Writing Implements: Feather Quills and Dip Pens

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Squeak
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2023 6:26 am

Writing Implements: Feather Quills and Dip Pens

Post by Squeak »

Did a quick search on the forums and didn't see much on the topic so ... Here's another suggestion to add to the growing list of them.

Writing Implements:

Feather quills –
Bushcraft Skill
One feather – Primary flight feather from a variety of animals, perhaps obtained from skinning (nether-touched raven feather quill anyone?), or exotic farm birds that molt primary flight feathers periodically.

Process:
Wash the feather – For COGG, probably just as simple as modifying the CLEAN command to clean the feather.
Dry – Give it a short “drenched” flag, and let the thing air dry for as long as necessary … a couple minutes or so?
Trim – I dunno. I see this as bushcraftery in nature, so a recipe for “feather quill” under bushcraft? Maybe Carve feather make feather quill.

This step will produce a washed and dried feather quill, but still needs to be tempered before use.

Drying process for quills:
Heat up a container of sand – perhaps just putting it on an oven or something similar? Maybe have a clay container of sand in the book shop of Mistral or the Library? I don’t know which would make it easier. If being done all player-side (clay cup, foraged sand, and a heat source).
Temper the Quill: Just as simple as dipping the quill in the heated sand and leaving it to dry for a period of time. Sources I’ve read are from a few seconds to upwards of 30 minutes. I think for COGG, we can probably deviate from reality and just leave it at a minute or two.

After this step is where you would normally carve the tip for writing, but I think, unless you REALLY want to include it, the original carving step can take care of that. There’s also a lot of stuff in between all these steps that could be added if you like, but I feel it would make it tedious to code and implement. I think this is simple enough but still feels fulfilling without all the additional tedium from real life. Also, different material feathers produce a stronger quill. Give them a set number of uses or, better yet, a durability rating depending on the feather used? Exotic feathers with higher durability? Dunno. That's for smarter heads than mine.

End Product: A carved nether-touched raven feather quill (that spews out the occasional blob of nethrim)

Ink:
I was actually thinking this is something that could be just as simple as mixing already available dyes with tannin to make the writing ink. Nothing fancy, doesn’t mechanically DO anything except turn the bottle of [color] dye to a bottle of [color] writing ink - which is required to have on hand to write with.

Stay tuned for Nibs (metalworking) and Nib Holders (woodcarving or metalwork/cast)
Ephemeralis
Posts: 87
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:29 am

Re: Writing Implements: Feather Quills and Dip Pens

Post by Ephemeralis »

As an extra bonus: make quills with nibs improvised throwing weapons.
Squeak
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2023 6:26 am

Re: Writing Implements: Feather Quills and Dip Pens

Post by Squeak »

Ephemeralis wrote: Sun Apr 23, 2023 9:01 pm As an extra bonus: make quills with nibs improvised throwing weapons.
And make 'em headworn as ink-dripping hairpins!
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