What if Faiffax's career had been ended decades early by that explosion in Torrington? An interesting opportunity for meddling with history, or an inadvertent change caused by a careless time traveller.