Putting the "Steam" into Steam and Sorcery
Perhaps a third of the network of steel rails that spanned most of the civilized world has survived the travails of the Landwarp and Techdeath. Steel rails bolted to heavy wooden ties are resistant to a lot of punishment. The trains had to be rebuilt, diesel dosen't burn and advanced electronics don't work anymore.
Most common trains are wood or coal fired. They can manage ten to twelve miles an hour. They're reliable machines, steam power was not affected by the changes.
Faster trains burn alchemically treated wood or coal (go watch Back to the Future III). They are about twice as fast as the common trains and require a lot of attention. The alchemical fuel is also very expensive.
Finally, there are trains that use a heat-producing creature, like a summoned fire elemental or salamander to boil the water. They can also be fueled by a magical device that performs the same function. They can run without fuel and are about three times as fast as conventional trains.
In the Carribean, many ships make use of boilers to power massive engines, especially those metal ships that survived from Earth. The engine rooms of the steamers are often quite dangerous to work, as the temperature soars over 100 degrees in minutes.
Disasters and "Opportunities"ScamperPuppy wrote:"Uh, Frank? There's somethin' holdin' on to the wheel. Last time around, it winked at me, and said, 'Faster!' This job is whack."
With the population so drastically reduced, plus the introduction of 'evil' races, etc. I'm assuming much of the world is in a state of total lawlessness. Sure we find isolated pockets--cities, towns--where people have the lights on again, but in general, it's a lot of open wilderness.
What does this imply for our trains? There's a fair bit of traffic going on without any sort of planning or traffic control. Also, if I were a kobold tribe looking for an easy score, how tough is it to sabotage the tracks and then just pillage the wreck later? All of this leads me to think the trains would be pretty heavily defended any time they run outside of 'civilized' lands.
Many trains will be protected by teams of outriders, including physical or mechanical engineers who can check the status of the tracks and make repairs in short order. Since the trains are moving at a maximum speed of 40 miles an hour, the teams have some time, but not lots of time, to do their very necessary work.
Train towns, safe harbors for precious cargo, have sprung up around the old rail yards and important lines. These communities depend on the revenue from the trains, and a large part of their population works to protect them and keep them functioning. Rail lines near train towns have defenses built up near them, everything from breastworks to armed guards to alchemical and magical traps are put into play.
Steam Power - Other Applications
Heavy industry can also make use of steam power, as can more 'artisan' work, like metal crafting. I've been watching Monster Garage and the like and the metal working and shaping tools some of these people have at their disposal are really cool. Sure, there's some things that may not work (because they depend on pneumatics or intricate gearing), but a technomagical ironworks will be able to shave a significant amount of time off of item creation.
Electricity and Electronics
Alchemical batteries form the core of many devices and conveniences in Steam and Sorcery. A wealthy home could keep a large bank of alchemical batteries to run the
lights and heat and whatnot. For not too much money, I'd assume basic battery powered light and heat sources would be available (in the right cities).
Small batteries containing a mix of alchemical reagents and potential spellworks form the core of a number of weapons: like the stunner (single target Sleep), and the barty club (Inflict Light Wounds with subdual substitution). Larger (50 gallon drum) batteries form the core of the new telegraphy system - providing power to repeater crystal networks.
Dynamos no longer work. Old-style chemical cell batteries are inert lumps. The only reliable way to generate electrical power is through alchemical batteries. Once an alchemical battery has been created, it has a limited amount of power. They can be quite long lasting, even with continuous output, but their total wattage is generally not very high. Anyone with technomantic skill (and the right feat) can activate or deactivate a battery. I.e.--simply switch the power output on or off. If shut off, the battery will hold its charge indefinitely--they are not known to "leak" as old-style batteries did. In general though, a battery is activated when it is installed and then is never shut off again--it simply cranks out its energy until it is spent. Again, for some batteries this can still be quite a long time.
The most common use for alchemical batteries is basic light and heat in people's homes and shops and offices. A single mid-sized battery can light an entire home for several months, and a typical family might need only 2 or 3 similar sized batteries to keep them warm through the winter.
The newest use for these batteries are technomantic refrigerators and freezers and other cooling systems. Cooling systems tend to use quite a lot of power, and for the non-technomantic who utilize them, they are very difficult to adjust. A wealthy family with technomantic air-conditioning, would have a technician activate the system at the beginning of the hot season, and then deactivate it again in the fall, and the whole system would operate at full power for the entire time. Certainly, a person could adjust the temperature by directing the cooling power outside when it gets too cold, but doing so doesn't cut the power usage.
Scavengin'
Going off topic here to talk about resources.
