Greetings /tg/,
I've been searching for ideas and inspiration for a setting I am working on and have come up short.
So I come to you.
The setting is analogous to steampunk/magitech.
It took me a while to settle on "Fantastic Technology" as a term to explain what I am talking about.
I like new & clever combinations of science applied in ways largely not done in real life.
I hate nonsensical applications of it such as a clockwork spoon or magical Iron Man armor powered by a-wizard-did-it.
I realize it's autistic to expect any of the tech to actually function and have no problem with solutions that depend on rare unobtainium, adamantium, vibranium, or whatever to make it work.
I like technological solutions like pic related or an industrial freezer cooled by an Ice Giant's heart with clockwork fans that need to be wound everyday.
Setting details:
>Set in a large collection of various sized islands.
>Long after a magical apocalypse
>Magic, all magic, appears to be dead
>All records and knowledge of magic were abolished
>Age of ships and science began
>Two large empires formed
>Militaristic human oligarchy based out of the largest land mass in the west
>Totalitarian Dragonborn (working name) empire spanning many of the eastern islands
>Clusters of unexplored, uncharted, and unaligned islands in between
When I tried to detail the setting, I realized all my tech ideas were derivative, unoriginal crap.
The only idea I came up with that I like is a large ship crafted out of stone and I haven't even worked that out fully yet.
I tried to find ideas online and found either derivative crap, nonsensical crap, or useless crap.
I don't want modern day tech only with steam, cogs, and glowing rocks.
I don't want *Science!* as magical handwaving for anything imaginable.
I don't expect /tg/ to spoonfeed me what I want either.
I'm just hoping for something to generate ideas.
tldr: OP is a faggot who wants fantastical technology inspiration for a setting that will likely go nowhere
Improvised guns and explosives. Have the primers for hand made cartridges be made of magical shit. Instead of black powder various reagents could be used to alter the effects. The magical shit would be scavenged from ruins based on what you've outlined for your setting.
1. Power generation
-power station is split into hubs
-hubs are split into a number of periphery towers
- each tower is a shaft that sits vertically in a massive pair of journal bearings
-each tower has a number of fabric sails to catch wind
-each tower is connected via chain to central power shaft
-to account for variability in individual tower angular velocity have each tower's chain apply torque via its own differential gear setup. each differential gear setup would be at a different height obviously
-power shaft transfers rotation to a horizontal shaft
-horizontal power shaft has a gearbox associated with it to control output speed
-final output shaft is attached to electrical generator
Hope that's decent.
>>43971749
I like that arrow. The fact that it would cost 22500gp (in PF at least) makes it surprisingly balanced.
>>43971940
Obviously the sails have to be rigid so they don't counteract each other and push/pull in the same direction.
>>43971884
>Rare powders that are discovered from scavenged ruins used as explosives.
It wouldn't be wide spread, but would make those that found it powerful as they have access to magiguns that other do not.
Each cartridge is experimental, constant search for more powder, alchemists working to identify and replicate it and predict the results.
I can work with this.
>>43972072
Yeah, but there's a good chance any being who'd justify a solution like that could also escape from the Astral Plane.
>>43972173
Further balancing an otherwise unavoidable fate.
Given its cost and the ability for some beings to plane shift back, I'd allow it to be used in a game.
>>43971940
>Hope that's decent.
Quite good.
Innovative take on a windmill, makes for a interesting visual.
>>43972120
Thank you for the drawing.
I needed it and to google "journal bearing" to fully get what you were describing.
I am more mechanically inclined than mechanically educated.
>>43972072
>>43972211
Yeah, I always thought it was balanced.
Well, balanced as a magical weapon, not necessarily so much as an arrow.
>>43972173
>Yeah, but there's a good chance any being who'd justify a solution like that could also escape from the Astral Plane.
But if the target is larger than ten feet, wouldn't there just be a five foot deep crater missing from them?
Had a discussion about using one to head shot a tarrasque once.
>>43972499
>unbalanced arrow
Oh definitely, I'd probably throw a -4 penalty on the attack roll. Not that you need to hit the target directly.
Wouldn't the Tarrasque regenerate?
>>43972595
>Wouldn't the Tarrasque regenerate?
I tried to call up the stats on it before posting, failed, and posted anyway.
I'll try again.
Why do you dislike, ah, >nonsensical applications of it such as a clockwork spoon or magical Iron Man armor powered by a-wizard-did-it. ?
>>43972648
>>43972659
Yes, it would regenerate.
But the arrow to the face might give you time to run away.
Bumping with another fine example of using magic elements to create clever tech.
>>43972739
Damn not sure how I missed this.
>>43972659
>Why do you dislike, ah, >nonsensical applications of it such as a clockwork spoon or magical Iron Man armor powered by a-wizard-did-it?
