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Industrial Magic - Fabricate

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Lokiyn:
In addition to its many other uses, fabricate holds a special place as being one of the most vital spell/power to be put into industrial use. This is primarily for two reasons, Refinement and Versatility.
A Short Introduction
The versatility of fabricate is obvious. Take any raw material and convert it into any product of the same material. No non-enchanted matter is out of reach of this effect. Although I believe there is and ever will be some debating on the issue of multiple products from a single casting, even limiting oneself to single unit products there is a vast wealth of uses for the effect.
Refinement is, to me, one of the keys to fabricate. As long as enough of the finished material is within the influence of the effect, you can produce the finished product. This makes the spell excellent for shortcutting one of the largest problems to industrial processes. Sorting materials and acquiring pure samples of compounds.
The Tools of the Trade
Largely, a normal society relies on refineries and mines, and naturally occurring concentration of minerals and other compounds to adequately supply its commercial needs. This is not due to a lack of materials in many cases, but a lack of process or techniques to safely and cheaply extract from lesser sources. Fabricate however, allows one to ignore the relative concentrations of materials in a sample in favor of merely the presence or absence. The effect on production of certain raw materials is huge simply due to the presence of many industrial compounds in the very ground we walk on.

The Spell

Fabricate Transmutation Level:Sor/Wiz 5Components:V, S, MCasting Time:See textRange:Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)Target:Up to 10 cu. ft./level; see textDuration:InstantaneousSaving Throw:NoneSpell Resistance:No
For this exercise, let’s examine the fabricate spell cast from an item at a caster level of 10.

Our spell range is 25 + 5*(10/2) or 50 feet.
A simple use of the formula for a sphere nets us 523,598.7756 ft^3.
If we assume any such item would be placed at ground level and be restricted to a hemisphere below the surface of the earth, we change that number to 261,799.3878 ft^3 this is about 14,710.22695 m^3 or 14,710,226,951 cm^3

The Statistics

If you’ll note in the previous section we arrived at the area effected by fabricate in cm^3 rather than ft^3. The reason for the cm^3 value is to multiply it by the lowest average density for the earth’s crust (obtained here) 2.69 g/cm^3. This new value is the multiplied then converted to arrive at a value of 19,785,255.25 Kilograms. The chart below lists the values for smaller than CL 10.

CLRangeKg74010,130,050.698 & 94514,423,451.08105019,785,255.25
With these numbers in hand we can now turn to our target in more detail.
Continental Crust.
Average Density 2.69 - 2.74 g/cm^3
Rounds / Day = 24*60*10 Or 14,400
To save a little space, I’m going to merge the composition table and results table into one slighty larger table for ease of reference, again using the CL 10 Numbers.
A few notes first. Because of rounding issues from multiple sources the data below is only “mostly” accurate. In actuality the numbers are off by .1% or more, which doesn’t matter to most people, but it bears mentioning for the trace elements near the bottom of the chart. I’m also going to split up the chart some into different categories, depending on who you play with these charts will be in order of usability, with the straight up unquestionable uses to the more esoteric charts.

Dealing in Compounds

The first instance of fabrication will most not likely deal with elements. Instead the beginning industrialist will focus on the compounds found in the crustal matrixes. Most of these are discernible under a strong enough magnification lens and it is simply the difficulty of extracting the compounds in pure or solid forms that limit their viability, In addition most of these compounds are very Hygroscopic and are present in their “wet” forms. A simple application of heat is enough to convert the materials back to the “pure” form with little trouble.

OxidePercentKGSpec GFt^3Mass SiO260.611,980,0002.65160,912.6513,205.55TonsAl2O315.93,140,0004.0227,802.443,461.22TonsCaO6.41,260,0003.3513,387.671,388.90TonsMgO4.7920,0003.589,147.111,014.12TonsNa2O3.1610,0002.279,564.96672.4TonsFe as FeO6.71,320,0005.758,178.301,455.04TonsK2O1.8350,0002.355,301.26385.81TonsTiO20.7130,0004.231,093.91143.3TonsP2O50.110,0002.39148.9311.02Tons
You’ll no doubt notice that I’ve rounded off the KG values. Once again due to rounding, the “common compound” charts left out room for the other elements, checking the compounds elements against a more detailed elemental abundance table I rounded down on the kg until the values represented ~99.6% of the total mass, to allow for the trace compounds and elements.

