Technology powered by magic or magic generated by technology?
>>44204407
The second
Mechs
Exosuits
Or Power armor?
>>44204407
Well if it's magic generated by technology it's just science, now isn't it?
>>44204407
Yes.
>>44204407
The first, otherwise it's just Numenera
>>44204407
Magic improved through technology
>>44204407
Ran a setting where the majority of technology was run by manufactured crystallized magic. It's invention ended all energy concerns in the modern world as a single block the size of a AA battery could power a house for a year and it was cheap as shit to produce and safe.
>>44204957
>It's invention ended all energy concerns in the modern world as a single block the size of a AA battery could power a house for a year and it was cheap as shit to produce and safe.
Thorium reactor?
Chakrapunk is the answer. 150years after naruto everyone is a puppetmaster controlling machines via thier chakra energy.
Neither. Have to keep that stuff separated or the arcane auras fuck with relativistic physics and the machines break down, spells back fire, all kinds of bad stuff. Mages have to ride in the caboose.
>>44205077
That's how my setting does it... but it's more "Nanodiesel seems to be antimagic... our PRIMARY dieselpunk power source doesn't mesh with our magic one... and magic tends to make inanimate objects come to life over time anyways, which is REALLY annoying when the AI loses control of some of it's functions."
>>44204407
First one. Aesthetic of fantasy, with dash of magic.
>>44204407
Either the former or both, surely? I mean, if you have the ability to turn an energy source (like mana or whatever) directly into fire, there's no reason not to put that fire under a boiler, drive a turbine, and make some electricity.
>>44205036
You just gave me the hardest weaboo boner.
>>44204407
Second one.
Magic would drive technology to reasonable levels.
Example.
Someone invents a magic heating device and a mana storage device.
Bam instant steam powered vechicles and mana powered home appliances.
>>44204431
It could be that your using technology to harness an otherwise completely incomprehensible energy. I'd still call it science (in the world at least) but it's more magical that way.
>>44205077
Arcanum a best
>>44204407
In most settings it isn't possible to power technology with magic, because magic isn't a thing but a concept.
Technology is powered with Mana. Magic is generated through this technology.
>>44204407
Tech powered by magic. The other way is just dull and overly complex science
>>44204957
I really want a setting like this that explores the damn near post scarcity world we would have in one with magic, where crops can be enhanced via spells, steam engines powered with fire and water elementals hatefucking in the furnace, and wind mills that have eternal breezes circling them
>>44204407
>x by y
>vs y by x
Whats the difference?
>>44204407
First.
That's how Bionicle should've been done.
>>44204407
The former, because I like to simulate the real world in my games.
>>44205587
well if you can create technology to harness it, it's not really incomprehensible, is it?
>>44204407
>magic generated by technology
Close. My go-to is magic *liberated* by technology. Ex:
Starting in the Doomguy universe right when research physicists freak the fuck out and form a Hellmouth from the cafeteria microwave, or plodding through the STALKER verse where vodka farmers discuss Fornicating Magnetics How Is Operate until freakazoid shit just starts popping-up between the beet rows like supernatural whack-a-moles, or driving past that one doomed lakeside research facility that spawned The Mist.
Imo, that kinda shit keeps settings real and contemporary enough for players but still works well on the Ain Gotta Splain Shit level of OG spoopulation GMs need for the scares to work.
YMMV
>>44205036
>What is Asura's Wrath?
>>44204407
Technology powered by magic, obviously. That can introduce some interesting concepts and fantastical societies. The second is just a bullshit handwave to get magic in you sci-fi setting, and produces nothing.
