Fantasy Technology (Beyond Guns & Golems)

[Croesus]

Golem Tractors & Harvesters
UPS (United Portal Service)
International Exchange Markets
Methane Biodigestors
Gas-Burning Stoves
Street Lights

I see two problems with the above - cost and fragility.

How much would the typical stone golem cost? Can it improve agricultural productivity sufficiently to pay for itself in a reasonable period of time? Also, what about the farmers? Presumably those with golems would have a strong incentive to buy (or steal) as much farmland as possible, to get the most use out of their investment - where do all the small farmers go? Productivity improvements are valuable when you have relatively few people with relatively large expanses of land and resources. Reverse that situation and society will tend to find employment for people, even when such employment is not very productive.

Gas-burning stoves and the like sound good, but what happens when someone lobs a dispel magic or three? Unless you are proposing a fairly modern, peaceful society, it would be very easy for enemies to cripple an economy with a few targeted strikes against the infrastructure, or to spread terror with a few low-cost attacks in crowded areas. (Of course, this is a problem with having magic be ubiquitous in the first place - a 1st level wizard with a wand of fireballs could do a lot of damage in very little time. Add in a potion of invisibility, and he might not even be caught.)

Also, if magic is a limited resource, using something like ley lines, then a very effective device is a simple enchanged metal disk. The disk is crafted with a simple spell - spin as fast as possible. Once started, it continues to spin faster and faster until all magic within range of the disk is sucked dry. (Note, this idea is from some old Larry Niven stories, including the book The Magic Goes Away.)

I've always seen high-magic societies such as these as the perfect setup for a post-apocalyptic campaign. There was great magic in the Before Times, but then the cataclysm came and society fell and...

 

[malcolypse]

I once ran a game where firearms were available, but didn't use fire.

They operated by a magical ritual that created a silvery powder called dry water, which expanded to hundreds of times it's volume worth of water instantly when you added a drop of water to it.

I thought it was hilarious until a cleric cast create water inside an enemy armies powder tent.

Bullets were potion vials with two compartments, and the hammer on the gun cracked them open so the dry water and the real water could mix to fire a slug.

 

[Quickleaf]

How much would the typical stone golem cost? Can it improve agricultural productivity sufficiently to pay for itself in a reasonable period of time? Also, what about the farmers? Presumably those with golems would have a strong incentive to buy (or steal) as much farmland as possible, to get the most use out of their investment - where do all the small farmers go? Productivity improvements are valuable when you have relatively few people with relatively large expanses of land and resources. Reverse that situation and society will tend to find employment for people, even when such employment is not very productive.

I assumed golems or the equivalent artifact was sufficiently affordable and mass produced (heck, with the help of your spinning metal disk). And the plight of small farmer would unfortunately begin to mirror our own world.

Gas-burning stoves and the like sound good, but what happens when someone lobs a dispel magic or three? Unless you are proposing a fairly modern, peaceful society, it would be very easy for enemies to cripple an economy with a few targeted strikes against the infrastructure, or to spread terror with a few low-cost attacks in crowded areas. (Of course, this is a problem with having magic be ubiquitous in the first place - a 1st level wizard with a wand of fireballs could do a lot of damage in very little time. Add in a potion of invisibility, and he might not even be caught.)

And it would be terrifyingly easy to poison the United States' water supply, particularly unprotected reservoirs (which is most of them). The problem of terrorism - which would make a great adventure - isn't unique to this fantasy scenario by any means.

Also, if magic is a limited resource, using something like ley lines, then a very effective device is a simple enchanged metal disk. The disk is crafted with a simple spell - spin as fast as possible. Once started, it continues to spin faster and faster until all magic within range of the disk is sucked dry. (Note, this idea is from some old Larry Niven stories, including the book The Magic Goes Away.)

Great idea!

 

[Madeiner]

My current campaign is low-magic, high magitech.

Most magitech uses earth crystals as a base. These grow from the ground, can be extracted and used as a battery. When put in the ground again, in a few days it will be recharged.

- Cars use these crystals as electricty. You have 1 crystal in the engine that can easily be unmounted. You bring another 3 in the cargo hold. Every night, when you stop, you put all spare crystals in the ground. Every day you change the active crystal and recharge the others, giving basically infinite fuel. Each crystal is about 1 meter length.

- Arcane radios. They incorporate a small crystal that can connect to other radio and trasmit sound. Each radio has 255 available "frequencies"; you can set the frequency with a colored knob. Each color in the spectrum is a frequency.
NPCs have come out with a way to perform some basic criptography with the radios. They have a predefined "patterns" of colors that they follow, and change the current frequency every 6 seconds. The receiver needs to know which is the next frequency to change to.

- Arcane communication towers: There are a few scattered in the Federation territory. They are basically giant radios that can trasmit messages up to 100 miles away, using Lay lines currents. The government uses these to trasmit messages to long distances almost instantaneosly. (The message still has to be trasmitted from tower to tower until reaching the intended destination). People can use the tower aswell, but the wait is usually at least a week, and the price is steep.

- Force crossbow. See Van Helsing repeatin crossbow, but powered with a Force materia.

- Arcane sails. Modern airships use ethereal sails which catch the "arcane winds" rather than normal winds. Traveling along lay lines results in greater speeds as the currents are stronger.

