Sci-fi? In MY medieval fantasy? Anyone ever experience this in their games? Or have art of this holy/unholy (depends on your viewpoint I guess) mix of genres?
>medieval fantasy
I hope this term fucking dies.
Also it's been a thing since like for fucking ever to have "Sci-Fi" in fantasy.
>>43813816
The muscle fibers of your suit have been damaged. The craftmasters of the barbarian village will fix your suit for you but you have to help the Chief's son on a very important hunt for an upcoming ceremony.
>>43813816
conan the barbarian had fucking aliens and shit in it man
sci-fi and fantasy are the same thing
>>43813816
Is it just me, or does it look like the robot would shoot itself in the head if it shot that glowy ball of death from it's tail? Seems like pretty poor design.
>>43813816
The major difference between soft sci fi and fantasy is the matter of tech level. Assuming there are groups with varying levels of tech its not real surprise that such things can happen. Its just rarely written about and people can be stupidly pissy about it.
>>43813816
God I love Golarion. Im going to dump a few images I have from the Iron Gods AP and associated books.
>>43814200
Sci-fi and fantasy are vague terms that encompass a lot of territory and can mesh together a lot (examples being Star Wars, Shadowrun, WH40k, and Conan as you pointed out) but I wouldn't go so far as to call them the same thing.
Maybe I should have specified it as "advanced sci-fi/modern technology in a 'generic' fantasy setting".
>>43814374
Please do! I also loved all the Iron Gods art but could never figure out how to extract them from the PDFs.
Ratfolk are apparently very keen on tech and its uses.
Golarion has a literal Goddess of Steampunk and Clockwork.
>>43814408
I only have those from the first 2 APs since the cleaner up and stopped separating the images when he released them.
Meet Hellion, the insane demigod AI who wishes to escape his tiny prison and do unspeakable things to the world and beyond.
Orcs with Chainswords? Orcs with Chainswords!
The left person is supposed to be the digital avatar of Unity, chief Divine Computer...I mean Iron God. Sucks they only released it for the paper minis.
Really, ratfolk just seem so at home amongst all this loose scrap and tech.
>>43814538
Fuck I knew I messed up the names. Hellion is just some minor Ai Unity spawned. Unity is the insane AI god who so desperately want freedom.
Remember kids, always leave the disarming of high tech, futuristic doomsday devices to the adventurers.
You see Ivan, Kalashnikov only need minor beating to function again.
>>43814200
Yeah, back in the day it was all 'weird fiction'. Conan mercy killed an alien elephant-man, Silmarillion has space-ships and shit. Idea that fantasy can be somehow "corrupted" by sci-fi elements is a really new thing. Fuck, even old D&D had expedition to the barrier peaks with all its space-opera glory.
>>43814602
As a GM who ran Iron Gods I depicted Hellion more as the "insane AI who wants to be free" shtick. Unity was more calm and collected, and believed its freedom was inevitable. It only started breaking down when its robot body was destroyed by the party, wherein it retreated into its digital planar realm and went full "you guys are fucking dead" mode.
It was still a piece of shit for wanting to eradicate free will via a literal religious virus, but I depicted it as naive and genuinely believed free will is a bad thing.
So Hellion was SHODAN (except way less cool), and Unity was HAL 9000.
Ahh, my favorite monster from the set. What happens when your robot breaks down and just wont work anymore? Reanimate it with elemental spirits and set it to guard duty.
Even outsiders can like a bit of tech. This is one of Golarions kytons, who are basically notCenobites, and she has adorned herself in the sweet suffering of cybernetic gear.
>>43814708
I absolutely love that design for his body.
Actually, is there ANY pure 'medieval fantasy' out there? One without any ancient high-tech civilisations, aliens or forgotten nukes and mechs?
>>43814731
By the by, if you're dumping, please tell me you have art of that cyber-lich.
>>43814741
Yep. Ill dump anything from the Tech guide, first two AP books, and Numeria book.
>>43814765
Forgot to add, ill take requests now since I dumped what I thought was pretty blatant scifi fantasy shit. The rest is either individual tech pieces, NPCs, or fantasy stuff.
>>43814737
Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Dark Souls, off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more.
>>43814765
Thanks! I love the idea of a cyber-lich.
Ya'll mother fuckers need some Heavenly Forge.
>>43814812
>Forgotten Realms
I'm pretty sure there are ancient aliens and other stuff there.
Remember playing old 2nd. Edition AD&D and went up against a no bullshit fucking Genestealer. Of course I didn't know it at the time since I wasn't into wh40k yet. Gygax scenarios were crazy shit back then.
>>43813885
I'm legit curious as to what the fuck you're talking about. Do you feel you have a better term for fantasy settings inspired by medieval Europe, or do you hope that fantasy settings inspired by medieval Europe stop being popular?
