Creative Anachronisms

[Ralif Redhammer]

Even the most mundane magical items could have massive economic repercussions. That Decanter of Endless Water, Wind Fan, or Eversmoking Bottle sitting at the bottom of some adventurer's backpack, in the right conditions, could be a source of power for countless people.

There are many magical ways to power things via magic that, AFAIK, violate the laws of thermodynamics. You could, for instance run a water mill with the outflow of one (or more) Everful Bottle. Of course, that water has to go somewhere, right? The main “waste product” would be water- a great externality, especially in an arid climate. But over time, it could cause flooding, and you know the mill operators won’t take to kindly to being told to shut down.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Let’s talk waste management:

A Sphere of Annihilation works great for waste disposal...until someone unauthorized gets ahold of it.

An army of otyughs could be happy as employees of the city as sewage workers.

An Elemental firepit as an incinerator, perhaps? Maybe even ventilated to the quasi-Elemental plane of smoke?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Quasi elemental portals to the plane of ice would make for great icehouses.

Continual light/flame spells on posts make the Lamplighter’s Guild virtually obsolete, though they might survive if people don’t want light pollution. If so, then they’d go about shuttering or opening the lanterns.

Mending & cleaning cantrips would make for a tidier world, especially if tied to cheap magic “wands”. Skilled pros would still be needed for the specialty work, though.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Or the Quasielemental Plane of Salt. Whole fields of baccala!

Adventure hook: a spellcaster has been cutting corners and is opening portals to Cania instead of the Plane of Ice.

Quasi elemental portals to the plane of ice would make for great icehouses.

 

[Samloyal23]

Early D&D was filled with weird and wild crossovers, like Murlynd’s six-shooters, the whole of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks; heck, the DMG had rules for conversions between Boot Hill, Gamma World, and Gangbusters (I could be wrong on that last one).

That being said, the world and game being played need to have the internal consistency and flexibility to handle that sort of thing. Putting a Ford Mustang in Out of the Abyss probably wouldn’t have worked for the campaign I was running. Just throwing something anachronistic into a campaign won’t work without the legwork to support it. A printing press in Ravenloft? Sure, that'll work there. A printing press in Dark Sun....that's going to be jarring.

In a recent campaign, one of the players made a joke about their character sitting around, reading a magazine. I had established a high magic, almost magitech world, so I figured why not? So now we have glossy magazines as a thing there.

Athas is an interesting place. Look through all of the art in the original boxed set and the different supplements, you will see figures that look like they are from the 17th or 18th Centuries. The previous ages, the Blue and Green Ages, are almost totally forgotten, society has broken down so much that history has disappeared. I think a printing press could be found there, maybe even a steam engine, but buried under a mound of ruins thousands of years old...

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Entirely plausible, depending on how the DM decides those past eras played out. Though I'd think they'd just end up getting scrapped for the metal, considering how rare it is on Athas!

The previous ages, the Blue and Green Ages, are almost totally forgotten, society has broken down so much that history has disappeared. I think a printing press could be found there, maybe even a steam engine, but buried under a mound of ruins thousands of years old...

 

[Samloyal23]

Entirely plausible, depending on how the DM decides those past eras played out. Though I'd think they'd just end up getting scrapped for the metal, considering how rare it is on Athas!

Yes, Athasians would think of pillage first because hard metals like iron are so hard to come by on Athas. But it could set up all kinds of mysteries and make players wonder about the history of the planet, which except of the genocidal wars is largely a blank sheet. If you want to say that the Athasians in the Green Age had a tech level like WWII on Earth, go for it. Just find a way to explain away how rare metal is in the time of the campaign. Maybe all of the ancient steel and concrete buildings, car, planes, and tanks are buried under centuries of dust. Maybe someone made a plague that turned metal to dust. Maybe the planet was overrun by rust monsters. Pick an answer and run with it.

 

[Fauchard1520]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[Fauchard1520]

Let’s talk waste management:

A Sphere of Annihilation works great for waste disposal...until someone unauthorized gets ahold of it.

An army of otyughs could be happy as employees of the city as sewage workers.

An Elemental firepit as an incinerator, perhaps? Maybe even ventilated to the quasi-Elemental plane of smoke?

I actually worked on a module that featured a boatload of slime and "municipal slime herds" as waste management. Adventuring opportunities were frequent in that particular city.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So how about it? Have you ever thrown phones or cars or gaming conventions into your settings? If so, how'd it work out?

D&D's rather prone to that sort of thing, sometimes more subtly than others. Like, a player noticed that the 'Sending Stone' was rather like a walkie-talkie or cell phone (or Sending itself rather like a telegram). So, I placed the epic-level version: the Sending Tablet, that was literally a roman-style wax tablet and functioned rather like a fantasy smartphone. ;P

It's amusing in more light-hearted campaigns, beer-and-pretzels gaming, and comedic one-shots.