Chemical weapons in Fantasy worlds

[Sheilawisz]

I have been wondering these days, have any of you ever included chemical weapons in the worlds of your Fantasy stories??

I do not mean incendiary substances similar to Greek Fire (I think they have something like that in the series A Song of Ice and Fire) what I am talking about is some sort of poison that would be used to inflict terror and death on enemy armies, like it happened in the real world back in the days of the Great War.

Maybe it would be quite original and interesting to include such elements in a Fantasy world, what do you think??

 

[Amanita]

I have plenty of them, but that's mainly due to the nature of the magic system.
In the usual low-tech setting, chemical weapons like the ones used in WWI couldn't reasonably exist. At least not without magic. For your magic users this probably wouldn't be much of a problem though.
Marion Zimmer-Bradley has used weapons of mass destruction in her Darkover series, one of them seemed to be some sort of chemical substance or maybe radioative as well, it's never been specified. (For good reason probably.) It's been created with the help of magic though. It worked quite well, at least for me, I'm not sure about others.
What's been done in earlier times is the poisoning of enemy wells and water supplies. A (relatively) famous case of this is found here. First Sacred War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (This could be an interesting base for a plot as well.)
Besides poisonous plants, mercury and arsenic compounds would have been available quite early as well.

In Zimmer-Bradley's books, such weapons been used to highlight the horrors of war, in a story with a more positive outlook on war (for noble causes...) this might not be very helpful. I'm already feeling guilty if I have the "good side" resort to chemical weapons.
To answer your last question: I definitely wouldn't mind, but there probably would be people being put off by it for various reasons.

 

[Queshire]

I'm not sure how much this'll help, but there's reports of armies catapulting plague ridden bodies over castle walls during a seige.

 

[Sheilawisz]

@Amanita: You are quite right, most Fantasy stories are set in low-tech worlds which means that advanced chemical weapons would not even exist... at least, not without magic!! I was not thinking about Magic when I started this thread: Chemical weapons would be used by the common people without magic, and not by powerful Mages.

Chlorine clouds advancing through a medieval battlefield causing terror and death would be a terrific feature for a Fantasy story, and the production of Chlorine is simple enough to be plausible even in a low-tech setting if you know how to do it!!

I have not included any chemical weapon in my stories, despite the fact that I have been obssesed with the dark and terrible world of chemical weapons for many years and I have researched them to the point that I have a unusually high knowledge for a non-chemist civilian =P

So, would you please describe some of the magical/chemical weapons of your stories??

@Queshire: What you have described took place in the siege of Kaffa in 1347, and some historians believe that this particular incident caused the Plague outbreak in Europe when infected ships sailed back home. That's biological warfare, but anyway it would be very interesting too in a Fantasy story.

 

[ThinkerX]

Fiest, in his original 'Magician' series, had an interesting, and apparently fully workable idea:

Wind *must* be blowing towards attackers.

Heat up loose sand, until it is red to white hot.

Dump heated sand in catapults, and launch at enemy.

Should be lots and lots of burns, possibly many small fires, plus panic, ect.

 

[TWErvin2]

One side used chemical weapons (Chlorine gas) similar to WW II in my fantasy novel Flank Hawk. I thought about it long and hard, how it would affect the battlefield and how the opposing side might use magic in an attempt to counter it. I believe it worked out pretty well.

While what you suggest with respect to chemical weapons, Sheilawisz, may not be totally unique, it's not common and could add an interesting element to the work you're creating.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

So the main issue with chemical weapons in a fantasy context is that 1) chemistry probably hasn't been developed, so the number of compounds that are known is very small; and 2) industrialization hasn't been invented, meaning that mass production of just about anything is extremely expensive.

If the 1632 series taught me nothing else, it's that industrialization requires large amounts of stainless steel and sulfuric acid.

 

[Drakhov]

While chemistry might not be a fully developed scientific discipline, alchemy is pretty much a staple in fantasy fiction / gaming. Making weapons like these on an industrial scale might not be feasible, you shouldn't have much trouble incorporating them into your stories on a limited scale.

