Everyday updates: https://www.instagram.com/vakon/ – In the Buried City, everyone will meet many dangers. One of them is a trap. They have two basic features: they are SWIFT and they are deadly. Traps in the Buried city is extremely diverse, but most inexperienced adventurers end up on the most primitive. In order to avoid this requires careful attention to detail, like cracks in the walls and exposed floor slabs. One of the best solutions is to hire an experienced thief — these guys are usually well versed in this kind of… obstacles.
Day 2: DIVIDED group
Everyday updates: https://www.instagram.com/vakon/ – During the journey through the streets of the Buried City, there can happen a lot of surprises. Monsters, traps, landslips… Often you must to act quickly and make unusual decisions, just to stay alive. But what exactly you should not do – is to split up your group. Even, if at some moment you think that it may be the best solution… this is not so. Many of the inhabitants of these ancient places with the help of cunning and spells will try to divide you… and you will become their easy prey. Even if you have got quarreled – first you must get out on the surface and then you can go on all four sides, but in any case, do not separate on the trails of the Buried City. It has led to the deaths of a countless number of heroes and villains. – inspired by Justin Sweet & Vance Kovacs
Day 3: The POISON of greed
Everyday updates: https://www.instagram.com/vakon/ – In the depths of the Buried City, you can stumble upon hundreds of deadly poisons. From intricate traps to poisoned fangs and claws of the ancient inhabitants of the depths. But one of the most terrible poisons that can be found is the poison of greed. It can kill you in many different ways – from undetected traps in the form of a treasure hunt to the dagger in the back from the satellites, which do not want to share with your newfound wealth. Remember, no matter what you can found in the depths if you not able to bear it out…
****Please for the love of your chosen deity this is for writing and educational purposes only- I know its tempting but do not try any of this at home!!!****
Medical ether and industrial ether are basically the same.
Medical oxygen and industrial oxygen are also basically the same (industrial oxygen for welding is actually more pure than medical oxygen, but this doesn’t matter much).
Most drugs are completely effective (>90% of expected active drug) for at least 5 years after their “expiration” dates provided they are kept in their original, unopened packaging. Some drugs are completely effective for decades if kept in controlled conditions.
According to one study, that fact includes EpiPens.
In patients who have never chronically used opioids, a combination of 1,000mg acetaminophen (tylenol, paracetamol) and 400mg ibuprofen (motrin, advil) every 6 hours have been shown to be equivalent to the
standard starting dose of oxycodone/hydrocodone in treating acute musculoskeletal (breaks, strains, sprains, dislocations) pain.
Rotating these medications (giving the acetaminophen, waiting three hours, giving the ibuprofen, waiting 3 hours, giving the acetaminophen again, and so on) makes them more effective. This works pretty well any time you have more than 1 medication for the same thing.
Benadryl can be used as a local anesthetic if you can find (or make) a form of it that can be safely injected.
Nitrous oxide cartridges for artisan whipped cream dispensers (naturally found in an abandoned Starbucks in the aftermath of an apocalypse, or on Amazon) can provide up to 3 minutes of decent conscious anesthesia each (they need to be emptied into a whipped cream dispenser and given with 25-50% regular air or oxygen and breathed in order to work well).
Wound-wise, you don’t need saline or sterile water to clean an already dirty wound. If you would drink it, its safe for wound cleaning.
Speaking of that, you can make an irrigation syringe by poking a small hole in the top of a pop bottle filled with irrigation fluid (or tap water).
Many venoms can be at least partially degraded by soaking the bite site in very hot water.
You can make a spacer for an albuterol inhaler out of a 16oz pop bottle by cutting a hole in the bottom, placing the inhaler through it (with some space around it for air to get in), and breathing through the top.
A pressure cooker (stovetop or electronic) is basically just an autoclave re-purposed for food. Throw a shelf in there to sit over a small amount of water and you can quickly sterilize temperature/pressure resistant equipment like metal scalpels.
If you get the balance right, you can centrifuge something/blood with a hand drill by attaching a test tube to each side of the spinny part.
It seems counterintuitive because generally bacteria eat sugar, but raw honey works as well or better than most antibiotics when preventing/treating wound infection (the honey goes in the wound, btw, but eating it would still taste good).
Regular insulin does not actually need to be refrigerated unless its being stored for long periods. Even open, it will still last about a month at room temperature without significantly degrading.
