Clockpunk suggestions

In one video, Richard Garriott suggested that there is some small advancement in technology, the example he gives is one town using something like a Tesla coil to protect themselves from outside forces and possibly things like the use of steam.

I wanted to input a couple of suggestions based on historical examples. As many of you know, there was a great deal of experimentation with mechanical power and automata, but this goes further than many are aware of. This book talks about some of them: http://books.google.com/books?id=xa7zPNkxswQC

* Hero's turbine. The earliest form of a steam motor, which dates back to the Roman empire. It consisted of a hollow spherical vessel supplied with steam from a boiler. The steam escaped from the sphere through bent pipes or nozzles, which would rotate it. It was usually ornately crafted, see illustration here: http://books.google.com/books?id=tqJKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA244

* Sufflator. Used in the medieval era, the purpose of a sufflator was to blow air into the fireplace. It was an andiron shaped like the body of a person or a beast, and the heads pursed lips would form a nozzle. It was hollow and partially filled with water, and when the fire would heat the water, a steam jet would be released through the nozzle to blow into the fire.

* Turbine rotisserie. Also used in the medieval era, by around the 15th century, a small turbine mounted in a chimney would used the fire's updraft to rotate a spit in the fireplace.

* Trompe. A trompe was a water-powered gas compressor used in bloomery furnaces, first recorded use was starting in the 16th century, however the idea behind the technology is old, known to the ancient Greeks and then Romans, and it was likely used earlier than that. They were used in large scale forges, Catalan forges, that were introduced through Spain into the rest of Europe by the Moors in the 8th century. Water would go down a pipe to compress the air and blast it into the forge. They were often used by waterfalls, because the steady stream of water would aid the process.

* Water organ, hydraulis. This is how the Greeks and Romans used the same principle -- the water would be used for a musical instrument called a water organ. The hydraulis in ancient Greece was an example was the first keyboard instrument, the predecessor of the modern church organ.

* Horizontal mill. Already seen in Ultima games, in U7, water mills and wind mills which were common in the medieval era already.

* Automatic irrigation wheel. Brought into Europe around the same time of the horizontal mill, used earlier in Egypt. Through a series of pumps, fields would be irrigated.

* Blowgun. Blowguns were known to be used as early as the 14th century for shooting small game like rabbits. Eventually the concept was used with gunpowder to create the arquebus. But Mr. Garriott says he's wary of including guns in the game. (The arquebus was in Darklands btw and didn't affect the medieval atmosphere).

Also,

* Pitchblende. The mineral that became used to extract radium, became known as uranite and uranium because it had been a common practice in alchemy to refer to metals by heavenly bodies. Gold was called the sun, silver the moon, copper, Mars, iron, Venus, and mercury is self-evident, and so on.

 

Oh on this subject, I'd also like to see smokehouses in the game, which also existed in the medieval era, to smoke meat of course.

Possibly, retorts for the distillation of wood to produce tars and pitches.