I don't have many images but I do this all the time. Sci-fi in my fantasy, fantasy in my sci-fi, who cares. Just describe it to the players in terms their characters would understand if you can.
Even if I were playing Forgotten Realms straight they've got shit like Modrons and other such nonsense that are basically robots hanging around. Eberron has Warforged and trains and shit.
On the other end we've got the Force and psychics and ghosts in Fallout, nanomachines in that hack Kojima's work and any number of explicitly fantastic ideas elsewhere in otherwise pretty straight sci-fi.
Speculative fiction is a genre.
Actually speculative fiction is fiction and everything else (including "literary fiction" or realistic fiction) is a subgenre, but our language inherits the attitude that serious fiction must feature the world as we know it and that fiction about other worlds represents a deviation of some kind, so we'll go with saying that speculative fiction is a genre.
Fantasy and scifi are flavors of speculative fiction. It's pretty fair to say that scifi is inspired by the future and fantasy is inspired by the past, but the way the labels are used doesn't strictly follow that. You could also say that fantasy specifically represents things that we currently think aren't possible while scifi presents things that are held to be theoretically possible and just haven't happened yet.
>>43814714
I don't understand. What is functionally the differance between a golem and a robot?
>>43815214
A robot runs on electricity and small motors and a whole bunch of tech. A golem is just a heap of material animated with elemental spirits to give it mobility and cohesiveness. If our robot breaks, you can animate that useless heap of metal and silicon with elemental spirits to give it mobility again.
>>43815214
Robots have a CPU or equivalent. Golems think through magic.
>>43815267
Golems dont really think though. Robots can.
>>43815266
And I forgot, a robot is quite useful for detail and minute work whereas a golem is a brute force type.
>>43815266
>>43815267
>>43815303
So what you're telling me is that a robot, via the computer that runs it can take more complex commands and doesn't run off of magic while a golem, while animated via magic can only take very simple commands.
Like all things it seems arbitrary to me if you can use magic to power the robot's functions, but this is Pathfinder, and on the whole, D&D so it's to be expected.
>>43814812
>>43814840
D&D settings are grab-bag settings. I would say "melting pot" except nothing really melts and in some cases jarring incongruities are maintained for their own sake.
Middle Earth is pure fantasy. Magitech will never exist in Middle Earth, there is no alien energy at the root of its magic which future generations might decipher, it all just runs on poetic reasoning and none of it is necessarily reproducible.
The most sci-fi-ey thing I can think of is that if you saw Numenor's navy heading out to wage war on the West it would have probably looked like a gaggle of steampunk battleships, they were described as floating fortresses. Numenor had advanced science and engineering, but in Tolkien some people are just more awesome than others and everything they do or make is imbued with unearthly awesomeness and that was the main force powering Numenor.
I'm not a robot
>>43815303
>>43815267
>>43815266
To be fair iron golems are usually drawn like robots, with articulated joints and pistons and shit everywhere. But you could also portray an iron golem as an empty suit of armor
>>43815332
You're not powering the robot's functions once you turn into a golem. Its dead, the motors do not run, the CPU isnt functioning. Its just metal and silicon being jumbled around by magical entities within it. It has none of its former functions anymore. Its a walking scrap heap in the shape of a once useful tool.
It's not arbitrary, you just don't have any understanding of the nuances or reasons why they are different.
>>43815398
Those pistons and joints are really just to make the magical stuffs job easier. And it just looks awesome anyway.
>>43815411
>the nuances or reasons why they are different
All of those nuances and reasons are arbitrary. That's how fantasy works. "Arbitrary" is a perfectly fair word.
And yes that's how I read robot-ey stuff in my constructs. A magical construct with gears and pistons boasts superior craftsmanship (and is generally but not always more powerful) than a magical construct made of clay, but at the end of the day neither of them would work without magic.
>>43814063
to be fair, all the fantasy elements in that have a BS scifi explanation in that game if you go looking.
Except maybe the world having a conscious
that one still stumps me
>>43813816
I once ran a dnd campaign that was actually set on a post apocalypse scifi planet. Some ancient relic gear was really stuff like power armour or laser swords.
One of the war gods was actually an AI battleship that had undergone apotheosis and his angels where battlemech and variable fighter knockoffs.
Also "deamons" where the aliens who won an ancient war which was the apocalypse that blasted people back too the stoneage.
>>43814860
>e that fantasy settings inspired by medieval Europe
Fantasy settings aren't inspired by medieval Europe aside from the existence of swords and armor.'
>>43816386
Dust. It's the Endless universe's nanomachines/parasites.
>>43813816
Yeah, but you don't present it that way. You know how in Cowboys and Aliens no character went, "Oh jeez these damned aliens and their damned autonomous airborne drones!" They all cried demons.
You don't tell them there's a fighter jet breaking the sound barrier, you describe an ungodly swift iron hawk whose roar literally shakes your very core as it passes overhead.
