Yrth technology

[combatmedic]

Gremlins? What if Yrth has gremlins, nasty li'l guys who love to monkeywrench machinery. Higher TL= more attractive to gremlins. They could be mutant brownies, created by the mages to impair the work of the Underground Engineers. Other possibilities: Banestorm brought 'em in from some other world, the dark elves are responsible, etc.

Maybe this is a stupid idea. It's just a notion I've been kicking around. Imagine an engineer hiring a party of adventurers to de-gremlin his workshop-tower, without alearting the authorities to his illegal tinkerings.Could be fun.

[Kromm]

My point about explosions is that, unlike melee and direct-fire missile attacks, they tend to be indirect, unpredictable, and lobbed using weapons that can bombard for a really long time. Conscious blocking spells aren't up to the challenge, and area spells that wall in your position or make it fireproof aren't useful outside of static defense. The nice thing about Missile Shield is that you can walk around with it, and it makes surprise attacks, sniper shots, fragments, and everything else just Not Work. I agree that Resist Pressure should do the same vs. blasts, but it currently just grants Pressure Support or Vacuum Support, which explicitly exlude transients like explosions. When the legion fires a catapult-load of a few hundreds grenades on you, and there are little explosions going off in front, behind, above, and all around, your options are limited.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I agree that Resist Pressure should do the same vs. blasts, but it currently just grants Pressure Support or Vacuum Support, which explicitly exlude transients like explosions.

I was going to say...

Given the ingenuity impetus of barbarians at the border, you'd expect inventive mages to come up with a Resist Overpressure variant after a while :/ ;)

[combatmedic]

Use magic to drench the enemy powder supply, or the weapons themsleves. This would work well against black powder.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I've never bought into that aspect of the canon. In my campaigns -- which run to high-powered -- I tried to have the Ministry suppress stuff like this when the PCs got their hands on it. The archmage PCs . . . with their Weapon Master PC bodyguards . . . in their isolated strongholds filled with magical booty and illicit technology.

Unless the Ministry can call on circles of wizards and entire legions in foreign lands, has no problem with very public destruction, and can afford to sustain losses in the upper thousands, I can't see how they could suppress powerful renegades who have a potent mix of technology and magic, and who have garnered massive public support by being willing to share with anyone who's tired of being a repressed serf. Played in a remotely plausible way, it will end up looking more like Dune than Men in Black. I've yet to figure out how the Ministry could do a darn thing about magical ships with cannon off the west coast of Ytarria, say, or convince the Dwarves not to use steam-tech down in their mines.

While I don't think the MoS could realistically be as effective as described in Banestorm, I also don't think they would be as ineffective as you describe. Their relative ineffectiveness to your PCs is more due to the high power of the PCs than to the low power of the MoS, as well as your having them wait to suppress the technology. If they(or a similar agency elsewhere) pop up after every Banestorm, hunting down mundane outworlders with powerful magic, I don't see how the outworlders are going to get away. I mean sure, if a Banestorm plopped down an engineering conference hall full of mechanical, civil, and chemical engineers, along with some machinists, left unattended they could rapidly(with the right financial support from some backer for food, shelter, unskilled labor, and materials) create a technological base that would be near impossible to suppress. But if we say that as cannon, the Banestorm only really grabs isolated individuals now and then, and that MoS mages always show up quickly afterwards sniffing around(using high powered magic) for newcomers, I don't view it as impossible for them to suppress technology to the extent they have. Slightly improbable, yes, but not enough to kill my suspension of disbelief.

And besides, I doubt very much they would come knocking on the front door if your PCs were that powerful. I think they would wait until the PCs were isolated, incapacitated, or distracted, and then take them out one at a time. I could easily see a dedicated hit squad(or the entire branch of the SoM dedicated to suppressing tech, if your PCs really are that powerful) selectively targeting such disruptive individuals one at a time, whittling down their numbers and resources. Once they've taken out the PCs, they walk in and collect up the technology and make it vanish. I don't view the SoM as similar to MIBs(at least the somewhat goofy ones from the movies) so much as the conspiracy theory versions of the CIA. Scary, highly competent, dedicated, and with a ridiculous amount of resources they can draw on.