>>44206717
yeah i like this stuff
in my opinion, magic shouldn't really be harnessed and controlled, ever. it's supposed to be fantastical and impossible to explain. sure, let people in the universe make use of magic, but it has to come with risks and it can't be as simple as just throwing a fireball. if the players in a game ever stop fearing magic, then i think you have failed as a GM
here's what i think becoming a "sorcerer" should be like
>player a glowing blue obelisk stuck in the ground, a hotspot of magical energy
>it hums and glows slightly
>player puts his hand near it, the humming grows louder and his hand starts to vibrate, his mind telling him NO NO NO
>player touches the obelisk and is launched back by a jolt of energy
>player feels fine and walks it off
>next combat, player suddenly feels ill, like static energy is crawling in the back of his neck
>he feels electricity crawling around his body, from his chest to his fingertips
>at first it just felt weird, but now the energy coursing through his body is turning into pain (maybe he would lose HP now)
>he keels over and leans on a wall with his hand
>suddenly a huge bolt of energy jumps through his hand into the wall, annihilating the wall and blowing his arm clean off (player would lose most of his health now)
>player staggers off the wall and looks down at his stump
>then, the stump becomes engulfed with energy again
>electricity from his destroyed arm shoot out to the strips of flesh on the ground, they levitate up to his arm and start spinning around it while held up by streaks of electricity
>another surge of energy goes to his arm, this time reassembling it. scars of the arm's annihilation remain however, and are glowing blue
>player focuses on his arm and squeezes his fist: it starts chirping with uncontained electricity
>an enemy comes at him and he instinctively shields himself with arm, the enemy's sword connects with his hand and the enemy is instantly blown the fuck up
something like that
>>44206694
get your logical minded bullshittery outa here.
>>44206871
>player a glowing
oops, culled too many words to fit 2000 chars
meant player "finds a glowing"
>>44206694
>otherwise
>>44206136
>windmills that have eterbal breezes circling them
So you would use a power source, one thay is neigh infinite, to power a windmill in order to generate power?
>>44206136
You want Eberron?
>>44204407
The former. It just makes more sense that if we're going to have a literally magic source of energy, it's going to be used to do the same things we did with technology.
The desire to fly is universal, for instance. People are going to do that either way. And if they're going to do it, they're going to find ways to make it better.
Magic powered by technology is just a way to get magic into science fiction settings, and is therefor the lowest form of science fiction.
Technomancy(magic powered science) or Scholacasti(science powered magic)
Thaumodynamics is the overarching concept between the two linking them.
>>44207135
What if all that infinite source of power does is circulate a strong gust of air eternally?
>>44206694
Not necessarily. We've used technology to harness forces we didn't fully comprehend before.
>>44204407
If the line isn't blurred you've fucked up.
>>44207211
What if that source conveniently powered all appliances and machines until forever?
The idea was as stupid as having a nuclear reactor powering waterjets to set a watermill into motion
>>44204407
The first makes sense, if magic can produce physical results, like heat, wind and shit like that, it can power a boiler or a windmill and be used for industry.
The second, how would that even work? I mean, if technology generates something, how can it be magic? Does a refrigerator count as frost magic?
>>44206871
Seems good.
Magic isn't to simply fuck around with.
>>44206159
What it is at the core, vs what it is functionally and style wise.
>>44207578
Yes.
>>44207270
Nuclear reactors are literally steam engines.
>>44207862
We bred animals without any knowledge of genetics whatsoever.
>>44207912
We knew that man+woman=baby.
>>44207999
I think he means changing a species properties intentionally over time, not simple reproduction.
>>44207999
Which does not change the fact that we did not understand the forces we were harnessing.
To be clearer, I was referring to the practice of selectively breeding in desired traits.
>>44208053
>>44208049
We understood that a black haired man and a black haired woman would probably have a black haired baby. I know what you meant, I was being a smartass.
>>44208074
Protip: sarcasm works poorly online
>>44208053
The more I learn about dog behavior the more I'm impressed with what we accomplished there.
>>44204407
I generally prefer the former, since the only time I've ever seen the "magic is really nanobots" thing done well is Endless Legend (which I admittedly love).
Technology powered by magic. No one does it right.
>>44204581
this and then wage an incomprehensible war between the two in the streets
Magic technology powered by dinosaur bones
>>44204407
The magic is just technology under those circumstances. If you are using it in your machines with that level of regularity and consistency, it is no longer magic.
Magic is just knowledge that isn't well spread/intuitive to those that don't already know how it works. There is a reason why basically every word that we now use for 'magic user', if you go back far enough, just translates to 'wise man' or 'smart person'.