>>43816740
yes, and the magic of the pain mages is dust reacting to the pain of its hosts.
The beastfolk and other fantasy races are either aliens, mutants, robots, or any mix of the above.
Fucking endless legend
a real Sly-fi
>>43816557
Some fantasy settings aren't inspired by medieval Europe. But if you're talking about any popular D&D setting then you're wrong and you're dumb.
>>43814860
Most fantasy medieval European settings don't have much to do with actual Medieval Europe. They have more in common with the American Wild West and other americanisms. It just appears to be Medieval Europe because of the swords, knights and castles, etc.
>>43813816
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
>>43816928
No, he really isn't.
The average "medieval fantasy setting" has no plate armor but no firearms, a pagan religion that usually has only negligible power, tons of large empires and kingdoms with next to no feudalism to be seen, large organized armies, etc.
It also has a wide variety of entire CLASSES which are outside that mold, such as Barbarians, Druids, Monks, etc.
It uses monsters from every corner of the globe, and every mythology, because D&D was invented by dorks who gleefully stole more historical bullshit to put into their game then early George Lucas.
Anyone who says D&D is a medieval game is a fucking retard with no idea about anything, and anyone who complains about "Sci-fi" being in D&D should be shot for not knowing that there was an early adventure that involved exploring a UFO, ray-guns and robots were in other early adventures, so was power armor, etc.
Its ridiculous that a game based on pulp, lovecraft, and historical fanfiction would eventually be considered "Medieval Fantasy", as though it was in any way shape or form similiar to Medieval Europe in equipment, politics, religion, or aesthetic.
>>43818522
has plate armor but no*
>>43814840 Forgotten Realms
>I'm pretty sure there are ancient aliens and other stuff there.
Those were all Spelljammer tie-ins.
And Spelljammer is about as close to pure fantasy as a Space Opera can get, it's almost an Age of Sail setting.
>>43815332
Yes, because robots in pf are creations of a civilisation far beyond ours, while golems are elementals with tard level intelligence bound into a body, after which they have to be even further restricted so as to ensure they're not gonna just murder their creator. Hence robots are intelligent, because they have no inherent reason to be pissed at their creators and are thus allowed intelligence, while golems aren't intelligent as if they were, they'd understand what their creators did
>>43818522
in fairness, some fantasy settings ARE inspired by mediaeval europe and they're cool and fun.
>>43816805
The Broken Lords are actually descendants / ARE the dudes that made Dust with a major case of amnesia, they are actually the faction of the dudes that made Dust that were completely against ascending to Dust-fueled immortal energy / nanomachine beings.
Which is funny as hell.
>>43820874
Broken Lords are the Concrete?
I never finished their questline, so I never knew. Interesting.
>>43821184
>>43821191
>>43821199
>>43818469
FOUND THE NUMERNERA PLAYER
Fuck you. That was never a fucking trope to begin with. The only time magic like technology existed is when it's handwaved for the sake of plot like Star Wars.
Fucking faggot suck a nigger dick.
>>43814818
And one faction for Heroes III was supposed to be a sci-fi one...
>>43821214
>he doesn't know of Clarke's Third Law
>>43821250
>omfg it has a name so it's right all the time.
Technology on magic levels is just handwaving. It's there to carry the plot along so nobody looks to deep behind the curtain.
Nobody is wow'd anymore by technology being magical so the law doesn't apply. You just handwave future tech to facilitate focus on the characters or you go in depth with it so as to incorporate it into the story like Star Trek.
Also the only time I hear people say that is when they are trying to lend gravitas to their shitty genre blending.
>>43821373
>>43821214
You literally have no idea what the point of the Third Law even is.
>>43821373
It's done all the time in fiction. 40k, Mass Effect, Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars (even though that's more science fantasy than science fiction)
Just because you're some cocksucker who wails when this shtick is used doesn't invalidate its existence and use.
I don't even like Numenaria and I know you're retarded.
>>43814816
Thats Spelljammer, not sci-fi.
Fuck everyone, have Dragonmech
>>43821735
Darn pity there isn't enough fantasy mecha settings (or magitek mecha).
Would love to see fantasy Front Mission or another Dragonmech.
Wondering if Eberron would have someone create giant humanoid war machines in the future...bonus if they'll be sentient like warforged, but incapable of moving without a pilot.
>>43815351
>Midle earth is pure fantasy
Wtf men no it's not. Is the whole damn point of Saruman.
Very low tech? Surely. Pure fantasy? Not a chance.
>>43815351
>Middle Earth is pure fantasy. Magitech will never exist in Middle Earth
Silmarillion had aeroplanes, dude.
>>43822957
>bonus if they'll be sentient like warforged, but incapable of moving without a pilot.
I have no pilot, and I must scream
>>43825014
OK, I overdid it.
Make it so that they go into stasis without a pilot, but come to life when the pilot activates them.
