Need ideas for 'super science' innovations in a fantasy setting

RangerWickett · Dec 31, 2012

Did anyone here play Axis & Allies back in the day. You had the option of paying for technological breakthroughs, like Long-Range Planes, Jets, Heavy Bombers, and Rockets. I always loved gambling that I'd get some sort of super weapon because, hey, SCIENCE!

I'd like to work something similar into a steampunk fantasy campaign. The party gets a chance to direct R&D for their homeland, and every few months they'll have a chance to get new technology. There'll be kinks at first, so the party might be wary of using it, but I think they'd have fun with experimental new toys. But the 'toys' need to be worth using despite the party being level 10+.

I'd like ideas. Got any?

Dannyalcatraz · Dec 31, 2012

1) Steam-powered, hydraulic equipped battle armor, with weapon systems like flemathrowers & machine guns maybe the odd rocket.

2) not quite superscience, but fully effective hand-held rocket launchers, a la the gyrojet gun. Other quasi-real small arms include needle pistols, tesla weapons (aka lightning guns), mechanical resonance mines and vortex weapons.

3) check out Harry Turtledove's Darkness novels- included within, you'll find fantasy analogues of WW2 weaponry like guns, aircraft, tanks, atomic weapons, and even Project: Habakkuk.

Things like this could be done using bound elementals or otherworldly spirits.

RangerWickett · Dec 31, 2012

The setting already has pistols, cannons, and rifles, but maybe they could invent gatling guns. That's useful militarily and could be fun for PCs.

There are steam engines, ships, and trains, so maybe they could invent direct current electricity for lamps? Eh, that's handy, but not exciting. Lightning guns are exciting, but maybe a little over the top.

There are already magical golems in the setting, so is there a place for, like, robots? Maybe tech jumps a few steps and we get radio transmission for remote control bombs and such? Plus radio communication and TV? Or go even more crazy, and they invent a 'difference engine,' which functions like a massive computer. It would take a long time for them to become pervasive enough to have any major impact, so they'd mostly be used at first for calculating artillery trajectories. I suppose that would allow for much longer-range naval combat.

Zeppelins!

Okay, those are the easy ones.

Dannyalcatraz · Dec 31, 2012

The firearms I'm talking about had different attributes than standard firearms- gyrojets were essentially recoilless, for instance, and could fire fairly large explosive rounds- but had enough RW problems to make standard guns preferable. (That could change a bit in a fantasy setting)

In a way, robots are just science's realization if the golem legend.

DanotheSlender · Dec 31, 2012

well it's not steam punk, more like Tesla-punk but it has the same look/feel, check out some of the gear they use on Warehouse 13 (syfy series) another Tesla related theoretical invention is the matter transmitter, and its variant the matter copier that makes an identical copy of whatever is placed in it including people, i remember it from a movie, the prestige i think, where a magician uses the machine to appear to teleport. another very steampunk place is the anime steamboy.

Game On!!

Fiddleback · Dec 31, 2012

1. You need a B.I.G. gun. Ballisticaly Inserted Golems. It's a giant cannon into which you can insert a capsule containing one to three golems and their gear. The B.I.G. Gun fires the capsule deep behind enemy lines. Capsule then opens and releases the golems to wreak havoc on the enemy.

2. Anti-magic landmines. Does what it says on the tin. Triggers off a detect magic spell with close range area of effect. (yes, they might occasionally blow up off their own spells, but hey! that's half the fun) When magic is detected they release a burst of anti-magic, disabling whatever it was that set them off in the first place.

3. Clockwork Bull. A wind up/steam powered siege breaker. Wind it up, point it in the right direction and let it go. Rams any obstacles in it's way until it either breaks the object or runs out.