In ancient times, being able to know your location by the stars was enough to be considered a form of divination. Making sacrifices to the ground in order to replenish it for a good harvest was appeasing nature spirits. Knowing what moss to put on a wound to reduce the chances of it getting infected was magic. So on and so forth, basic knowledge of useful tricks being passed down by word of mouth.
Once the knowledge of that stuff became more common, it stopped being magic. It was then replaced by new forms of 'magic', more complicated tricks using resources and cumulative knowledge previously unavailable.
If we didn't live in the information age where you could just google how stuff works and why at any time, computers would be magic because its hard to explain how they work to someone who doesn't have a degree. But we all know how computers work now, so the only magic left to us is theoretical physics.
That's why it is only recently, in fiction, that magic has explicitly had to become some powerful Other force that exists totally separately from anything else. Acting like a second form of electricity with undisclosed and fantastical properties. Because everything that used to be magic isn't magic anymore, so we had to come up with exaggerating the idea of magic just to have something that still fills the same role in our fiction.
>>44208253
Chaika?
>>44208307
Concepts like mana and chi are pretty fucking old dude.
And besides, magical technology has been around a long time, in the form of wands. If you can imbue magical spells into objects, eventually some crazy wizard will figure out how to do it with a machine.
>>44207912
>We bred animals without any knowledge of genetics whatsoever
Except that we did have knowledge of genetics. Not about genes, but in the practical sense that concerns heredity. We understood perfectly well that tall people had tall kids and smart people had smart kids and that kids look like their parents, and that the same was true for animals.
You don't need to know about chromosomes and RNA to understand that breeding your smartest/biggest/fastest dogs/horses/whatevers with each other might be a good idea.
>>44209108
Do you want to read the comment chain, or do you enjoy spewing your shit no matter what the context?
>>44208307
Reminds me of how magecraft works in the Nasuverse. It's explicitly powered by mystery and the more people that know about Magic the less powerful it is. The sperad of science and rationalism has weakened magic immensely since the days of old. That's why mages are so secretive and refuse to expose themselves, if the general public learned about magic their power would drop even more than it already has.
>>44204581
I had a setting where after humanity learn it's lesson that relying on demons and black magic to improve their magic capabilities was a bad idea they looked to other forms of improvement
one of those ideas was the "alchemist movement" which used both forms. Creating magitech, making the periodic table to brew potions more effectively, using the scientific method to test specific spells, using machines to physically generate phenomenon to aid magic capabilities (like using generators to boost lightning magic).
I liked how Devil Survivor did the "magic generated by technology" thing. Computer programs work through complex spells and rituals faster than a human could perform them. And since demon summoning is fueled by strong emotions in this setting, the program channels emotional energy from the Internet.
Yes, demon summoning literally uses all the rage and butthurt from the Internet as an endless power supply. It's never more than a footnote, but it's pretty clever.
>>44204407
The answer is "Yes".
>>44208240
>Sci-fi civilization with technology so advanced it breaks the laws of physics wants to open portals to other dimensions to colonize
>one of those dimensions have a race that relies on the fusion between actual magic and technology to create a utopia that's under attack by said Sci-fi civ
>war between light and dark futuristic space elves ensues
>>44204581
Because that makes no fucking sense anon.
>Not Technology powered by magic powered by technology
It would work, wouldn't it? Relatively less advanced duders applying scientific princples to ancient magitech shit they don't have the slightest clue about the true workings of. There would be very accurate theories as to the behavior of the magic bullshit, which would allow it to be harnessed. Stick the glowy space crystals into the solenoid to make heat or electricity. Build a clockwork machine to carry out magic rituals in miniature without involving a person.
But in the end, it was totally aliens.
>>44206717
>My go-to is magic *liberated* by technology.
I did this in one of my settings. Magic always existed, but was pretty much impossible to control in any way until the invention computers, whose immense precision and calculation abilities could crunch the insane mathematics needed for magic.
Most magic in this setting involves spell circles, and computers are pretty much required to do the dense calculations to sketch out a circle AND to actually draw the circle with perfect accuracy so it doesn't blow up in your face.
