1338

## **The Business of War leads to Cannons**

The search for magical gunpowder had given glimmers of success, leading to several formulations that technically worked. None of them, though, were in the power zone that the SMC needed to make a worthy replacement for their compound repeating crossbows. Either it was slightly underpowered – or it blew apart the containment vessels (the barrel).

By **1338**, a solid work-around was developed and started with the concept of the Necklace of Fireballs. Each bead was utilized as propellant, and was placed into the barrel behind a projectile and wadding to keep it in place. It was expensive, but it was long-range, extremely powerful, and produced a thundering, dramatic psychological effect… not to mention that the SMC could produce it *comparative* cheaply on their economies of scale.

*How* they did it was a secret, *that* they did it spread like wildfire through Baldur’s Gate – then quickly to surrounding lands. The most immediate effect was increased wariness of Stonehearth’s Arms.

The secondary effects sparked a deeper connection and respect – even a level of grudging admiration – from other areas that had both brisk trade and a way of jealously guarding secrets. Staunch ally Lantan was the first in line, but now high-magic societies like the cloistered Halruaa found Stonehearth to be their new best friends outside “the Walls.”

Utilizing bigger “Types” – how alchemists classified the fireball beads – led to development of all sizes of firearms, from hand cannons to ship cannons to giant siege cannons to ginormous fortress cannons. Nor did the SMC stop with the creation of different sizes – *every little aspect was worthy of investigation*.

In very rapid fashion, the defensive capacity of Stonehearth exploded as they developed artillery. Within a year, they were casting the barrels with trunnion, allowing the muzzle to raised or lowered. The cannons were compact enough that they could be operated with a five-man crew with 30 seconds between shots (better than many individual crossbows).

Next, the SMC was mounting them on horse-drawn two-wheeled carriages with reinforced wheels, axles and trails. With the carriage trails providing leverage to the axle, once detached from the horse, the crew could quickly aim, fire, and change the cannon to a new target.

Ammunition was iron balls: softer than the steel of the barrel, and far more accurate and powerful than stone. Packs of iron grapeshot were employed for extremely accurate, ranged anti-personnel fire.

Within the next few years, Stonehearth was quickly recast as the Lords of Thunder…

* *Ignition…*

Initial designs were state of the art against what few experiments existed in Toril, most of which were so slow and unreliable as to barely be an advantage on the battlefield. The first improvements included the matchlock, a mechanism that removed the need to lower by hand a lit match into the weapon's flash pan and made it possible to have both hands free to keep a firm grip on the weapon at the moment of firing, and, more importantly, to keep both eyes on the target.
Within weeks, SMC engineers crafted a wheellock: a friction-wheel mechanism to cause a spark for firing a firearm. It was the next major development in firearms technology after the matchlock and the first self-igniting firearm. Within months, there were prototypes of the snaplock and the snaphance.
By 1339, the SMC confidently bypassed the doglock and was consistently producing flintlock ignition systems (which wouldn’t have been developed on Oearth until c. 1600). Flintlock systems produced flint-on-steel sparks to ignite a pan of priming powder and thereby fire the gun's main powder charge. Flintlocks were prone to misfire in wet weather, and many flintlock firearms were later converted to the more reliable percussion system.
* *Ballistics…*

The SMC had been experimenting with ballistics in cooperation with the Stonehearth College, and now that research was coming to light. They’d started with the science itself, as simple as slings, bows, crossbows and arrows. The question was: *how did it fly – and how could it fly better?*
This had already had the effect of encouraging the equivalents of high-velocity gunpowder, but also created the science of rifling a barrel for more accurate shots – a high metallurgical challenge for the times. It also created a study of Terminal ballistics, and determining exactly what happened to the target when hit by the projectile (really, something that had started when bowyers started barbing their arrows).
* *Individual firearms*…

The concept of a hand-cannon for every soldier was a powerful temptation for any commander. Individual firearms were the way of the future for combat and the first to embrace that inevitability would be the victor on the battlefield. In the long run, it was the most humane option by ending wars the fastest.
All manner of individual weapons were on the table for experimentation and deployment. This included handguns, multi-barrel pistols, smoothbore blunderbuss for men-at-arms (shotguns), and rifled muskets for ranged engagement, creating a new class between men-at-arms and archers.
With the high-velocity "gunpowder" now utilized by the SMC, they’d already obsolesced low-velocity weapons such as the arquebus.
* *Swivel Guns*…

Swivel guns were essentially small cannons for land and maritime use. They were mounted on a swiveling stand or fork which allows a very wide arc of movement. Another type of firearm referred to as a swivel gun was an early flintlock combination gun with two barrels that rotated along their axes to allow the shooter to switch between rifled and smoothbore barrels.
Similarly, they were already looking at pivot guns, which were far larger weapons mounted on a horizontal pivot, as well as screw guns, which are a mountain gun with a segmented barrel.
* *Cannons*…

The steel of the cannons was only the beginning. They were experimenting with sizes as well, looking to fill niches – with the possibility of crews hauling more than one cannon, then switching depending on the needs of the battlefield. This included a wide range of guns, from full-sized cannon (firing 42-pound shot) to Demi-cannon (32 pound shot), to Demi-culverin (8, 9 & 10 pound shots).
The SMC cast the barrels with trunnion, allowing the muzzle to raised or lowered. The cannons were compact enough that they could be operated with a five-man crew with 30 seconds between shots (better than many individual crossbows).
Next, they were mounting them on horse-drawn two-wheeled carriages with reinforced wheels, axles and trails. With the carriage trails providing leverage to the axle, once detached from the horse, the crew could quickly aim, fire, and change the cannon to a new target.
* *Projectile research…*

Ammunition was iron balls: softer than the steel of the barrel, and far more accurate and powerful than the stone that was the current style. Packs of iron grapeshot were employed for extremely accurate, ranged anti-personnel fire.
Round shot was already the standard, though they were looking at the use of extruded bullets and possibly even shells.