_Michael_
Explorer
I am attempting to cobble together a system for using clockwork automata in a fantasy world I am designing that is low-magic/high damage where there was a previous Age of Dreams thousands of years before that had high technology and magic woven together before it was lost in a cataclysm called the Schism.
I would like to introduce some anachronistic technologies without it overpowering the game while simultaneously keeping it at the very fringes of player experience. No idea quite how to do it, yet, so I'm looking for any help in setting up the system I can get. Some of the ideas I have are separating the types of clockwork mechanisms into four or five basic categories that would determine what can still be created and what cannot, for instance, as well as determine power levels for the various categories. So far, I have:
1. clockspring/wind-up machines, most common among humans and gnomes
2. steam-powered, very rare relics of the Age of Dreams and remnants used without much understanding by Motokor gnomes in the steam tunnels in the Evergloom--my version of the Underdark, and others
3. chemical-powered, also very rare relics of the Age of Dreams that are being researched by a few scattered alchemists here and there
4. crystal-powered, using quartz for piezo-electrically powered machines, or powered by lithosynes, sentient crystals that are poorly understood, only seen in extremely rare artifacts from the Age of Dreams and the Protea, sentient automatons from the sister planet Aeos who try periodically to invade Erdeyn to create cysts and attempt to exterminate organic life. Protea caused the Schism when the archwizards of the Age of Dreams on Aeos attempted to build an automaton to house the soul of an evil god, but the god was obliterated in the process that went awry and contaminated the lithosynes with his essence, which caused the machines to turn on organic life.
The players would likely be limited in only being able to reproduce/invent stuff from category one and two, and in rare cases, maybe category three. I was going to adapt a couple of prestige classes from the book Steam and Steel: A Guide To Fantasy Steamworks to use, but wanted to know what else I could do to make this work. I originally got the idea of the game world from the old Dragon magazine where they discussed 'sheen mages and went from there, expanding it to create an entire world based on the idea of ancient machines that still pose a danger thousands of years later. I'd like to keep the machines as minimal as possible, but I'm open to any ideas or reference material that I might be able to crib off of.
Again, this is a low-magic world where wizards are rare and the High Council (a wizard's guild dedicated to recovering lost lore and technology) is far-off and more of a background detail. Hedgewizards are probably a bit more common, but there are no mage shops, and I was planning on using power components as the main spell components to further restrict magic and keep it in the background so it's more in the vein of the Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time than the high-magic, monty-haul campaigns of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance.
I would like to introduce some anachronistic technologies without it overpowering the game while simultaneously keeping it at the very fringes of player experience. No idea quite how to do it, yet, so I'm looking for any help in setting up the system I can get. Some of the ideas I have are separating the types of clockwork mechanisms into four or five basic categories that would determine what can still be created and what cannot, for instance, as well as determine power levels for the various categories. So far, I have:
1. clockspring/wind-up machines, most common among humans and gnomes
2. steam-powered, very rare relics of the Age of Dreams and remnants used without much understanding by Motokor gnomes in the steam tunnels in the Evergloom--my version of the Underdark, and others
3. chemical-powered, also very rare relics of the Age of Dreams that are being researched by a few scattered alchemists here and there
4. crystal-powered, using quartz for piezo-electrically powered machines, or powered by lithosynes, sentient crystals that are poorly understood, only seen in extremely rare artifacts from the Age of Dreams and the Protea, sentient automatons from the sister planet Aeos who try periodically to invade Erdeyn to create cysts and attempt to exterminate organic life. Protea caused the Schism when the archwizards of the Age of Dreams on Aeos attempted to build an automaton to house the soul of an evil god, but the god was obliterated in the process that went awry and contaminated the lithosynes with his essence, which caused the machines to turn on organic life.
The players would likely be limited in only being able to reproduce/invent stuff from category one and two, and in rare cases, maybe category three. I was going to adapt a couple of prestige classes from the book Steam and Steel: A Guide To Fantasy Steamworks to use, but wanted to know what else I could do to make this work. I originally got the idea of the game world from the old Dragon magazine where they discussed 'sheen mages and went from there, expanding it to create an entire world based on the idea of ancient machines that still pose a danger thousands of years later. I'd like to keep the machines as minimal as possible, but I'm open to any ideas or reference material that I might be able to crib off of.
Again, this is a low-magic world where wizards are rare and the High Council (a wizard's guild dedicated to recovering lost lore and technology) is far-off and more of a background detail. Hedgewizards are probably a bit more common, but there are no mage shops, and I was planning on using power components as the main spell components to further restrict magic and keep it in the background so it's more in the vein of the Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time than the high-magic, monty-haul campaigns of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance.