SiO2 – Silicon Dioxide (Quartz)
In soil this is the microcrystalline aggregates, fabricate shapes the raw material into a finished product, usually clear quartz crystals that can be molded or shaped or cut via magic or mundane means. Used as such, SiO2 provides an unprecedented raw material for any ceramic products including windows, lenses, mirrors, and utensils. Used as a substitute for glass this material would be very cheap. As an example, if it takes 500gp to cast fabricate you would get a crystal 1 cm thick and about 304 ft^2 of pane “glass” So for a 2/5” thich pane, you spend about 1.6 Gp (32.8$) a foot. Using modern thicknesses of 2.5mm you get 4.1 Sp per square foot or 8.2$ a square foot.
That doesn’t even consider how important using crystal/glass storage containers compared to pottery or wood containers is to food preservation. However this pales to the next item
Al2O3 – Aluminum Oxide (Corundum)
Just like Quarz, the Aluminum Oxide compound has many properties that are useful in society, expecially in its crystalline forms. As panes or as material for ceramic bowls and other utensils, Corundum is one of the hardest materials known, Powdered it has many uses and can replace many of the smaller metal components in complex devices…. Also it makes great toothpaste.
CaO – Calcium Oxide (Quicklime)
Another interesting substance, quicklime, when provided in large quantities has several interesting uses and applications. In addition to being the origin of the phrase “limelight” Quicklimes more interesting property lies in its ability to produce large quantities of heat. When combined with the strength and thermal properties of Aluminum Oxide it has a wide variety of uses. To illustrate I’ll demonstrate one possible use of quicklime, Non magical sterilization of water, which can be dialed up or down as the need demands (the same process that could boil a barrel of water could also be used to make a “hillbilly hot tub”
Quicklime Heater
Note that as an energy storage device CaO is fairly inefficient, compared to wood for example. CaO holds about 1.1 MJ/Kg compared to a 16.2 Mj/Kg average for wood. On he other hand it can be packed and carried easier and used in more subtle quantities with the right heat sinks.
MgO - Magnesium Oxide (Magnesia)
Na2O
Fe as FeO - Iron (II) Oxide (Wüstite)
K2O - Potassium Oxide
TiO2 - Titanium (II) Oxide
P2O5 - Phosphorus pentoxide


Metals of antiquities

These materials have been known since long before any industrial revolution and are common knowledge. In our history these have been known almost as long as there are records

ElementSymbolCrustal abundance (ppm)[3]KG @ 10 CLSpec GVolume ft^2Tons (lb) ironFe63,0001,246,471.08077.8745,634.63831,373.9851TonscopperCu681,345.39748.965.34471.483TonsleadPb10197.852611.340.621436.1857LbtinSn2.243.52767.3650.210495.9609LbsilverAg0.081.582810.490.00543.4895LbmercuryHg0.0671.325613.5340.00352.9224LbgoldAu0.00310.061319.30.00010.1352Lb


As you can imagine these would be the logical “first step” materials a caster would try to extract. I’ve included the Volume in ft^3 to help players calculate how many castings it takes to extract all the useful metals in an area. As it takes fabricate 1 round per ft^3 to extract a mineral, any such device would take ~ 12 days to extract just these seven metals. However because all but iron is present as trace impurities, you’ve only extracted roughly 6-7% of the mass from the target area (based on an average distribution). Volume wise its a little more complicated as you are breaking Compounds into elemental mixes, A quick rough calculation shows a Volume decrease of close to 50%

Endarire:
Lokiyn, this feels genius!  It's very much what I'm going for with the campaign setting of The Metaphysical Revolution.

What other articles do you have in this series?

caelic:
I love stuff like this.  I've done a few essays in the same vein--for instance, one on the transformative effects the Decanter of Endless Water would have on a society.  (Setting aside the mass population explosion potential represented by an endless, portable supply of disease-free water, it's also a limitless supply of hydraulic power.)

Endarire:
May I get a link to that, caelic?

Mithril Leaf:
I want to use greater fabricate and a decanter of endless water as a psion to form myself a hydraulic power suit mid-battle now. I know astral construct is easier, but it's not as lasting.

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