>>44206752
One of the greatest fucking settings ever.
>>44212566
Devices that create magical phenomena being powered by magic stuff makes a lot of sense to me.
>>44212915
That still makes no fucking sense anon.
Why not just have the fucking magical stuff?
>>44212937
Why do you need a car? Can't you just drink gasoline and get the same effect?
>>44204407
>Tech powered by magic
>Tech generated magic
Wouldn't you say this is a change in the setting of the Final Fantasy games through the years? I think I prefer the earlier, where magic is more a mysterious force of nature, rather than a principal of physics like electricity.
>>44212991
That's technology using technology, anon.
Following your analogy, >>44212915 would just be an example of technology powered by magic, not both.
>>44212937
One end you got a society controlled by a magic elite putting all their investments on trying to better understand the arcane nature of things
On the other you got a bunch of non-magical detractors that were originally oppressed by the magical elite but build their non-magical technology enough to effectively combat the mages and build their own society. Prompting the mages to add technology to their magic to better effectively combat the non-magical masses which creates a magic/tech arms-race between the two factions
The result is that both goes full circle where the magic and technology is indistinguishable
>>44213051
Okay, that makes sense.It also sounds fucking retarded and like a shit setting idea -- they'd end up indistinguishable, so why distinguish them in the first place? -- but that's just subjective opinion.
>>44213031
I'd think if you're shoveling magic crystals into the thaumic generator that powers your demon summoning machine (because you're not much of a wizard and who has time to remember all those true names anyway) then it's both, right?
>>44213171
Nope. It's just tech powered by magic. Magic in --> tech using magic --> tech uses said magic to continue magic. In the end, it's magic making magic with the help of technology.
Magic powered by tech would be stuff like psionics in ME, or plasmids in Bioshock, or other technobullshittery.
I absolutely hate the magic vs technology trope and went out of my way to prevent it. Its a trite, stupid, lazy way to generate canned conflict and it makes no sense at all.Why wouldnt a WHIZZZAARD whos constantly into expanding his horizon of knowledge wouldnt want to develop new ways to apply his magic? Why wouldnt an engineer want to have access a huge supply of interesting materials to work with?
I went full dungeonpunk, magic and science happily working together an incredibly weird industrial revolution. Sure, wizards are going away, but thats not because the magic is gone, but because rulers and civil servants doesnt like finger wriggling crazy old men in point hats, they dont want a WHIZZZARD anymore, they want a magic technician, a trained professional who could mend a broken axle or enchant a barrel, not shoot fireballs. A novice air adept with some basic cantrips can ventillate an entire coal mine from damp on its own. Air was condensed by ice adepts helped by engineers and pipework and alchemists discovered fractional distillation of liquid air, enabling gigantic leaps in metallurgy, skipping right to oxygen injection furnaces, Linz-Donawitz steelmaking and shielding gas hot rolling. They discovered how to safely tap the violent discharges of summoned thunder elemental hearts and utilize them as arc furnaces, enabling them to melt and alloy magical substances like mithril that were only molten by dragonfire. New kinds of heavy duty arcanite alloy artillery pieces were invented, after the discovery of guncotton and firing runes made firing holes obsolete, worked and moved in the factory by industrial golems who are able to tolerate the conditions that would kill any human smith.
>>44214245
Cont.
AA whole slew of minor enchanted items were also introduced as common equipment likehealing potion rations for soldiers(why this isnt a thing in fantasy already) combat enchanter teams akin to sappers, buffing elixirs brewed in industrial quantities and issued regularly, self-heating winter gloves and socks, imbued ammunition, guns with underslung wands, combat medics carrying scrolls instead of surgical tools, combat mages wielding guns and grenades as sidearms, flashlights made out of crystals brightly glowing when moistened by mana potions etc.
It shouldnt be obvious at first glance where clever magic, clever technology and just clever mundane organization ends and begins.
>>44214245
>>44214385
Thought about something like that, but with magic being more chaotic and dangerous.
You have nice ideas.
