Question Game: Post Agricultural Fantasy Setting.

[sir_pudding]

Large scale conflicts necessarily center around control of the gate terminals, as successful large long-distance troop deployments are decisive. Manna makes siege warfare nearly useless, and therefore wars are usually decided by seizure of the transportation networks, decapitation strikes, or attrition. The magical production of finished goods means that troops are well-equipped and combined with the lack of agricultural employment and high urban populations (and high underemployment) has led to large armies, raised by conscription, around a core professional force. These "Imperial Peacekeepers" are organized into local regiments under the command of the governors. There are also elite "Imperial Guard" regiments under the direct control of parliament. Due to its unreliability, magic is only deployed sparingly in combat. Current military state-of-the-art somewhat resembles the late 18th century on Earth with musketeer regiments being the primary combat arm, supported by horse-drawn artillery and by heavy and light calvary.


What interaction (if any) currently exists with the faeries?

[fredtheobviouspseudonym]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

It comes in the form of a large loaf of spongy, bread-like substance . . .

Gee. I produce this when I bake, and I don't even need magic!

[(E)]

Traveling to and from the fae realm is problematic at best with the flow of time not a constant between the two worlds. To humans at least a trip to the other realm can quite easily mean losing everyone you know as a century may pass in the few hours spent away.

The seelie and unseelie courts do wield some influence on the government and ancestral nobility. Though this is generally minor. That said the two fairy factions do compete more than just politically for influence on the human realm.

Visiting Fairy folk are generally psuedo diplomats or tourists visiting to experience the "rawness" of the more material realm. Some find the call of "wine, woman and song" irresistible and stay for decades or even longer.

Question
How long has the Manna Empire been dominant?
Edit
A better question is What remains of what came before the empire?

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by (E)

Question
What remains of what came before the empire?

The pre-Imperial civilizations destroyed each other by making asteroids rain from the sky. Loss of life and infrastructure was severe enough that it blasted the world from TL 8^Magic to TL0-2. Some areas were unfortunate enough to lose all knowledge of magic. The Manna Empire was one of the first powers to recover from the devastating Asteroid War 400 years ago.

Ruins from the Old Order are almost all secret facilities located in the mountains and deserts, well away from population centers of the time. Unfortunately, these are magically cloaked and are nigh impossible to detect with modern magic. Automated magical and techonological defenses inflict heavy casualties on would be archaeologists. Condemned criminals volunteer to face the slim probability of surviving an unknown defense system in exchange for getting their sentences commuted.

While these bunkers have extensive preservative enchantments, most buildings didn't get this treatment. Repairing or rebuilding is a lot cheaper than making a building that can last for centuries. Thus, piles of rubble and concrete foundations are the main remnants of the Old Order civilizations. That said, you can still find remnants of ancient civilizations like Roman Aqueducts in remote areas.

Question: How good is magical healing in this setting?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Question: How good is magical healing in this setting?

It's good, if you can find a competent healer. Inept healers can:
-> cause wounds
-> cause transformations
-> cause overhealing (overly thick skin, possible growth over other orifices (i.e. mouth, eyes, etc.))
-> inflict pain
-> prolong symptoms
-> fail to eliminate disease
Medicine is available to the less wealthy. Surgery is still necessary to extract material, but supplemented with magical care (and anesthetic) fatalities are about as common as the 19th century.

Question: How advanced is technology not enhanced by magic?

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Question: How advanced is technology not enhanced by magic?

Thanks to the gates, transportation technology is stuck at TL3. All other mundane technology is roughly TL4. There are some TL8 pieces of technology that have been recovered from the bunkers. Most of it is broken and the Empire is still reverse engineering it.

Mass producing the reverse engineered technologies usually requires achieving tolerances beyond the reach of modern magic. As a result, these are mainly curiosities and play things of the wealthy.

Question: Does the Manna Empire have any rivals?

[sir_pudding]

Military technology was already established at late TL4...

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The gate network means that cities at the minimum limits for gates from prosperous cities will thrive, whereas those within the limits will probably shrink or be absorbed into the larger metropolis. The gate networks themselves will require large hubs to allow change of line and these will become extremely important centers of trade in each city.

This doesn't seem consistent with the cyclone hazard. If hubs allowing both in and out travel have short enough minimums to safely exist within a city, then gates to nearby cities should be safely possible.

Otherwise, one can suppose that collections of like gates may exist in close quarters, allowing production centers (perhaps for fresh water, or animal feed) and consumption centers (garbage) to be linked to many other places for convenience, though city planners will need to balance closeness of production and consumption. Perhaps canals are popular, to allow freshwater to literally flow outward from the nice end of town toward the less-nice end, carrying feed and other bulk goods gated in on rafts, and then out of town to the garbage gate, along with whatever is tossed in.

If TL4 military technology includes telescopes and clockworks, gates can be regularly synchronized to within seconds across the night side of the world by observing transits and occultations of planetary satellites, and within minutes elsewhere by setting the clockworks by observations the previous night or week. Otherwise, world-wide sychronization would be limited to hours or many minutes, outside of special occasions like solar and lunar eclipses.

[sir_pudding]

My interpretation of of the cyclone hazard was that a gate and its partner couldn't be near each other, but unconnected gates could be.

Post #14 likens them to railways.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Question: Does the Manna Empire have any rivals?

While there are no human Nations or Empires in any position to truly challenge the Manna Empire it does have many groups opposing it's interests.
- The Tunnel Cartels are a former transport guild that has become a criminal syndicate. Wide spread they use the Gates as a enforcement tool, those that oppose them are thrown into a Gate then their family members are thrown in afterwards. At the other end of the gate more cartel members throw the victim back. They continue doing this until the Victim collides with a member of their family.

- Cloud Heresy, this is a small group of magic users who have found a way to embrace the insanity brought on by spell use and use it to their advantage. They are dreaded by their foes in magical duels, most prefer to challenge them with a three to one advantage or better.

- The Archipelago of the bears are the closest to an organized nation that has interests counter to the Manna Empire's.

- Three political groups within the Empire seek to overthrow the current rulers. A pseudo Marxist group and a Ultra traditionalist faction are the most prominent. The third is more of a mystery and only came to public attention when they where outlawed for possession of old order equipment.

Question
What about the Capital?