isles-of-maga/technology.md

Technology

The technology of 2E50 is approximately that of the 1500s. The recipe for gunpowder was perfected almost right before the revolution began, and the revolution was the most extensive use of gunpowder so far on both sides. While cannons are fairly common now, especially on ships, personal firearms are still not very good even compared to a crossbow. Over time they have become more and more practical, however.

If a character wishes to use a pistol as a weapon, use Longbow stats for the gun and Longbow Arrow stats for ammunition. Assume that gunpowder is included with ammunition.

There are also magical constructs, which are machines that were animated by magic. Most constructs are mindless automatons, but there are constructs with the intelligence of the sentient races called Mechanids. These are far and few between in Maga. The reason is that nobody knows how to create Mechanids anymore, and the civilization that created the Mechanids that exist never populated Maga. Therefore, any Mechanids in Maga almost certainly came from Honstrad.

The scientific study of physics, chemistry, etc. has not been established yet. Despite the influence of magic, these aspects of the physical world operate exactly as they do in the real world, and the power of magic is limited enough that science must be its own discipline. For example, it is impossible to create advanced constructs like Mechanids with magic alone; it requires a large body of scientific knowledge before it becomes possible. It is the loss of this scientific knowledge that prevents the construction of Mechanids and similar machines. The ancient society that created Mechanids distinguished between two discplines of knowledge called "esoterica" meaning magic and other secretive knowledge, and "science" meaning knowledge gained from research about the physical world.