95+% of the world's population disappears and new wild-lands spring up everywhere. Resources in many areas will be abundant.
Roaming the plains of the old American midwest would be herds of wild cattle and wild hogs. They haven't had time to lose their domesticated nature, so for the most part, they're easy pickins. Wolves and mountain lions and other large predators would be thriving and common with so much easy food and Man no longer around to drive them off.
For metal, ceramic, wooden and other durable items, the easiest way to obtain them is by scavenging. There are rows upon rows of empty houses out there, some still full of their old owners' possessions. After 30 years, we're probably just about running out of such resources, but that also means we've had 30 years for a culture of scavenging to develop in many areas.
I'm suddenly imagining a scavenging goblin tribe that surrounds itself with broken pieces of fallen suburbia. The great goblin king comes forward in Bermuda shorts and a red Hawaiian print shirt, looking like a hick tourist at Disneyland
Damage Done
Perhaps a third of the original rail system survived the tumult of the Spellcoming, leaving many areas cut off and the transcontinental lines gone. Nearly every major thriving city is now close to either a rail head or a river.
High tensile strength steel does still exist, but not quite in the form you're looking for. Damascus type blades and Japanese wave-forging (I think that's what the technique for making katanas is called) have survived unchanged. But industrial-tech high tensile steel has softened, becoming like normal steel. This has also made many modern skyscrapers dangerously unstable.
Also, modern construction (tyvek strapped over polyboard crap) houses didn't fare very well duing the techdeath.
To The Skies
Also, our aerodynamics are pretty much intact. Gliders would be easy to build, although we'd no longer have access to the lightweight composite materials--plastics, fiberglass, etc. If you could get a working propulsion system, you could achieve true flight, but the propulsion would probably need to be magical. Electrics wouldn't have the power needed, and steam driven turbines would be too large and clunky to be feasible for flight.
But what about dirigibles? Do hydrogen and helium still have their lighter-than-air properties? If so, then airships could be a more common sight.
Dirigibles, gliders and technomagical devices are beginning to fill the sky, along with tamed flying beasts and death-defying spellcasters. Most of the flying machines depend on Terran aerodynamics with a boost of Martayan magic to keep them aloft.
The comforts of Home
Lighting and heat in a rich house would be a combination of continual flame spells and alchemical batteries. While more powerful creatures are harder to summon, magic-users of every stripe discovered that there are lesser creatures that can be summoned. A one-hit die fire elemental could heat a house. A one-hit die air elemental can create a cooling breeze.
Shootin' Irons
Modern gunpowder and primers no longer work, but matchlocks and flintlocks, along with the kind of gunpowder used 150 years ago, do.
In addition to the regular guns, there are a couple of other 'common' weapons.
The wrist-cutter is a dirty little weapon that's strapped to the forearm. It fires shuriken with a 30' range rank and d3 damage.
Flywheels have been used for power supplies. The dwarves have built heavy crossbows that use a flywheel to crank back the firing arms very quickly. They're basically heavy versions of repeating crossbows.
Also, several 1st level spells have found their way into technomagical weapons. As an example, Magic Missile "wands" are about the size of a modern rifle and hold ten charges in an alchemical battery.
In order to use technomagical devices. The Use Magical Device skill is now available to all classes. It still remains a cross class skill. Also, you can take a feat to be able to use any one technomagical device.
A firearm is an exotic weapon.
Pistol 100gp. Takes a full turn to load powder and shot into the pistol. Does d10 damage with an x3 critical and a 50’ rank. Powder is 3gp to the shot and musket balls are 1gp each.
Breech Pistol 135 to 150gp. Takes a move equivalent to break the action and load one or both barrels. Does d10 damage with an x3 critcal and a 50’ rank. Cassette rounds are 7gp each.
Revolving Pistol is 300gp. It does d8 damage, same crit and range. Revolvers have four large chambers that each contain a cassette. A single cassette can be loaded into the chamber opposite the firing chamber as a move equivalent action or all chambers can be reloaded as a full round action.
Single shot rifles are 150 gp, do d12 with a x3 critical and a 150' rank. They take a full round to reload.
Breech rifles have two barrels, do d12 x3 crit over 150' and cost 200gp.
Repeating rifles have a 'clip' with four or five rounds. They do d10, x3 crit, 150' rank. A repeating rifle costs 450gp and is cantankerous.
Blunderbuss and shotgun type weapons are feasible, I need to get some details for them.
I am thinking about adding some rules for shooting a firearm type weapon in close combat. I was thinking about a damage bonus or maximum damage for a point blank shot, but now I am not sure.
