Re: [HoE] Question # of the Day

[Allan Seyberth <darious@darious.com>]

>Black Hole:  This miracle is somewhat...well, puzzling.  It talks about 
>slowly pulling things in, but other than cosmetic-type debris, characters 
>aren't actually "pulled" into or towards anything.  You merely make Vigor 
>rolls to move _away_ from the point of effect.

Actually, you have to make strength checks to pull away.  :-/

It does say that you are slowly pulled towards the center.

>What happens if you're standing on Ground Zero when the effect goes off?
>
>Now, if you're not familiar with it, you target a hunk of dirt.  So no 
>targeting a person and trying to put a black hole in their innards.
>
>But...if you put it in the dirt right at someone's feet, and the only thing 
>separating that brainer from a black hole is a 1/4" of dirt and some shoe 
>leather, you'd think something _real_ unpleasant is going to happen.
>
>And yes, Black Hole creates an actual black hole, not just increased 
>gravity.

Um... that's what a Black Hole is... a lot of increased gravity.  :-)

Okay - in these instances it's good to fall back on the intent of the
writer.  In this case, physics aside,  the writer(s) wanted a gravity well
to lock characters into a location, without it being a dual-use combat
spell by doing damage as well.

The power creates a small, very unstable singularity.  The key word is
small - if someone can pull themselves away from it, it's not very powerful
to begin with.  

I'd say that the closest person to the singularity would have to make a Say
WHAT! or perhaps an Inconceivable! (just think really large numbers)
strength check to keep from being slammed to the ground, and maybe taking
some light falling damage.

And maybe some light battering damage as some debris flys in.

For a visualization - think of 20 bowling balls and a whole lot of marbles
on your bed - and then you take a stick and press down real hard on the
surface creating a pocket that causes the nearby balls to fall in.  That
one closest bowling ball is flat stuck at the deepest part of the pocket
and unless it gets a lot of pull from somewhere else, it's not going anywhere.

The other bowling balls, not being so close to the center and the steepest
parts of the slope, don't need quite as much to escape

(Educated guessing follows.  I'm not real sharp when it comes to
gravitational physics, and I'm not familiar with the real world work done
with laboratory singularities)
The event horizon of such a singularity would probably be on the order of
the micrometers (give or take a few orders of magnitude), and because the
force exerted decreases by distance squared, the bottom of your shoe might
be affected enough to be moleculary ripped apart, the foot inside would
only be "stuck" in place.

The other part of the equation is the mass involved.  Even if you were to
compress the entire Earth into a singularity - it would give off the same
gravitational pull.  Except for the fact that it would keep gaining mass as
cosmic dust would get sucked into it.  If the Earth singularity were
stable, it could eventually grow to be a galaxy swallowing monster.  

But the Doomie's spell isn't stable, so you shouldn't have to worry about
that.  ^:-} (mutant smiley)
-------------------
Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Clive Barker: 
He was drawn to the road, and he didn't so much cross the road as the road
crossed him.  And once across, the chicken entered into a frightening void,
filled only with the screams of a thousand agonized souls.  The hands of
doom reached out of the blackness, strangling the chicken, smothering him,
suffocating him.  He could not escape, as no one who crosses the road can
escape.  He was now a prisoner of the Cenobytes, doomed to an eternity of
pain.