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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackdaw McGraw" data-source="post: 8553605" data-attributes="member: 7021534">A few suggestions:Gunpowder and fossil fuels are notorious for attracting fire elementals, even when not in use. Additional safeguards must be put in place before any large-scale application, making the costs and risks much more than in the real world.Moveable type and the printing press are of extreme interest to fiends and devils. No one knows exactly why, but theories abound. An alarming percentage of famous inventors and printers have been unmasked as infernalists. Most print-houses are operated by religious institutions for this reason, and on a much smaller scale.The secrets of porcelain production are fiercely protected by an ancient dragon and her cult of dragon blooded descendants. Any attempt to steal this knowledge - or to independently replicate it - is an invitation to assassination.Observing the microscopic world comes with the added rare risk of accidently peering into other planes or attracting the attention of magical microorganisms. Lenses can't just be ground and set, they must be warded, made with additional materials and training. They're phenomenally rare.Compasses are largely useless unless you have the training to account for ley lines' affects on geomagnetic secular variation. It's a whole field of academia.Hot air balloons attract the attention of air elementals. About 1 in 6 get escorted to the Elemental Plane of Air, never to be seen again.The steam engine is considered an apocalyptic device among the denizens of the feywild, depicted in their most chilling art and stories long before it was invented. The Archfey have launched missions akin to crusades against previous inventors.It turns out clothing buttons have some some low-key magical properties that a lot of folk don't want to get involved with. 1) They attract fairies, who consider them more valuable than gold. 2) A lost button from regularly worn garment can be used as a component the same way a lock of hair or dram of blood can in dark magic.An undead army washed over and completely destroyed the empire that was this fantasy world's analogue to Islam's golden age, thus setting back mathematics, astronomy and chemistry a good 400+ years.What I'm getting at here is that, in a magical world, there are lots of reasons technological development could be rife with pitfalls and set-backs, side by side with the mundane ones.</blockquote>

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