IV is not the only form of rehydration. Oral rehydration is actually best, but you can infiltrate sterile IV fluids slowly into fat, or provide a very slow enema of tap water or even slightly brackish water that the body will absorb and utilize.
Smelling isopropyl alcohol or peppermint oil can help with nausea.
Fishing line is extremely similar to suture material. Dental floss is less so.
You could, theoretically, hook up as many as 4 people to the same ventilator as long as they all had relatively similar ventilation needs and they were all chemically paralyzed to the point where assist-control mode would be appropriate. Programmed tidal volume would be the total of all four patients.
You can re-locate a dislocated shoulder by having the person lay face down with the dislocated arm hanging off the side. Tie about 10-15lbs to it and let the weight slowly release the muscle and reduce the shoulder.
Most of these came from the book Improvised Medicine: Providing Care in Extreme Environments, By Kenneth V. Iserson.
DAILY FIND: Sometimes the Internet is a crappy place full of crap. But today I’m reminded that it’s an amazing trove of free and good information from reliable sources: The University of Illinois Extension has created a searchable index of every stain known to manand stain removal solutions for each. The tool will even tell you what your window of stain-treatment time is to achieve optimal results.
This is nerd GOLD, people. Use it in good health. -ts
UFYH, have you seen this?
So I keep saying that I don’t have a degree from stain college, but apparently the University of Illinois Extension is, in fact, stain college, so you should check this database out.
I can’t stop thinking about crocodiles for some reason so here’s some cool pictures I found of probably the second largest one in captivity, his name is Utan:
isn’t he beautiful
listen to the SOUND when he bites
and that’s not even a real power bite, that’s mostly just heavy bone falling on heavy bone from his jaws and the air rushing out from between them
2000 pounds of Good Boy
you get me
I honestly expected like 5 notes, what HAPPENED here
More tags on this ridiculous post:
Wait, thats the 2nd biggest crocodile? Then what does the biggest one look like?
That would be Cassius, a very old Saltwater crocodile who is estimated to be around 114 years old and lives at Marineland Melanesia in Green Island, Australia. His official measurement is 5.48 meters, which makes him the largest in captivity currently. Because Utan is only slightly smaller and much younger, (only in his 50s), he will likely break Cassius’ record eventually. But for now, Cassius holds the title:
He is NOT, however, either the largest crocodile ever captured in Australia OR the largest ever in captivity.
A slightly larger crocodile has been reported (though not yet comfirmed) to have been captured at 5.58 meters.
And while the famous Brutus of the Adelaide River was estimated to be just slightly larger than Cassius at 5.5m, he was driven out of his territory by a younger and even larger crocodile, who as a result has been given the name, The Dominator. He is estimated to be just over 6m.
This is Brutus, with an appropriate caption:
It is believed that he lost that arm in a fight with a Bull Shark.
The Bull Shark lost.
THIS is the crocodile who kicked him out. The Dominator:
And that’s STILL not the biggest.
The largest living crocodile ever reliably measured was Lolong, who for the 1.5 years between his capture and his death was the largest crocodile ever held in captivity, at a whopping 6.17 meters (20 feet 3 inches) and 1075 kg (2,370 lbs). He had been feeding on both humans and very large livestock in the Bunawan creek in Agusan del Sur in the Philippines. It took 100 people all night to drag him to shore during his capture.
And here’s why:
Also, to prevent credit from getting buried on a separate reblog, I have been informed that the above image of the crocodile with the cartoon eyes and halo was made by @rashkah! (And it is wonderful and I would like to thank him for its existence, because it perfectly captures my feelings about terrifying giant primordial reptiles.)
As far as Brutus is concerned I was led to believe that he lost that arm when relatively young.
Since then Brutus developed a habit of hunting and eating Bull Sharks.
Here’s him with a prey.
And if you thought that you’ll be safe if you just stay out of Australia then think again!
Meet Gustave the Nile Croc.
This crocodile became almost legendary for both it’s size and the habit of hunting both livestock AND humans.
So how big is Gustave?
No one is sure. Since he was NEVER captured.
His estimated size is of at least 5,5m but some give him over 6m.
The terrifying parts are:
1) He is still growing having only about 60 years.
2) Adult crocodiles often perform a gesture of submission to him – something usually done by young crocodiles toward adults – Gustave is just THAT BIG.
3) His sheer size makes it difficult for him to catch agile prey Nile crocs tend to feed on – hence why he developed a habit of hunting either larger prey like Hippopotamus or creatures which are not good at spotting danger in the first place like livestock and humans.