There was an excellent RPG for the PC I played years ago called Darklands in which you could train your characters to make alchemical potions, many of them usable in combat - acid and fire bombs, explosives, various poison gasses and snares.

In Black Library's Warhammer canon there's a race of giant rat men called Skaven, who employ poison gas and the like.

 

[gerald.parson]

This is fantasy after all. So really you set the boundaries, who says you have to use the same compounds we use today, create your own minerals and resources that yield your own designed results. I mean if there was a spring that expelled a highly flammable liquid, you can bet there would be some practical military application for it. I don't think anything is really out of place its just a matter of execution. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Amanita]

Chlorine clouds advancing through a medieval battlefield causing terror and death would be a terrific feature for a Fantasy story, and the production of Chlorine is simple enough to be plausible even in a low-tech setting if you know how to do it!!

Yes, chlorine is definitely awesome in many ways. The simple fact that two elements as dangerous as sodium and chlorine form simple table salt when combined continues to amaze me. And the colour is good for dramatic effect as well. A random bit of information I've stumbled across a few months ago: In the original Greek, chloros is the word used to describe the colour of the Death's horse. It's always translated as "pale" though, various meanings of Greek colour terms.
Still, I can't think of a way to make enough elemental chlorine to use it as a weapon and get it onto a battle field in a low tech-setting. Do you want to tell me how?

So, would you please describe some of the magical/chemical weapons of your stories??

Well, there isn't that much to describe. I have magic based on the chemical elements, rather than fire, earth and so on. This even allows the use of fluorine and some highly reactive compounds thereof. Therefore most of them have honour codes forbidding the use in war, however. If actually thrown into war and life-threatening situations they usually don't abide by them.
Alchemy in my world also enables elemental magic users to put the properties of substances into others and therefore create poisons that combine the properties of various existing ones. My in this aspect not highly original plot has my heros run around my world to collect some of those gotten lost and sought after by the villains.

Unsurprisingly given what I've written above, I have an inappropriate amount of people with chlorine as their element including one the main female characters and the villainess of my current story. (The male villain has oxygen.)

create your own minerals and resources that yield your own designed results.

That's what Marion Zimmer-Bradley is doing. She's got some mineral that can be turned into weapons by magic. This can be done as well of course, but it makes people like me wonder, what this could "really" be.

 

[grahamguitarman]

Chemistry of one kind or another has been around since Egyptian times and possibly before that even.

As an artist with a big interest in the history of pigments, I know for example that there were chemists creating artificial synthetic pigments even in ancient Egypt. So its not such a big leap of imagination to suppose that chemical weapons were theoretically possible in ancient times too.

I believe there is some evidence of poisonous smoke being used in warfare in ancient china, but I can't remember where I read that. The smoke created had arsenic in it if I remember rightly, but don't quote me on that!

At the end of the day its fantasy, and there is no reason why an alchemist couldn't devise chemical weapons for his political masters.

 

[gerald.parson]

Chemistry of one kind or another has been around since Egyptian times and possibly before that even.

As an artist with a big interest in the history of pigments, I know for example that there were chemists creating artificial synthetic pigments even in ancient Egypt. So its not such a big leap of imagination to suppose that chemical weapons were theoretically possible in ancient times too.

I believe there is some evidence of poisonous smoke being used in warfare in ancient china, but I can't remember where I read that. The smoke created had arsenic in it if I remember rightly, but don't quote me on that!

At the end of the day its fantasy, and there is no reason why an alchemist couldn't devise chemical weapons for his political masters.