>>44214877
If you're interested I can dig up the campagin notes I have somewhere.
>>44214245
>>44214385
I do something similar, just without the industrial bit as magic has amped all the nasty shit humans have to contend with as well and it makes large scale society difficult.
>>44214385
>(why this isnt a thing in fantasy already)
Because it either is, or it is very expensive. In terms of D&D, the manual gives the (rather absurd, IMHO) example of a regular peasant being lucky to see a sack of gold pieces in his entire life. And even the lowliest healing potion costs such a sack, and Lvl 1 characters will find themselves pooling resources to buy one. As such, the typical Lvl 1 soldier (another conceit I'm not particularly fond of) costs less than the potion that would be used to keep him going. So even if you're a nice overlord, you pull him from the line when he gets wounded, and send in the replacement, and then another, and another. Or you just bundle them together.
As you point out, it would only become viable if said potions were to be mass-produced, preferably with some cost-cutting measures. I mean, if they're made with some rare newt's eye, well, advances in magic made it possible to create a pocket universe where they do actually manage to get their ridiculously finnicky mating ritual going. At great cost, but Magic Solutions Inc. wrangled a contract with the state, and they'll be supplying the army's healing potions for the next ten years. Of course, the common hedgemage finds themselves evicted from the market, and possibly thrown in jail for scouring the countryside for what is, by now, very likely an endangered species.
Yeah, I used to run a similar setting. But I was a teen, and went less into details. It meant flying ships, magic deathrays replacing oldfashioned fireballs, fighter aircraft taking out dragons, and an Elven Best Korea.
>>44217633
Once you progress from alchemy into biochemistry, you realize that you never needed that newts eye, just a chemical in it that can be synthesized and produced in an easier way. If not, then genetic engineering lets you implant the genes responsible for that chemical mix into something that can produce a lot of it, like cows. Much like those goats that produce spider silk in their milk we have in real life.
Of course if it is really the "eye of newt" as whole, we need for lolz reasons, then engineer a species that only lives in containment, has 20 newt eyes and breeds faster than rabbits.
>>44205036
You know this isn't a far fetched idea. In one of the naruto movies one of the enemies they fight attacks the Leaf Village by using chakra powered gliders while using shuriken guns. Sure they had to be healed up after every flight because of how much charkra it took but they had a whole navy and everything flying off of carriers and shit (before the bug guy rekted them)
Extrapolate off this idea and have machines that can more efficently use chakra so you don't damn near die of exhaustion every time you use your vehicle.
>>44212907
Fucking rights it is.
>>44213148
the point is that they started as completely separate things, that over time became indistinguishable.
>>44217633
good thing not every fantasy is D&D then
>>44215356
if you still here. dew it.
>>44224913
Okay.
The setting was roughly based on the Thirty Years War and mainly was about the unification of of a HRE stand-in. Because I have an autistic love for worldbuilding and history everything was needlessly thought over and explained. How the disparate little states and fiefdoms eventually coalesced near two centers of power, how society developed and got overmiltitarized(think prussia) how old institutions and customs gave way to new development and organizations. The magitek stuff was just a tiny part of a much greater process, they were never given any focus, never fawned over, never lovingly detailed to draw attention to it. It gave a sense of versimilitude and depth to the world. It was mundane, it was everday, portrayed completely normal and accepted. When the players saw enchanting mills turning on their own, wandering brooms, mana flares burning off excess ambient mana or a workman pulling out a mending crystal to 'weld' they were all treated as business as usual. This made players actually wanting to explore stuff, knowing things are not pushed in their face to show off.
To really drive the point home, most of the applications of magitek, including the ones unavailable to us right now(like working AIs) were mostly just the results of good organization and sound application of mundane ideas.
Reality ensued too in ways(mostly because I like to break tropes) the steampunk airships the "sky battleships" were shown in-universe to be unwieldy, fragile mistakes voraciously consuming maintainance funds even when docked and all the money and effort went into developing them was in vain. Observation balloons? Express mail carriers? Flag-showing patrol ships ? Those could possibly work great, but even magitek cant solve everything.