- The main city, Midgar, has an arcane train running inside the walls. A giant crystal is mounted on the train. In case of emergency, the train can run around the city projecting a forcefield that will encapsule the city, focused on the big crystal mounted on central tower. It functions like a radar, the train renewing the shield each pass.

There are a few more things (arcane nuclear warheads and missiles, and a gauss gun prototype) but these are pretty standard technology.

 

[jefgorbach]

agricultural stone golems are interesting, but why would a truly magical society bother? Granted, the community could pool resources for a tireless $90kgp farm-hand to work the farm to work around the clock nonstop, but the crop remains subject to weather/etc and normal growth rates (unless boosted by a druid).

Conversely, a simple object designed to cast Create Food and Water once per day fills three adults' daily needs for a mere $6kgp (3*5*2,000;/5) while simultaneously eliminating the risk of failed crops, spoilage, adverse weather, etc. The same $90kgp would supply 15 such objects presuming no volume discount.

 

[Nifft]

agricultural stone golems are interesting, but why would a truly magical society bother? Granted, the community could pool resources for a tireless $90kgp farm-hand to work the farm to work around the clock nonstop, but the crop remains subject to weather/etc and normal growth rates (unless boosted by a druid).

Conversely, a simple object designed to cast Create Food and Water once per day fills three adults' daily needs for a mere $6kgp (3*5*2,000;/5) while simultaneously eliminating the risk of failed crops, spoilage, adverse weather, etc. The same $90kgp would supply 15 such objects presuming no volume discount.

"Golem, I command you to kill those people and bring me their food making item."

Cheers, -- N

 

[Croesus]

"Golem, I command you to kill those people and bring me their food making item."

Cheers, -- N

(Mom): "Nifft, if you can't play nice, you'll have to put up your toys and come inside."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What would the Renaissance or Industrial Revolution been like if magic was a reality.

Just using magic from D&D:

1) Portals greatly reduce transportation costs at every step in the market. ALL costs: spoilage, theft (robbery or embezzlement), provisioning the laborers, time, storage, etc.

2) Permanent gateways to elemental planes provide limitless sources of heat, water & air for forges, furnaces, refineries or power production- either completely or virtually without pollution.

3) A simple Decanter of Endless Water gets you infinite energy in the form of a water wheel. This could let you set up mills anywhere in the world (reducing costs of getting processed grains to market) or power "green" automobiles and trains. Similarly, greater power could be gotten having a rock striking a bucket wheel between 2 vertically stacked portals. As the rock falls, it hits the bucket, imparting energy to the wheel, then falls out into the lower portal...only to emerge from the portal above the next bucket.

4) Portals to the Elemental Plane of Fire, Spheres of Annihilation and the like would provide easy and clean waste disppeal.

5) Continual Light- in whatever edition's form- ushers in the 24 hour workday (at least for factories)...and reduces the number of places miscreants can hide.

6) Mining becomes safer with Continual Light lanterns (no ignition of flammable gasses), portals to the plane of air providing breathable air everywhere in the mine (& minimizing the buildup of all kinds of gasses), CLW & Create Food & Water devices and/or personnel make surviving mine collapses more likely, as do countless supernatural tunneling methods.

7) Sailing becomes safer and more reliable when you don't need to fear a natural dead calm because you can generate wind via Gust of Wind or a portal to the Elemental Plane of Air.

8) 4x permanent Tenser's Floating discs makes for vehicle springs better than any you could manufacture. A small portal to the plane of Air makes Hovercraft and Fan boats possible.

9) the Mending spell and it's close relative Fabricate makes any minor spellcaster into Mr. Fixit: repair costs & time drop.

 

[Hussar]

Terry Pratchett is a great resource for this:

Imp powered cameras.

Imp powered PDA's.

Heliotrope Internet connection.

For D&D, the huge number of monsters make all sorts of things possible:

Brown Mold cooling units - the creation of refrigeration makes mass cities possible.

Various giant insects would be HUGE. Source of protein for one, but, for use as farm labour as well - giant beetle is a whole lot more durable and easier to maintain than horses or oxen.

 

[Janx]

way back in 2e, one of my PCs ushered in the era of Mechanamagic, spells and items that brought about an industrial revolution, of a sort.

lamps had Continual Light stones in them

Talk Rocks peformed a walkie talkie function (this was before cell phones became ubiquitous)

a Carbuncle was a gem that retained memories. While the original owern retained it, they could get instant recall (game effect being, the GM had to remind you of details about events that had happened before when you asked). If you implanted somebody else's you got access to their knowledge.

spells that enabled a person to control mechanical hinges, wheels and pulleys
spells that granted touch sensation through another object
spells that "glued" an object to you

with these, artificial limbs were invented, and horseless carriages. Mecha could have been invented, if I hadn't put strength limits into the spell (to keep the level down)

We also took the concept of Continual Light and made Continual Warmth/Cold spells, which in turn were used to heat/cool places (no need to burn fuel)

We also got heavier into spelljamming, building a space station, and smaller craft to act as fighter craft.

PS. the D&D equivalent to Niven's spinny disc is the Spell Engine, a spell that creates a giant disc that absorbs magical energy in its proximity. It was a 2e spell from a Forgotten Realm source book (FRA if I recall)