Forgewagon

The **forgewagon** was a land-based self-driving vehicle, powered essentially by a treadmill. Ascension only used this vehicle to travel from Fel Sadanis to Vestvall and it was then disassembled, but the forgewagon was a proof of concept of what was possible when combining Skills and machinery.

## Design

The forgewagon was an enormous wagon with a steel frame, the wagon bed sized like the platform of a regular horse-carriage but wider, and with especially wide wheels that were covered in treads. Its main purpose was carrying Tallheart's forge and smelter overland, making it mobile and accessible without the need to set up the workplace at every stop. It also allowed a few passengers riding in it.

### Driving part

The forgewagon had two front-row seats with two sets of pedals connected to a singular shaft. Each set of tread had five wheels, behind each seat was a small gap allowing to stow a bit of equipment. On each drivers side, there was a transmission behind the seat, with independent mechanisms for each side. Between the seats, a large fixed gear connected to the pedals was linked via a heavy chain with a similar gear in the back of the forgewagon, driving a shaft with a heavy flywheel, made out of steel-jacketed lead. The second gear wasn’t fixed. It was instead joined to its axle with a freewheel, a ratcheting bearing that made it so the flywheel could keep spinning even when the pedallers (drivers) would stop their movements. The flywheel’s axle turned a pair of fixed wooden drums connected via leather belts to corresponding drums on two independent driveshafts. Each driveshaft drove a 35cm-radius wheel that was locked into the 3cm thick treads on that side, finally transferring power to the ground.

Steering was done with ratcheted levers that would tension the drive belt on that side via a third free-spinning wooden drum. Pushing the left lever steered to the right side, pushing the right steered to the left, pushing both would lead to forward motion and pulling both back would bring the vehicle to roll out.

The axles were outfitted with leaf springs, to make the vehicle work on uneven terrain. The driveshafts had universal joints, allowing some degree of travel. Myth and Reason had to provide magically refined grease to reduce friction.

It was well possible to drive the forgewagon with just one person (usually Tallheart), and another less strong "passenger". With Rain and Tallheart pedalling together, the forgewagon could attain speeds of at least 10km/h. People known as drivers were Rain, Staavo, Meloni, Jamus, Ameliah, Kettel, . Rain hurt his legs more than once in the treadmills, overexerting while having his Strength attribute boosted, leading to torn ligaments.

Rain installed a primitive odometer in the treads, allowing him to measure the travelled distance, when the wagon was not currently driving. The elements of the odometer had been the craftsmenship of a Fel Sadanis carpenter; and it had only an error of 1.033 per meter.

### Design issues of the wagon

Rain's idea had been a land vehicle with a torque converter, but that proved to be impossible becaue there was no transmission fluid. Despite a manual chain tension lever and a few concentric gears in the front intended to be used that way, there was at first no way to shift gears, so the gear ration was fixed.The forgewagon was also lacking proper friction clutches, chain derailleurs, planetary gears. Initially, there were also no breaks (breaks were introduced later though, but were hard on the transmission belts), suspension (minimal suspension in form of pistons was introduced later though), or seat belts. The weakest point in the setup were the leather belts in the transmissions, which would wear out often making repairs necessary, as well as a steady supply of more leather belts. Rain raised the question whether or not a dashboard would be beneficial.

The forgewagon was a very loud vehicle (clanking treads, and general creaking), and prone to fall apart under stress. As it carried a forge, repairs on the road were not an issue though. Rain also wanted to use steam power, or integrate Staavo's generator to power headlights and illumination on the way. Furthermore, it also lacked a sound system with which to play Rauta.

### Forge part

The seats and all of the mechanics of the drive system took up the space that would have normally been occupied by a pair of horses. The flywheel poked up through the front-right corner of the bed, below a flat shelf that supported the smelter, which had needed to be shrunk down and was mounted transversely behind the transmission. The intake hopper pointed to the left side of the vehicle, while the output hole was on the right. The smaller outlet valves had been moved to the rear face of the smelter on the right side, ending up just above the anvil. The smelter’s left side held a large cubic indentation that pulled double-duty as a firebox and a forge. A fan and ductwork could take advantage of the spinning axle from the drive, adding a fan and eliminating the need for bellows. Working the forge was possible while standing at the back-left corner of the forgewagon’s bed, with access to the anvil, the forge and the smelter's valves.

The heat wasn’t an issue because of the enchanted material of the smelter (the only part where advanced metals were used in the design), which used up mana charges as a one-way insulator. The smelter was operable while driving, which was an advantage during the journey which took part in winter.

## History

The forgewagon was built in an open-roofed garage of Fel Sadanis, by Rain and Tallheart. The work needed under five days.

On the march, the forgewagon was in the lead group, flanked with some fighters and lookouts, while the rest of Ascension followed behind it in the already flattened snow.

The forgewagon nicely doubled as a podium. During Ascension's exploration of Essed, Tallheart improved on the forgewagon, making it more stable and also installing a Muffler (rune/enchantment) to reduce its noise.

In Vestvall, the forgewagon was steadily disassembled. At first, only some parts were reused like the Muffler. The forgewagon was still working when Ascension drove it to Vestvall's crack/rift towards the depth, and they entered the wider outer tunnel with it, too. At a later point, it was largely disassembled in Ascension's camp. Its parts were for example used in the venting of Tallheart's new smithy there.

Rain later regretted that the forgewagon never was named.

The forgewagon inspired Rain to create similar transmission engines in his soul's airship. Because of the forested area east of Vestvall, there was no second forgewagon built until Ascension had travelled to the open plains (salt flats), where Tallheart dismissed the entire design as flawed: He instead built a larger land-vehicle, powered by a combustion engine: the Subtlety. While essentially also a forgewagon, its design was an entirely different matter.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Chapter 114
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Chapter 113
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 116
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 115
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 128
6. ↑ Chapter 123
7. ↑ Chapter 122
8. ↑ Chapter 124
9. ↑ Chapter 126
10. ↑ Chapter 131
11. ↑ Chapter 138
12. ↑ Chapter 141
13. ↑ Chapter 156
14. ↑ Chapter 169
15. ↑ Chapters 180-182