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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shades of Green" data-source="post: 4654901" data-attributes="member: 3297">Regarding Age of Blossom technology, due to the fast pace of advancement in the final few decades of that Age, technology varied greatly, as older devices were not yet completely superseded by newer developments being invented in an ever-growing rate. Furthermore, different people developed different ways to do the same thing - the Kobolds, for example, have perfected the repeating crossbow, while the Dwarves worked hard at developing firearms.At the height of technology stood the Elemental Crucible - a magically-sealed chamber into which permanent portals have been opened into the Elemental Plains of Water and Fire. The violent reaction between the two opposing elements produced a massive amount of super-heated steam. A single Crucible could provide for all the heating and machine-running needs of a large industrial site (such as a Dwarven city). The main drawback of an Elemental Crucible was that powerful mages had to monitor it around the clock lest nasty creatures would siphon through the portals from their respective plains. When the Ice came and civilization fell, if the Crucible was not properly shut by a mage, the facility - and, indeed, the whole city in some occasions - became infested with hostile elemental creatures.A more primitive application of elemental techno-magic was the Boiler of Endless Steam, forcibly finding a fire elemental and a water elemental into the same boiler to produce a constant supply of steam (and endless agony for both elementals). While the typical boilers f that kind were quite large and were used to power large vehicles or machines, more advanced (and expensive) versions were small enough to include in smaller clockwork devices such as automatons.Firearms were common in the hands of Humans and Dwarves, and, in some cases, humanoid monsters. The most advanced - used by Dwarven military forces - were percussion weapons, in some cases built as revolvers (both pistols AND rifles) in order to allow repeating fire; the most common, however, were single-shot flintlocks, while some humanoids used primitive matchlocks. The main disadvantage of firearms was that in order to add magic to the attack you had to enchant each bullet - which was quite expensive as spent bullets were usually less recoverable than arrows or crossbow bolts. Another disadvantage was their relative cost to produce and operate.Crossbows, too, reached a high level of development. Precise clockwork systems allowed Kobold marksman to fire massive volleys of bolts with great accuracy and speed without having to reload. While firearms had greater damage potential, crossbows were cheaper, and, more importantly for Kobold tactics, far quieter.</blockquote>

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