I believe I saw a special on the history channel pertaining to that.
Chemical weapons are perfectly plausible, it's been done in our history. As Graham and another poster have pointed out. Not to mention Naptha, Lime, Itching Powder, all these things where used in combat in our world. As said before, Mongols would toss infected corpses into cities etc etc etc. And these are just things we are aware of. Now put this all in context with fantasy and really there is little limitation, just a matter of making it work. I am not a big fan of making magic a scapegoat or the easy explanation, but I'm not saying its wrong either.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Well, I am back from my weekend Queretarian adventure... and I am very happy to see so many replies in my thread!! I thought that very few of you would be interested, and it turns out that actually some have been using Chlorine in your stories =)

First, like Graham and Gerald have said, poisonous smoke was the first "chemical weapon" used in warfare and it was usually created with sulfur (sulfur dioxide is quite poisonous) sometimes mixed with pitch and other things. Anyway, the idea that I had to start this thread would be to include more complex and devastating chemical weapons in Fantasy settings (especially Chlorine) and I am surprised to hear that Amanita and TWErvin have been using it already!!

TWErvin: My deep interest in chemical weapons began the first time that I read about the Great War, and how the German Army delivered a devastating Chlorine attack at Belgium in April 22 1915... the description of the huge greenish yellow cloud and how terrifying and deadly it was made me try to imagine, fascinated and horrified at the same time, what it was like to be in the battlefield and see something like that drawing closer to you.

Interesting Chlorine attack link here.

Like Amanita mentioned, the colour of Chlorine and the fact that the soldiers could actually see the freaking green cloud drawing closer was a terrible psychological weapon, even later in the war when better gas masks could provide effective protection against Chlorine, Phosgene and the White Star.

I am curious, what happened exactly in your story when they released Chlorine in a battlefield?? What do they call it? I think that Green Demon would be an excellent Fantasy name for Chlorine!!

I do not plan to include chemical warfare in my stories, even though armies of the common people have used a special liquid poison to fight off monster invasions: the Mages already have fearsome stuff and they don't need any chemical weapon to do what they do =)

Amanita: I feel a little awkward talking about chemical weapons of the Great War like Chlorine, and I am sure that starting to describe here at Mythic Scribes how to actually make them would be a bad idea. However, I can tell you that mixing Dust of Fatality with Liquid of Death releases loads of Chlorine quickly, and both substances were within the capabilities of medieval Alchemists.

Also, primitive batteries and copper wires would allow them to produce Chlorine from water and salt: If this was done in a very cold weather, they could liquefy the Chlorine and store it inside some form of glass or steel containers to be taken to war and delivered with the wind.

The production of Phosgene would also be possible in a low-tech setting, but Chlorine would be a far more effective weapon just because of the psychological effect... by the way, do you know which is deadlier between Chlorine and Fluorine??

I did not know that about the original Greek word Chloros, thanks!!

Gerald: Well, I agree totally with you that this is Fantasy after all- However, most writers here want to include realistic stuff in their worlds and so I was thinking about realistic chemical weapons in a Fantasy world... In case I decided to include them in my worlds after all, it would be some strange blue or even purple gas that would be produced with mysterious liquids and unknown minerals extracted from secret mines somewhere =)

 

[TWErvin2]

TWErvin: My deep interest in chemical weapons began the first time that I read about the Great War, and how the German Army delivered a devastating Chlorine attack at Belgium in April 22 1915... the description of the huge greenish yellow cloud and how terrifying and deadly it was made me try to imagine, fascinated and horrified at the same time, what it was like to be in the battlefield and see something like that drawing closer to you.

Interesting Chlorine attack link here.

Like Amanita mentioned, the colour of Chlorine and the fact that the soldiers could actually see the freaking green cloud drawing closer was a terrible psychological weapon, even later in the war when better gas masks could provide effective protection against Chlorine, Phosgene and the White Star.

I am curious, what happened exactly in your story when they released Chlorine in a battlefield?? What do they call it? I think that Green Demon would be an excellent Fantasy name for Chlorine!!

Sheilawisz,
My fantasy novel takes place in a post-apocalyptic world set about 3000 years into the future, where magic exists and remnants of technology remain viable to those that have preserved them or learned to build (rebuild/re-engineer) such things.

The Necromancer King had used chemical munitions against a non-magic using nation (the Reunited Kingdom) over a decade prior to the main storyline. The Reunited Kingdom has technology and weapons (telegraph lines, steam-driven ships, cannons and muzzle-loading rifles, etc.) but were unprepared for chemical munitions (which don't affect zombies, of course). Thus, routed.

