On Monday, June 23, 2025 11:02 AM bss via Emerald Flame wrote:
That sounds good to me, and as you asked on IRC, I think an early industrial revolution style world where technology and magic have mixed, but things are largely still getting figured out, sounds like a fun setting. Will definitely recommend leaning in on Eberron ideas if that is helpful inspiration as well.
More on magitech, mostly just copy and pasting my thoughts from IRC because effort: What I'm thinking (which has been for about a day, so it's not like I have huge design plans) is when in doubt, think Eberron (if that helps), so I'd say something like scabbards and low/no holsters because people didn't bother with gunpowder weapons when they have magic, and I think of mechanical things as at least majority magical or fantastic at their core. The Eberron trope would be the lightning rail where [wizards/artificers did it] and the train is hovering on magical not-magnets and a bound air elemental propels the train cars forward. Cyphers (the items) and artifacts, and just adding flavor to abilities, can cover a lot of the use cases for cool weaponry that is powered by magic. I don't remember off the top of my head if Eberron literally took the "why bother with gunpowder if magic" trajectory but that's how I thought about it. Crossbow bolts are pretty good, wands of fireballs are great if you can get them, why bother with a complicated lateral step in between. [On a schism between magic vs. tech:] I was thinking there is a schism of some sort, maybe not strictly tech vs. magic lines, but something like that. e.g. the druids of the old way vs. the march of magitech. -- bss (Brian S. Stephan) | https://bss.zone/ | GPG: 0x80895FCB