They left the automobile beside the rutty road, and as they went up the winding walk of crumbling bricks, almost lost in the tangle of rank growth, pigeons rose from the balustrades in a fluttering, feathery crowd and swept away with a low thunder of beating wings.
‘Pigeons from Hell’ (1938)
Who were we kidding? No one needs dynamite to effect an entry. One needs dynamite to blow sh*t up.
And, no we are not going to enter that plainly haunted house so that a zuvembie can put an axe in our skull: we are going to blow it to smithereens, and the undead with it.
But how much dynamite do we need in order to get our standard Demolitions roll? The good news is that one can make a decent back of the fag packet estimate for any building and get to work immediately.
Let’s imagine the house in its heyday looked something like this:
The mid-century rule of thumb for demolitions was that ½ stick of dynamite should be used per 1 cubic yard of building material.
Allometrics allows the rapid calculation of the material volume of any building. The area of the long walls {W} yields the material volume of the building {V}.
V = 3½W for residential buildings.
V = 7W for hotels and office blocks.
V = 11W for large commercial buildings relying on air-conditioning and permanent artificial light.
The building above is 40’ long and three storeys high (including the basement). The standard height per storey is 3.25 yards. Thus this building is W = 260, V = 910.
We are going to need 455 sticks of dynamite to get rid of the hellhouse.
A bit of tamping and wiring (in daylight with guns trained on the house) because, “Jacob was right, lead can kill them.” Then stand back and BOOM. Mission accomplished.
It’s a very special group that will like playing with allometrics. For everyone else, here’s a table:
The tables in Mythras trade dress:
the180fantasyproject 
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