@TheEdVerse What is the typical method used by temple's clergy to acquire powdered silver for certain cleric spells/holy water? Is it perhaps a mechanical device; something portable that an adventuring party can use to grind silver coins while on the go?
— Torvik🍁 (@TorvikW) October 14, 2019
1)
It is. It’s a made-by-dwarves adamantine box that separates into two halves for loading/unloading, and is held together with massive screws binding projecting edge-seams. Coins go in the box, and a smooth-spoke-wheeled-grip 2)
…(like old porcelain real-world bathtub Hot & Cold knobs, but also of adamantine) fat screw set into the top of the box, that has rough-diamond-tipped “point threads,” is screwed slowly down into the box, grinding the coins…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2019
3)
…coins as it goes. This is a “while away the time around the fireside of evenings” task that builds hand strength; travelers typically hand the box around to each other to “have a go” and then pass it on.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 14, 2019
The more time passes, the more Ed Greenwood tweets I read, the more convinced I become he’s just making stuff up on the fly to pull our legs.
“How does X work? Does it work Y way?”
“…err… uh… yes! Yes, that’s exactly it! They have exactly that thing you said, and it kind of resembles this obscure real world thing, and don’t think too hard about how weird or impractical it might actually be compared to the real life thing, given all the extra considerations one must have to account for magic and whatnot.”
Why would you use this complicated grinding box machine, and why would you make it out of incredibly valuable adamantine, and why would you get it made by master dwarven crafters, when there are simpler and easier ways to do this?
Soft metals like silver have been powdered since ancient times, using half a dozen or more techniques ranging from chemical to metallurgical to simple grinding and filing. You don’t even need fancy and expensive mechanisms or methods, you just need a simple and cheap grinding wheel.