Sound and Light - Repeater Crystals
Another technology that has sprung up in the years since the Spellcoming are transmitting crystals. Similar to crystal balls, these technomagical crystals can
transmit what they say a great distance. Each crystal only sends its signal (sound
and light) to its mate.
They are used mostly to transmit live performances, such as plays and musicians. Old theaters are full of crystals that relay them far and wide. At the other end are the skeletal remains of televisions or larger crystals that present the images. The space behind a television may be filled with dozens of repeater crystals in an expensive house.
There have been other uses for such crystals. Some of them have been used as sort of a telescope or spying device, transmitting images and sound back to the holder of the first crystal.
Bethyaga the genius wrote: These technomantic constructs will transmit sound and images remotely over distances. The crystals come in pairs, and each pairs can receive and transmit only to its partner. Should one break or the pair be separated, a lone crystal may be tuned to a new partner, and the rewiring and rituals involved will be about one-fourth the cost of constructing a whole set of the same quality. Retuning obviously severs any contact with the original partner.
Crystals come in a variety of styles and qualities. Ranges vary, but at most, a good crystal can transmit only a few miles. Long distance communication requires crystals tuned to transmit along wires (old-style telegraph cables). Some crystals are limited to sound only--these are usually special-purpose devices. Most though do full audio and visual. Again, volume and clarity can vary with quality. These crystals can work by themselves, but normally they are mounted in a larger device that resembles either a radio or television or projector or telephone. Using a crystal by itself, gives very tinny, low-quality sound, and the visual image is small and distorted, as it must be viewed in the facets of the crystal itself. When mounted in another device, the quality improves to that of pre-fall AV technology.
To use a repeater crystal set, a trained technomantic technician must activate one of the two crystals--it can be on either end. The technician may choose to send only, receive only, or send and receive. The technician may also choose to rotate the 'view' seen from either crystal. The view may be in any direction around the sending crystal. For some reason, the housing device for the crystal never obstructs its own view, and it may see 360 degrees around itself. The technician may also 'zoom' the view, but usually no more than 2x magnification. Activating, deactivating, or view changes are all full actions for a technician, but once it is set in motion, it will operate independently until a technician stops it. The tech can make changes to either crystal in the pair.
If the crystal is mounted in a larger device, then there will be sufficient knobs, buttons, dials, etc that any tech can operate it without problem. If trying to operate a naked crystal, then the operator must make a [Tech Skill] roll with a base DC of 15.
In the rare case of dual operators working at cross purposes, they would make opposed skill checks based on their [Tech Skill].
Because of the paired nature of the crystals, an interesting phenomenon has occured in some communities trying to establish a communications net: the need for old-time switchboard operators. In these communities, those who can afford it buy their own crystal pair, and one of the pair is kept by the switchboard in a central location. Then if you wish to contact anyone, you contact the operator, and the operator will patch your switchboard crystal into the switchboard crystal of the person you wish to contact. Of course, when you make a link like this through two sets of crystals, the quality drops way off, the video is almost non-existent, but the audio is more than enough for basic conversation.
When transmitting by wire over long distance, one still loses quite a bit in transmission. It's been found that video is non existent after a couple miles. Audio as well begins to degrade after about 6 to 10 miles. Beyond 10 miles, operators have found themselves again reduced to Morse code--simple on/off dot/dash type communication. Where unbroken lines can be found, this Morse telemancy has been found to work up to 180 miles. Conceivably, it could go further, but no one's been able to test that.
Technomancers
Technomantics is a field of study in which old-style (pre-fall) technologies or similations thereof are blended with/powered by magical forces. These technomantic machines may only be utilized by those with technomantic ability/training. Strangely, although technology (from old Earth) and pure magic (of Martayak) have both been greatly weakened in this new age, their blending by way of technomancy seems to have powerful potential and is relatively simple for most characters to grasp.
Each class of technomantic item has an associated feat. Taking this feat allows the character to create, operate, repair, adjust, or--just in general--work with that type of item. Characters without the associated feats may not operate the technomantic item in any way.
Additionally, there are two skills that often come into play in working with the more complicated technomantic items--Alchemy and Technomancy. Alchemy focuses on the chemical side of things--mixing the proper substances to refine and utilize their natural chemical and magical properties. Technomancy focuses more on the mechanical and energistic side of the equation--using mechanical "high-tech" devices to manipulate and focus magical energy. Both Alchemy and Technomancy are Intelligence based skills.
Also, most skilled technomancers will also have one or more Craft or Profession skills appropriate to the technology--usually involving metalworking or something similar. Such skills are not magical or technomantic in nature, but are helpful in the construction and repair of items that will harness technomantic energy.