4. The Headsman. Air dropped mechanical device approximately 2.5 meters tall and about half a meter across. As it falls through the air a pair of fins on the side of the device induce a spin which, at sufficient air speed, cause three blades to deploy and project horizontally from the sides of the device with a span of about 10 meters. The blades pick up speed and momentum as the device continues to fall until it strikes the ground and embeds itself up-right with blades spinning among enemy troops. Said blades then decapitate anyone unlucky enough to be in their range. A number of these dropped along enemy front lines or in enemy formations can be devastating. Also interesting to use against troops confined to relatively small spaces such as one might find aboard a ship.

5. I.C.G.M. The Imp Controlled Guided Missile. Specially trained Imps are used to direct missiles from inside against an enemy at great distances. Ditto Imp Controlled Guided Torpedoes.

6. A theoretical suggestion. The chief problem with an underwater vehicle, like a submarine, in a steam driven technology is not so much making it go, but dealing with the quantities of oxygen needed to make the fire burn continuously and eliminating the smoke. Running intake and output pipes up to the surface solves this, but severely limits the depth to which such vehicles can operate. Suggested solution: Specially created large bags of holding. While they do not offer an infinite supply of oxygen or infinite storage space for exhaust, the should provide, if of a large enough size, sufficient reserves for limited duration deep runs long enough to invade or protect deep water ports or infiltrate troops up necessarily deep rivers. Simply attach one bag of oxygen to the intake and one to the exhaust and go to it. (Interesting side question: Would a bag of holding full of oxygen impact a submarine's buoyancy?)

Dannyalcatraz · Dec 31, 2012

6. A theoretical suggestion. The chief problem with an underwater vehicle, like a submarine, in a steam driven technology is not so much making it go, but dealing with the quantities of oxygen needed to make the fire burn continuously and eliminating the smoke. Running intake and output pipes up to the surface solves this, but severely limits the depth to which such vehicles can operate. Suggested solution: Specially created large bags of holding. While they do not offer an infinite supply of oxygen or infinite storage space for exhaust, the should provide, if of a large enough size, sufficient reserves for limited duration deep runs long enough to invade or protect deep water ports or infiltrate troops up necessarily deep rivers. Simply attach one bag of oxygen to the intake and one to the exhaust and go to it. (Interesting side question: Would a bag of holding full of oxygen impact a submarine's buoyancy?)

1) Don't power the sub with steam, power it with a treadmill upon which- depending on who you are- are automatons or undead.

2) Don't use comventional fire to generate steam when you can magically heat the water and/or the metal that contains it without generating smoke.

3) Powerful enough mages might be able to open stable, portable portals (that could be opened and closed) to elemental or quasi/para elemental planes to generate steam...and/or one to the plane of air as well (to help with ventilation or buoyancy).

RangerWickett · Dec 31, 2012

The actual original first submarines were either hand-cranked or had compressed air to power the propellers.

Dannyalcatraz · Dec 31, 2012

That's the thing about magitech: potentially, it can out-do RW technology (both in what it can do and in how fast it advsnces) since magic lets you warp the rules of physics.

Fiddleback · Dec 31, 2012

I agree with all the submarine points above and I'm not really particular how it gets done, I just thought it would be an interesting idea from a 'magical engineering' standpoint.

One thing to keep in mind though, once a society develops a technology that can do a given job, it is much less likely to revert to less efficient or older or more labor intensive technology to do that same, or similar, job afterwards.

And, yes, they could do all sorts of things by magical means. Why not just conjure up a massive air bubble, sink an entire ship below the sea and go about it that way? Well, because, arguably, it isn't as cool as having smoke disappear into a magical bag of holding in order to run a steam engine in a purpose built submarine. Or, if we really want to end a war as quickly and efficiently as possible, we just teleport directly to the opposing Leader and gank him while he sleeps. Not as cool, in my mind. Not as fun to work out the development of as, say, strapping together a 3x3x3 giant cube composed completely of Gelatinous Cubes and sliding it down a hill at an enemy encampment.

Half the fun of these sorts of things, to me, is coming up with extravagant ways to do mundane things in really interesting / fun / cool ways.