Not sure how I missed your post earlier. Sorry.
>Clockwork spoon
A spoon is an elegantly designed tool for what it does.
Adding clockwork does not increase or augment it's function at all.
(Unless we're talking about an automated feeding apparatus for an invalid which would be fine I suppose)
>Magical Iron Man armor powered by a-wizard-did-it
It's an impressive, complex, absurdly powerful piece of science fiction technology explained away by wizardry.
"Explained away" is the perfect phrase for why I dislike it.
I want things explained, not explained away.
Now if you want to sew a flying carpet into the lining of a knight's armor, equip magnetic rings that channel electricity generated from a liquid unobtainium battery, that's an explanation.
Saying "a wizard did it because magic" is saying nothing.
"Magic Crystals" is saying at least something.
>>43976157
Isn't this pic the plot of Bionicle?
>>43976426
I do not know.
But for me, now it is.
>>43971749
Take a golem, remove all of it except the legs
Place the legs in a standard transmission
You now have a car/train/truck/boat engine that requires no fuel and goes forever.
Doesn't actually require any real tech either.
>>43978127
So grafting a carriage onto a set of golem legs?
You can;t beat the mileage.
>>43978187
>So grafting a carriage onto a set of golem legs?
use a proper transmission system, you will get far smoother ride, greater speed, etc.
>>43978127
>>43978187
>>43978200
>>43972595
>Oh definitely, I'd probably throw a -4 penalty on the attack roll.
-5 is what you get for going all in on a attack, forfeiting all chances of movement if the target misses its trajectory.
Its -1 at most
It would also ignore all Armor AC, since it only needs to hit the target, not damage it.
l find layers of abstraction help these magic systems feel good. If you go down the chain of explanation, eventually a wizard did it. But not immediately.
Take your magical iron automaton. Give it an input feed that is used elsewhere in the story. It's strictly limited to instructions programmed into it via the input feed. How does the input feed work? Why, it uses a principle discovered by Tinkerton Robotman who observed that information could be recorded and retrieved automatically when elements X and Y were placed into a mechanism. Why do elements X and Y work that way? Now you can say a wizard did it.
The more internally consistent your layers of abstraction are, the more you cross-reference techs and reuse explanations, the more the reader suspends their disbelief.
>>43978257
>Science
>Ain't gotta explain
but... that is the whole point of science!
>>43978456
>Take your magical iron automaton. Give it an input feed that is used elsewhere in the story. It's strictly limited to instructions programmed into it via the input feed. How does the input feed work? Why, it uses a principle discovered by Tinkerton Robotman who observed that information could be recorded and retrieved automatically when elements X and Y were placed into a mechanism. Why do elements X and Y work that way? Now you can say a wizard did it.
>The more internally consistent your layers of abstraction are, the more you cross-reference techs and reuse explanations, the more the reader suspends their disbelief.
Unless your explanation is bad, like midichlorians, then it ruins things.
I think the big thing in favor of layers like you describe is emergent worldbuilding. Stuff the author never intended but that he realizes once he stops and thinks about the implication of what he unleashed
>>43978456
>l find layers of abstraction help these magic systems feel good. If you go down the chain of explanation, eventually a wizard did it.
Yeah, That is what I was driving at when I mentioned unobtainium, a material that won't melt when inside a planet's core.
How? An engineer did it.
>>43978482
>I think the big thing in favor of layers like you describe is emergent worldbuilding. Stuff the author never intended but that he realizes once he stops and thinks about the implication of what he unleashed
This. So much this.
>>43971749
>no problem with solutions that depend on rare unobtainium, adamantium, vibranium, or whatever to make it work
I love giving bizarre physical properties to these metals, sometimes leaving them with unintended uses.
Mithril I always saw as magic world aluminium and if any of the societies had a way to extract the it from the oxide then they'd have access to a lightweight, tough and heat-resistant metal.
Well if any race group were to pull this off it'd be the dwarves; spinning great forcestone wheels inside their mountain dams.
Once they had electrolysis and a ready source of incredibly tough and heat resistant metal I've been playing with what technologies they could conceivably push for.
Unlimited hydrogen gives them internal combustion engines, zeppelins and coilguns; which immediately led to the world most terrifying war machine being commissioned.
>>43979109
>coilguns
*light-gas gun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_gas_gun
The coilguns and railguns came later when the dwarves figured out flux compression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compression_generator
>>43971749
>and have no problem with solutions that depend on rare unobtainium, adamantium, vibranium, or whatever to make it work.
Assuming you dont care about lack of resources and and money needed to somethjing, you could have hard scifi stuff with current understaning of science.
>>43979109
Mithril would pretty much be the perfect material in the aerospace industry.
>light-weight airframe
>ramjets
>scramjets