In the current storyline, chemical artillery shells are used, but to limited effect as air wizards summoned elemental spirits to take up and whisk away (or sometimes across the battlefield into the enemy's lines) the billowing contents of the chemical munitions. Of course, there is the question of how many wizards and how many wind elemental spirits can they summon, or how much can they expend to change the direction of the winds to blow munitions back (if the natural breezes are diving it into friendly lines) vs. how much/many munitions the enemy has and can serpent-riders (dragon) penetrate defenses to get behind the lines to where the artillery is being fired, etc.

Boiled down, that's it. A lot of storytelling built up to that point, and actually the chemical munitions were only a small part of the narrative/action. If you examine the cover of my first novel, you can see a prop-driven aircraft approaching a serpent rider and his mount. ( Flank Hawk Cover - Mythic Scribes ) That is often what attracts some attention of the readers, gets them to look closer. History buffs should be able to identify the plane.

But the point I'm getting at (even if on a bit of a tangent ) is that if you want to include chemical munitions or some other twist that may have been done before on occasion, or maybe not, if it fits in the world created and the storyline, go for it. One of the reasons my publisher picked up my novel is because it was unique, compared to so much of what was submitted. The main editor says that there are a lot of good stories out there, some really good ones, but they don't necessarily stand out from all the others, published and unpublished, if that makes sense. I talked a little more about it in depth here during a Mythic Scribes interview: Getting Published in the Fantasy Genre

And really, my ideas are not fully original. Part of the spark for my world came from Roger Zelazny's Amber novel, The Guns of Avalon. The other half that got me to thinking was Harry Turtledove's (alternate history) World War series.

 

[Ivan]

Sheilawisz: Molecular fluorine is so dangerous that it is difficult to store and handle even industrially, it reacts rabidly with pretty much everything. As an aside, fluorine-containing minerals were used in ore processing in the 1500's if not earlier.

 

[Sheilawisz]

@Ivan: Thank you!! I already knew that Fluorine is very dangerous and difficult to store and handle, but I have not been able to discover what are the lethal concentrations. Chlorine can cause damage to the lungs as low as 25ppm, cause fatal damage quickly with 430ppm and 1000ppm are absolutely lethal, even though victims can take very long to finally die like it happened to many poor soldiers in the Great War.

Phosgene is lethal in similar concentrations, but about Fluorine all I know is that 100ppm cause serious damage to the eyes and the respiratory system. I think that it must be more lethal than Chlorine, but I don't know exactly...

@Terry: The cover of your Flank Hawk book looks great, and it would definitely catch my attention if I saw that at a bookstore!! I have heard many times that stories that are unique and different are more difficult to publish and sell, but hearing about you and your success with Flank Hawk encourages me to continue writing the unusual stuff that I write =)

Your world sounds interesting and indeed unique- I am thinking now that the Necromancer King could counter the Air Wizards with persistent stuff instead of volatile chemicals, for example by using munitions filled with the Mustard Agent. It's a liquid at room temperature (even though it's usually called mustard "gas") and it can contaminate a field for many days and even weeks.

Sadly, in the real world the mustard agent has been considered "the king of agents" because it's cheap, easy to produce with simple ingredients, easy to deploy, it's a stable compound and it inflicts horrendous physical and psychological effects. Actually it was discovered by accident back in 1822, and at first they had no idea what they had created and did not imagine that this compound had a huge potential to cause so much misery and death.

An interesting fact: A low-tech Fantasy culture that has discovered Chlorine, has access to Sulfur and can obtain Ethylene from somewhere has the potential to develop the Mustard Agent.

The Nerve Agents, in the other hand, are way more complex and could not exist at all in a low technology world =)

 

[SeverinR]

Discussion has tended towards chemistry.

How about magical chemistry? A salt mine is safe until someone figures out how to seperate the elements. Sodium and chlorine, the discoverer probably would have died, so hopefully they kept good records.

also water would produce hydrogen and oxygen, hydrogen lighter then air but very flammable? A blimp or a fiery death trap from above to drop on a group?

