Runes
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Cobalt 60 has a half life of 5.27 years. Assuming that a language lost to time is at least 500 years old, the rod should be fairly safe to handle. Heck, even after only 100 years less than 0.01% of the original amount of radioactive material would be left.
But that aside - One of the items that can be found in the video game series Avernum is Uranium bars, which give you a nice unhealthy glow
What if it was stored in a fridge
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I assume “danger” and “drop & run” would be straightforward enough, but does casting comprehend languages cause the wizard to understand the concept of radiation (or cobalt, or how large a ‘curie’ is)?
I’d personally translate it to the closest word they have.
If I decided they didn’t have a word that was directly equivalent, in this case I’d use the closest word, “light-emitting”.
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I asked Chat GPT:
Approximate unshielded dose rates:
At 1 m: ≈ 5.2×10^4 Sv/h (≈51,800 Sv/h) — fatal essentially instantaneously (seconds or less).
At 3 m: ≈ 5.8×10^3 Sv/h — fatal within seconds.
At 10 m: ≈ 5.18×10^2 Sv/h — fatal within tens of seconds.
At 30 m: ≈ 5.8×10^1 Sv/h — severe, life‑threatening in minutes.
At 100 m: ≈ 5.2 Sv/h — dangerous; a few hours would produce fatal/serious acute radiation syndrome.
(For perspective: an acute whole‑body dose of ~4–5 Sv often causes death without intensive medical care; 1 Sv already causes significant radiation sickness.)
These are conservative, point‑source, unshielded estimates for whole‑body dose from the gammas. Being closer, or in contact, or staying in the field increases dose proportionally.
Back to me again. I’m sorry my radioactive physics game is weak and I had to speculatively look it up. That’s a lot of downvotes, yet no one decided to share the math themselves.
Back to me again. I’m sorry my radioactive physics game is weak and I had to speculatively look it up. That’s a lot of downvotes, yet no one decided to share the math themselves.
I asked my toddler about the radiation and she said “nana” and then with emphasis “nana” once more.
The downvotes are because our two methods of finding an answer are roughly equally likely to returning a reliable answer.
Mine is slightly better for the climate, maybe. That will likely change as she grows up and uses up more resources. I’ll ask her to do the math on that one later, she is busy eating a book right now.
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Isn’t the blue glow only present under water (or other transparent medium with a similarly high index of refraction)?
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Hopefully there’s one of these around: Material Safety Data Sheet for cobalt 60.
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Isn’t the blue glow only present under water (or other transparent medium with a similarly high index of refraction)?
It’s technically slightly visible in air; if actually visible at all in air it means the level of radiation is ludicrously deadly
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Back to me again. I’m sorry my radioactive physics game is weak and I had to speculatively look it up. That’s a lot of downvotes, yet no one decided to share the math themselves.
I asked my toddler about the radiation and she said “nana” and then with emphasis “nana” once more.
The downvotes are because our two methods of finding an answer are roughly equally likely to returning a reliable answer.
Mine is slightly better for the climate, maybe. That will likely change as she grows up and uses up more resources. I’ll ask her to do the math on that one later, she is busy eating a book right now.
She’s absolutely right!
NANA, you dopes!
Roll for speed
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If it’s actively glowing blue, I don’t think it’s safe to handle.
If it’s actively glowing blue it means it’s under water producing Cherenkov radiation and the water should shield you from the alpha particles.
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I asked Chat GPT:
Approximate unshielded dose rates:
At 1 m: ≈ 5.2×10^4 Sv/h (≈51,800 Sv/h) — fatal essentially instantaneously (seconds or less).
At 3 m: ≈ 5.8×10^3 Sv/h — fatal within seconds.
At 10 m: ≈ 5.18×10^2 Sv/h — fatal within tens of seconds.
At 30 m: ≈ 5.8×10^1 Sv/h — severe, life‑threatening in minutes.
At 100 m: ≈ 5.2 Sv/h — dangerous; a few hours would produce fatal/serious acute radiation syndrome.
(For perspective: an acute whole‑body dose of ~4–5 Sv often causes death without intensive medical care; 1 Sv already causes significant radiation sickness.)
These are conservative, point‑source, unshielded estimates for whole‑body dose from the gammas. Being closer, or in contact, or staying in the field increases dose proportionally.
Back to me again. I’m sorry my radioactive physics game is weak and I had to speculatively look it up. That’s a lot of downvotes, yet no one decided to share the math themselves.
You’re not getting downvoted. ChatGPT is getting downvoted, and you just happened to be in the way.
These guys, the 2nd google link after AI, say that a 3540 Ci/130 TBq source would be around 500 Sv/h at 30 cm. Even Wikipedia says 45 Sv/h at 1m
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That’s what you get for not casting it on the “This is not a place of honour” sign near the jagged black obelisks after encountering the colony of glowing cats
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Somebody casted Repair on the rod
i cast mending on the pile of lead, giving me a solid cubic foot of weapons grade plutonium.
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I assume “danger” and “drop & run” would be straightforward enough, but does casting comprehend languages cause the wizard to understand the concept of radiation (or cobalt, or how large a ‘curie’ is)?
That is a really good question…
I feel like radiation should have some sort of translatable element as a generic radiant danger, but for the rest… if it doesn’t make sense without context in the source language, does it make sense after ‘comprehend language’? Kinda feels like we need a ‘comprehend science’ or something if they wanted to grasp the idea of specific elements and units of measure.
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I assume “danger” and “drop & run” would be straightforward enough, but does casting comprehend languages cause the wizard to understand the concept of radiation (or cobalt, or how large a ‘curie’ is)?
Hmm, I think as a DM I would roll an arcana check to see if the wizard would conceivably have heard of radiation from arcane studies. It’s reasonable to assume people with arcane knowledge would be the first to hear about the strange metal chunks that everyone keeps dying around. One of them would have had to have come up with a word, if not some variation on “death cursed”
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This forest of thorns looks really cool, I bet deeds are commemorated here
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There’s always a relevant xkcd.
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I’d personally translate it to the closest word they have.
If I decided they didn’t have a word that was directly equivalent, in this case I’d use the closest word, “light-emitting”.
“cancer-light”
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You’re not getting downvoted. ChatGPT is getting downvoted, and you just happened to be in the way.
These guys, the 2nd google link after AI, say that a 3540 Ci/130 TBq source would be around 500 Sv/h at 30 cm. Even Wikipedia says 45 Sv/h at 1m
Oh thank god! I guess this is the “find the right answer by posting the wrong answer.”
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“cancer-light”
Disease-light might be the best medieval equivalent, actually.
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What if it was stored in a fridge
Isotopes only have a “worst by” date unfortunately
