Tech-Use in a non-Tech-dominated world

I'm working on a campaign world using the Anima: Beyond Fantasy game system. That game system has rules for mundane combat (with weapons or unarmed), magic spellcasting, summoning of both physical creatures and other spirits, psychic powers, ki abilities and the option to create specific ki techniques.

All of that translates to pretty much any campaign setting, but I want to include tech-use as a viable and steady option in mine. The setting has areas with high technology available both from the scavenging of ruins and its utilization in some of the nations of the globe.

The tech-use in question is typically comparable to what was seen in The Legend of Korra, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (not the comic), Wild Wild West (Will Smith), with certain more advanced examples being Ghostbusters, Transporter Rifles, the Delorean, and John Carter the movie.

People the world over are able to use technology up to about what America had mid-1800s (things with few precision moving parts), but steam engines, machine guns, Tron-lightcycles, airships, chainswords, etc. require the character to be "Tech-Blessed". Nonadventurers use this gift to maintain their societies according to their gifts (think Magewrights in Eberron or the Fire/Lightning-Benders regularly juicing up the power grid in Legend of Korra). Adventurers use it to travel abroad, kill things, and take their loot, of course.

Alright, there's the setup. Here's the question.

Not all of the world has nations with this level of technology available for purchase/stealing, nor are there ruins of old tech everywhere. Presence or lack thereof of equipment isn't an issue with the other major "power sources" in the Anima game system (not even mundane combat, thanks to that game's robust martial arts rules), and I don't want it to be one for "Tech-Use". So how do I structure the rules to accomodate this?

I thought about tying this "Tech-Use" to nanites within certain members of the populace (yes, thanks to something akin to a "Nanite Event"). I could then have Tech-Blessed characters have the ability to transmute (similar to FullMetal Alchemist) certain materials into gadgets, widgets, sprockets, doohickeys, and other things to later be assembled into the plethora of devices they'd be using (from remote-controlled shuriken or batarangs to rocket packs to prosthetic limbs). The certain materials could start from metal objects or metal ores found in the earth, and then progress to rocks, then any solid objects and eventually, the very air itself. A possibility, but I'm trying to evoke a sort of steampunk flavor and nanites seem like a stretch (I don't want them to be midi-chlorians, after all).

Or I could bite the bullet and accept that this power source just has an inherent disadvantage compared to magic or ki or psychics. Tech-Blessed characters are the only ones who know how to make or use or empower high-tech items, devices, vehicles, and city-wide structures, but the wherewithal to have these items available for their use must come from outside the Tech-Blessed.

Can anyone think of a third option? Or a better refinement of the first two?

If I understand your question, what about switching your nanite scenario to a DNA-based solution. The tech is gleaned from ruins and so I assume was created by a prior generation. For security reasons, the tech's powered components are keyed to their creators' DNA profile (a particular ethnicity with territories that overlaped with your current nations with Tech). Therefore, Tech-Blessed are [distant/partial] ancestors of the tech creators. Only they can activate the tech components.

- S

Not quite. I'm not asking how to explain why certain people have this ability but not everyone. Rather, I'm asking how these people are getting ahold of the things only they know how to use in the first place. Either I litter ruins and tech-shops all over the planet (which strikes me as overly contrived), or I can have the characters able to transmute their creations from wherever (via nanites or FMA alchemy; less contrived, but still not quite what I wanted to do with this), or I can accept that characters that emphasize this sort of knowledge will be at an inherent disadvantage out in the wild.

I'm hoping someone can give me another option.

It sounds to me as though these "tech-blessed" characters would be very good with creating things on the fly; so if one needed something akin to a bat-arang, he could fashion a piece of wood or stone into it with some simple, easy to find tools in any location, and use it to better effect than somebody without his level of understanding.

With that in mind, making the basic tools to create tech items available (even as simple as a hammer and something resembling a screw driver) in any society will aid in bringing these to life. Then the characters with the gift can fashion their necessary items in an obscure amount of time ("I just happened to have that on me" or "This will work in a pinch").

If you are going to use a level of mysticism with it, the character can apply their "Alchemy" to make the objects actually be what they're making rather than resemble and function as. so he carves a gun out of a piece of wood and uses his skill to transform it into the real thing.

Yeah, thanks for the suggestion, but I'm starting to think I've set up an impossible choice. I want tech to be as available in a non-tech world as it would be in a tech-dominated world, but I don't want it to be conjured in too fantastic a fashion (partly because spells, summoned entities, psionics, and even ki can already do this anyway). Sully just reiterated one option where I bite the bullet and accept that this sort of thing cannot be made readily accessible in the world; you're reiterating my nanite/alchemy idea.

I think I'm just going to not have tech be its own power source; i.e., something players sink their development points into. The low-level versions will be something they find and have available or not based on circumstances, but if they're in the wild, then even if they're bereft of their gadgets, then what they've spent their DP on will still be available as there was never an option to spend them on tech-stuff.

And the high-level stuff would either be plot elements, or added aspects of pre-existing power sources.

Ah, well. I needed to mull that over.

While I've heard of it, I know nothing about Anima, so everything I say after this point may be completely useless and unhelpful. If I'm understanding correctly, the issue is basically resource availability. As I player, I don't have a problem with that, but I'm also used to playing games where there are no magic item shops ever. You either found your items or commissioned them from a PC or NPC spellcaster (usually NPC because most of the PC spellcasters were too busy taking feats that made them scarier in combat).

Like I said, I don't know the system, but I'd imagine there are ways for them to improve their tech equipment even without finding new items. An improved knowledge of how it works lets them make it more efficient in some manner or another. And even with a relative scarcity, there are ways to make it available even in areas where it cannot normally be found, a black market of technology.

The biggest issue then is situations where the PCs lose their equipment, such as being taken prisoner or falling off a fifty foot cliff into a fast flowing river.

I guess, in the end, my suggestion would be to just let Tech be a limited availability resource. If your players end up avoiding it because of this, then I might consider going back and making some changes, but otherwise, go for it and see how it works.

A technologist, at its core, is essentially an Elementalist who can bend/shape items into usable machines for specific effects.

To that end, I'd say make an El Dorado - of scrap. A glorious city, bulit by the most modern minds of whatever era... and then... gone. All [x] inhabitats were suddenly vansihed. Maybe they Ascended to the Plane of Thought, maybe they made contact with another World, maybe they were disitegrated by angry Divinites. Whatever the reason, the only trace left behind was their legacy, now fallen into horrid disrepair. Check out the TV series "Life After People" to get an idea of what might happen to an abandoned modern-day city.

And peppering your land with technological "parts" is no more odd or contrived than peppring your land with ruins ot treasure chests. Planes crash, explorers die, settlements get wiped out by invaders...