Magic only needs enough spice of reality to be acceptable to the reader.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Severin, I have always wondered why water is not explosive, why Chlorine and Sodium combine to create common salt, why the atmosphere cannot be ignited and many other curiosities, chemistry is strange and fun sometimes =)

Magical chemistry like separating the elements of a compound would be excellent too in a Fantasy story (it reminds me too much of Edward Elric, but anyway it's great) anyway, if you throw Magic into chemistry then it would be too easy to create all sort of chemical/magical weapons that would be used by Mages.

The idea behind this thread really is to include chemical agents that would be used by people without Magic, and how plausible it could be for such elements and compounds to be discovered and weaponized in a Fantasy world =)

 

[Amanita]

Sorry for taking so long to reply but I had a few very busy days and have been to tired.

Firstly, I don’t think you have to worry about posting something about making chlorine. Putting acid into certain commonly sold detergents is enough and it even says so on the bottles. If someone wants it, they don’t have to look on a fantasy forum.
But I think I know what you mean and I doubt that it would work very well and for the quantities necessary for wartime use.
Fluorine is completely off-limits for use in a pre-technological world, they wouldn’t even be able to produce it, because it requires electricity and dry, liquid hydrogen fluoride. (If there’s water in it, oxygen will get oxidized.)
A fascinating video about fluorine can be found here, they’re not talking about lethal doses though.
Fluorine - Periodic Table of Videos - YouTube

The production of Phosgene would also be possible in a low-tech setting, but Chlorine would be a far more effective weapon just because of the psychological effect... by the way, do you know which is deadlier between Chlorine and Fluorine??

Both fluorine and phosgene are much more poisonous than chlorine, that’s why the latter was used later in the war. Fluorine is much more reactive than chlorine and still poisonous in ionic form which chlorine is not as we all know.
Especially in lower doses, chlorine only affects the upper respiratory tract and is strongly irritant which serves as a warning. It’s reacting with the moisture present there to form hydrochloric and hypochlorus acid.
Phosgene supposedly smells like hay or rotting apples and isn’t irritant if inhaled in small doses. It travels directly into the lungs, reacting there and causing severe damage, often hours later. If someone spends these hours moving much, (such as during a fight) they’re even more likely to die. Therefore even very small doses can be deadly. A few years ago two scientists at a German university nearly died because there was phosgene released underneath their fumehood even though they realised it very quickly. It’s only being used under very strong security measures.
Chlorine on the other hand has been used in a few demonstration experiments by our lecturer without any such protection. Sitting in the first rows, you caught a bit of the smell but this amount wasn’t harmful in any way. This definitely couldn’t be done with phosgene. I don’t know where you got your numbers, but I highly doubt that they’re really alike. The two substances are even categorized in different classes of toxicity.

In the current storyline, chemical artillery shells are used, but to limited effect as air wizards summoned elemental spirits to take up and whisk away (or sometimes across the battlefield into the enemy's lines) the billowing contents of the chemical munitions.

Forgive me my blunt way of asking, it really isn’t supposed to be criticism but simply curiosity: Why did you choose to include chemical weapons if you don’t have them have any effect on the story. (Besides making air wizards tired maybe)

Severin, my magical people can do all the stuff you mention and even survive. (Most of the time.)
I also like magic which a touch of reality if done well of course (Which I’m trying hard to do, but who can properly judge themselves?) If alchemy is mentioned in a book I’m reading, I tend to be disappointed, if it doesn’t have anything to with actual chemistry at all and is just some random creation of substances useful to the plot.
We definitely need a thread for the good sides of chemistry in fantasy as well.

 

[arbiter117]

Arsenic was documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250 (wikipedia)

check out history of poisons in wikipedia for some ideas of preindustrial poisons

in a fantasy world, I'm sure there are things you can burn that are deadly, or make some fumes that are deadly (don't burn poison ivy or poison oak, it is not good for you!)

Fecal matter works great too