And this is NOT ALL.
Gustave actually has a noticeable scars on his body – he was shot at east 3 times and stabbed with a spear or something similar at one occasion.
He lived to tell the tale – my question is:
What happened to that one dude who attacked Gustave with a spear?
*Crocodile Dundee voice* Mate, that’s not Gustave:
THIS is Gustave:
And he is the PERFECT CROCODILE. He is the perfect example of what I mean when I talk about (as I do) how the morphology of extremely large crocodiles adapts to the changing physics of their bite.
This is a typical adult Nile Crocodile:
And THIS is a god among his kind:
This is it, folks. The Final Form. THIS is what peak performance looks like.
Crocodiles and physics have an interesting relationship. Crocodiles have, by a CONSIDERABLE MARGIN, the strongest bite of any animal on Earth. EVER. Scaled up estimates (based on Nile and Saltwater crocodiles) give the extinct Deinosuchus an estimated bite force MORE THAN DOUBLE the recently updated Tyrannosaurus bite estimates. Living crocodiles have bite forces measured in the range of 5000 pounds per square inch, for an individual around 15-16 feet. It is estimated that modern crocodiles in the range of 18-20 feet would have bit forces around 7-8000 psi or more.
That’s a problem.
Because a crocodile’s skull is only designed to handle so much pressure. Go beyond that limit and the force of impact when those jaws snap shut could literally shatter their own skulls.
But evolution has spent hundreds of millions of years perfecting crocodiles, so PHYSICS ISN’T GOING TO STOP THEM. What ends up happening in the skulls of these extremely large crocodiles is they will increase dramatically in mass to compensate for the increased forces. A crocodile’s skull is almost exclusively solid bone, with only minimal space for nasal passages, a surprisingly advanced brain, and some slightly porous looking framework that helps the bone distribute the force over a larger area. The effect is by far the most pronounced in Nile crocodiles, which most regularly feed on larger prey and need to make use of all that power.
Compare, 26 inch skull:
vs 29 inch skull:
Both of those are Nile crocodile skulls (or rather, replicas thereof).
And just for fun, here are the skulls of completely different (and very extinct species), Deinosuchus:
and Purussaurus:
The bigger the crocodile (within a given species), the more massive the skull needs to be to compensate for that UNBELIEVABLE bit pressure. This is one way to see from a distance whether you are looking at a normal sized crocodile:
and a truly extraordinary individual:
One of the things about Gustave that’s so impressive is how healthy his teeth look. A lot of large crocodiles, in their old age, have very worn down and often missing teeth. They do replace them many times over a lifetime, but when they get very old this slows down. Gustave, at least in every picture taken of him, had teeth that were in very good condition.
Even crocodiles much smaller than Gustave’s reported size (probably similar in size to Dominator or Lolong) tend to have smaller or more worn teeth:
So I was having a lovely conversation with @princeofsparrows about magic and magical items and he sent me several links to very useful lists and tables. Those can be used by any DM to improve the game and set some more fun/challenge into the game without adding enemies or limiting themselves to always better armors and weapons.
My players usually discuss for an hour about the best way to open every door with a single rune on it (even if the rune actually just means “toilets”). So if I give them an omniously glowing fork and they will turn around it for half of the evening…
We decided to share with you some links with awesome ideas for loot (or your NPC merchants). The links below include (but are not limited to):
Belt of Pants: This belt creates illusory pants on the wearer. The wearer can suppress the illusion at will.
Digging Spoon: This tiny spoon can dig through any substance with a forceful push.
Hungry coin: Cursed. Will attempt to eat other coins that it comes into contact with. Eats 100 coins an hour.
Crossbow of Whispers (Weapon, light crossbow): You can use an action to whisper a message and fire a bolt from this weapon at a target within range. If you hit, the target (and only the target) hears the message.
Scroll of Cure Blindness: Cures blindness when read.
101 Silly/Useless Magic Items – You need to read through 7 pages of the thread but there are some very nice ideas!
1001 most useless (dungeons and dragons) magical items – There are actually 21 of them on this list but they are really useless. It could be nice to drop something like that on the players so they can have some fun…
Now I will let @princeofsparrows to continue. He still has some things to add 🙂
The great thing about a lot of these items is that, despite their apparent uselessness, as with most things in D&D, an innovative player can find some use for it… and I feel it throws a bit of a wrench into the mix. Here are some other honorable mentions:
Chimaeric Archive 