Dynama Technology

[LoA]

So i've been working on my Dieselpunk fantasy setting for a long time, and i've finally come to the conclusion that i don't want to separate competing magic vs. technology crap. It's overdone, and i feel like trying something new. So i was playing that new Ico/Shadow of the Colossus combo pack, and it had alot of interesting stuff. It seems like the castle in Ico is powered by technology so advanced that it just appears to be magical, and the Collosi in SotC are obviously powered by magic.

Plus it just seems stupid to have a technologist class, an artificer class, and a sorcerer class when i could just use one class to cover two areas.

But i'm not too familiar with magitek, other than to the extent of my Eberron books (Campaign Setting, and Magic of Eberron), the Thor movie, arguably Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask, and the Team Ico games.

SOOOOoooooooooo..... Help me get familiar with magitek please!

[Ghostman]

It might be best to deliberately ignore the under-the-hood stuff and not try to explain things too much: focus not on how/why magitech works but rather on what it can be used for. You get blaster guns that run on magic, sorcerers with power to control machines, spring-driven pocket watches that can stop time, etc. You don't really need to formulate any pseudoscience theory to explain the magitech, you can simply assume that one exists and is understood by the characters in-setting. Any hole in internal consistency should be covered by throwing sufficient quantities of technobabble at it.

[beejazz]

First thing to think about is how magic is used in the setting. If magic is technology, that doesn't just have to mean that it is used as a technology substitute. It can also be cast in a way that mimics science or tech. So D&D fast spellslinging may not be what you go for.

Maybe magic takes a long damn time, but has lasting effects for example. Runes might be a good way to go here. Maybe they can be tampered with like tech. I heard somewhere about a golem powered by the phrase "there is no God but God." He went berzerk when the inscription was smudged to say "there is no God."

Maybe you spend hours or days in a workshop on a potion that will last two minutes. Sure you get to combat and have like fifty potions 'cause you stocked up, but it still feels different.

Maybe you give and enforce rules for spell research. Huge jump in flavor.

Maybe you have to go out and find and bind spirits to drive some tech (an idea I messed with in my homebrew). Eberron does it, but has minimal rules for it, making it kind of set dressing. So if you had demon, angel, or far-realm entity spirits "powering" powered armor, it could still be pretty cool.

*Then* get into what magic does, who it targets, etc.

In fact, you can differentiate magic-as-tech from magic-as-combat or magic-as-transhumanism in the same setting if you think a little more about how things are cast.  So you've got scientists with powerful control of their home turf vs wall-runing wuxia badasses with a little illusion vs undead monsters with too damn many arms. Just for an example.

[Magnus Pym]

Some very interesting stuff here.

[LoA]

This is all cool stuff, but i'm still trying to keep the Dieselpunk flavor... I'll try to think of stuff...

I'm wondering if magic should be some kind of hard resource. Like in eberron you have the dragonshards...

[Nomadic]

You could go for the type of magitech I'm using in Mare Eternus in that you have devices that look like everyday gadgets (ME is steam tech so boilers, pistons, gears, etc) but that violate laws of physics. For example Mare Eternus has clockwork gears that turn on their own without any energy input, boilers that create steam out of nothing, etc. They all look familiar and fulfill a familiar purpose, but they do so in a way that seems impossible. In dieselpunk you'd probably have things like cars that fly (without wings or anything else that you'd expect on a flying vehicle) or trains that don't require fuel and just keep going forever.

[LoA]

You know, i'm wondering if i should use a more psionically flavored aspect. You know magical crystals that give of power when you make contact with them and stuff? But that sounds a bit scifi-ish...

Also I just got back from reading the Leviathan trilogy. Those are awesome books. I haven't been hooked on a book series that badly for a loooonnnnggg time. So yes, i want there to be a hyper advanced druidic magic that creates super animals fit for war. For those of you unaware of what Leviathan's about, it's basically a reimagining of WW1 where the allied powers use a biological super science invented by Charles Darwin, and the germans and allies use mecha.

[LoA]

Yeah, I changed the name of this thing.

So I think I know which type of magitek I want.

Magic So Advanced It's Practically Technology: So basically it's like Eberron Magic but even more advanced.
Floating iron carriages shaped like duesenbergs and Model T's powered by magical crystals.
Etc. etc.

But how can i have guns in my setting more advanced than a musket rifle?

[Xathan]

But how can i have guns in my setting more advanced than a musket rifle?

However you want. If it's magic that's practically technology, it could shoot rays of pure energy, use kentic bursts to propel bullets turned by crystals, fire actual crystals using crystals so you can fire crystals while you fire crystals, enslaved air elemental power them, the guns are actually plant-creatures that spit thorns...however you want to explain it, really. Find whatever fits the feel of your game aesthetically and run with it.

[Seraph]

But how can i have guns in my setting more advanced than a musket rifle?

However you want. If it's magic that's practically technology, it could shoot rays of pure energy, use kentic bursts to propel bullets turned by crystals, fire actual crystals using crystals so you can fire crystals while you fire crystals, enslaved air elemental power them, the guns are actually plant-creatures that spit thorns...however you want to explain it, really. Find whatever fits the feel of your game aesthetically and run with it.

I've also heard of dropping a rock (or other ammunition) into a portal, whose outlet is directly above the "in" portal.  It falls until it reaches terminal velocity, at which point the mage redirects the outlet portal, pointing it at his enemy.  Takes some time to prep, but in theory, you could have a magazine of ammunition falling in this manner, and have the trigger change the angle of the "out" portal.