Magiwidgets
One Magiwidget I'm going to introduce now is the Rod of Device Control. These devices are becoming more common as the secrets of their construction are being circulated through the civilized places. A Rod of Device Control allows the average person to use their technomagical devices and gives them a +10 competence bonus to Use Magical Device. They also work at range of twenty feet. (I needed my remote control)
Eliahad wrote:The Featherfall Silk
A little piece of old world magic in the midst of all this technology. Where the pilots of the new world had to rely on cloth 'bags' to slow their descent from airborne accidents, the Windrunners of old charged their tunics with magical energy. With but a single thought they could slow their fall so that they would land harmlessly (or almost harmlessly) on the ground, and with no evidence that they had landed. (Except maybe for the wreckage of their vehicles.
It's simply a piece of clothing imbued with the ability to cast Feather Fall on the wearer. That's it, nothing special here guys...I just thought that a certain breed of character would want one. (40gp, one shot)
Music in Steam and Sorcery
Okay, was thinking about it and there's no reason why Victrola-type phonographs wouldn't work in the world of Steam and Sorcery. The vibrations from the needle over the record would still transfer and make sound.
Also, while plastics have lost a great deal of their strength and color, they haven't wasted away completely. A stack of records might be a prized treasure to certain collectors. And substitute 'records' have been made of hardened wax or other substances (not going to get into the thick of the tech now, don't want to) so there is a growing trade in the devices and music to play on them.
Finally, Bards have found that they can record their songs of power onto blank records. The recording only functions once, but acts just like one of their songs for a day.
Highway to Hell... Vehicles
Several different means are available for moving a ground vehicle.
1. Steam Cars - yank the engine out of a big car or truck, plead with an engineer to build you a high performance boiler and then zoom!
2. Fan Cars - yank all the unnecessary stuff out of a small car, bolt a big caged fan on the back, cast Motivate Lesser Object on the fan, Lighten on the car and then zoom!
3. Motivated Vehicles - take any car, cast motivate Greater Object on it and zoom!
4. Golemic/Construct 'Cars' - These are not in production yet, but we heard the boys in Detroit signed a deal with a Dwarven firm to bring one out sometime soon. It's a construct, with a frame and wheels. It needs constant powering from a large alchemical battery, and it's horrendously expensive, but it will zoom like the rest of them.
Technomancer Theories
Okay, here's a quick rundown on the approximate size and weight of devices Technomancers need to prepare their "Theories". I'm not going into GP cost at this point as it's their own work and the parts are usually quite cheap.
Widgets (0-level) need a device the size of a lighter or pocketwatch. The spell Ghost Sound might require an old speaker or microphone maybe two inches across.
1st level theories need something about the size of a hardback book. Magic Missile is often crafted into an old gun from before the spellcoming.
2nd level theories need something about the size of a boom-box or toolkit. Keen Edge might be a specially designed scabbard. Enlighten might use an ensorcelled set of weights and measures. These are only necessary to prepare the spell. They also usually have a widget-sized device to cast the spell when needed.
3rd level theories get difficult. In order to prepare a 3rd level theory, a technomancer needs a device about the size of a portable generator, along with a power supply. Arcane lock might require an old key-lathe. Water Breathing would probably need something like a set of old compressed gas cylinders and some regulating equipment. To cast these spells would need something the size of a widget to cast.
Finally, 4th level theories are quite large. The device necessary is about the size of a small car engine, complete with a power supply or several fragile components. Each of these spells has a uniquely designed device about the size of something for a first level theory to cast. Lightning Bolt, for example, needs a large set of attuning crystals and chemical batteries to prepare the theory. And to cast, a zinc and copper wand with a rubber grip is required.
(These are just examples, every technomancer develops their own theories and devices.)
Getting Fitted for the Future
There's a lot of new armor for Steam and Sorcery, here are two examples
Hide armor made out of old tires.
A double layer of denim sandwiching a mithril weave.
Fun for everyone
I think, given the rules that are set up, there's no reason why Roller Coasters, Ferris Wheels and other such fun midway beasties don't work anymore. Sure, power is a problem, but there are a couple of ways to get around that (a steam engine that could push a train could push a wheel or the lifting chain of a coaster).
And I don't mean high tech coasters, I mean old wooden ones like the Screaming Eagle at Six Flags or the Beast at Kings Island.
I have no argument here, Caz. Original roller coasters were simply lifted to the top of the great first hill (and a steam driven engine would do as well as anything else), and then the rest was simple gravity.
Look at the collapsible traveling carnies we have now. I can well imagine people salvaging that equipment and finding simpler (or technomantic) ways to power them.
