Firearms in Celesia

The world of Celesia has been growing slowly, but steadily, in the field of technology, thanks in part by the encouragement of Belthazar, the god of inventions. Firearms, weapons that fire projectiles through the use of alchemical reactions, have existed for over a millenia, but have never gained prominence due to the convenience of magic and the still-effectiveness of simpler made weapons against the many enemies in the multiverse. Nonetheless, firearms still have a niche in the world of ranged weaponry thanks to the fact that anyone with little training can become dangerous while wielding one.

Firearms use an alchemical explosion to propel projectiles. Originally, a mundane alchemical mixture known as black powder. While it performed as expected, it proved too dangerous to use due to its vulnerability to fire, hazardous in a world were men fling balls of fire with ease or dragons flying overhead breathing down jets of flame.

The archmage Londlebop Mixmech developed a new low explosive mixture with a new formula involving aetherite dust, called blast powder. By itself, the mixture would be inert and would not react to other elements. However, when impacted with an alchemically altered aetherite crystal, known as deothrite, the blast powder would combust. Deothrite is created by using alchemy to reverse the aetherite's "resonance". An added benefit is that blast powder works even when wet and underwater, unlike gunpowder.

Blast powder is placed in a chamber in the firearm. The hammer of the firearm is tipped with an deothrite shard that slams into the blast powder chamber and ignites it.

Although firearms are simple to use, they are far more complex to craft than other weapons. That complexity also translate into increased costs. Firearms also require more effort to maintain if their users wish to continue using them at full efficiency. These are other reasons why firearms have not gained prominence.