I think you have an excellent point regarding the dwarves however. With no native population to blend in with, no intelligence resources in the kingdom, and a generally unfriendly attitude towards the Magelans, I think an outworlder with an engineering background that was dropped into a dwarven kingdom would have a long and rich career as a teacher for classes full of eager dwarves for the rest of his life. I can't really think of a way to STOP this from happening, actually. And once the dwarves industrialize, the SoM will be forced to open the archives of technology they have in order to keep their nation competitive.

I do like the whole idea of, "Fire Elementals love explosives like crackheads love rock." This at least minimizes firearms and cannon(especially combined with return missile or missile shield.) It especially makes large scale powder storage and manufacturing insanely dangerous. Perhaps way too dangerous to be worth it, considering the flexibility that magic allows.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

I don't view the SoM as similar to MIBs(at least the somewhat goofy ones from the movies) so much as the conspiracy theory versions of the CIA. Scary, highly competent, dedicated, and with a ridiculous amount of resources they can draw on.

I think that view is excellent . . . within Megalos. I'm really unclear how Megalos makes that work in, say, Caithness or al-Wazif, much less in Sahud. To use your CIA example, that would be like the CIA preventing the USSR or China from building the bomb -- or the KGB doing the same to the USA -- for centuries.

If you assume some transnational brotherhood of religious ruling-class string-pullers who all have a vested interest in not just their country but every country staying medieval and not becoming technological, because they somehow know that technology will usurp them, it might work. If you assume that countries other than Megalos are powerless and incompetent, it might work. If you assume the Megalos has already won, and the secret masters keep "borders" around for ineffable reasons, it might work.

If, however, you assume that al-Haz, al-Wazif, Caithness, Sahud, the Dwarves, the Orcs, etc., all have their own spooks, that some of those spooks are as good as or better than the Ministry, and that those spooks are only too willing to open their country or culture's doors to powerful developments that their stodgy Megalan enemies reject . . . well, I don't think you'll need powerful PCs to challenge the system. In particular, I could see al-Haz, with its distaste for magic, actively recruiting technologists as a counterweight.

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

I think you have an excellent point regarding the dwarves however. ith no native population to blend in with, no intelligence resources in the kingdom, and a generally unfriendly attitude towards the Magelans, I think an outworlder with an engineering background that was dropped into a dwarven kingdom would have a long and rich career as a teacher for classes full of eager dwarves for the rest of his life. I can't really think of a way to STOP this from happening, actually. And once the dwarves industrialize, the SoM will be forced to open the archives of technology they have in order to keep their nation competitive.

The Dwarves are definitely the #1 threat here, with al-Haz a close #2. I'd find Yrth more plausible, actually, if the Dwarves had mature TL(3+2) steam-tech and al-Haz had flat-out TL4 guns, medicine, etc. I can't see Sahud not adopting technology as soon as it presents itself, either; it's a stereotyped mashup of Asian cultures, and "China had X a zillion years before everybody else" is a classic trait of such stereotypes. And Araterre . . . I'd imagine that spies trained by the likes of Mazarin or Richelieu could utterly dominate spies with a medieval outlook.

[combatmedic]

To keep all the factions in line, you'd need Secret Masters, I think. Something like this:

http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=943

[Apache]

In one of my Yrth games, the Secret Uberfaction that is responsible for suppressing firearms, and tech in general, is the Dragons.

You already have one Dragon playing politics in Tredroy/Cardiel; it's not a far stretch to suppose that the Dragons decided to use (or create) the Ministry as a cover for activities outside Megalos...which is, after all, the Dragon Empire...:)

Dragons are effectively immortal, can fly long distances (or teleport), have access to powerful magics, and can (usually) shapeshift.

I give them a Sense Banestorm advantage, so whenever an 'immigrant' shows up, a 'Ministry' agent (or whoever...other nations have their own versions)shows up soon after.

Altho if a draconic 'Mage In Black' decides a newcomer is dangerous, he's probably just going to eat them, rathert than waste time with the whole 'memory wipe' thing.

BBQ, anyone?

:)

In another Yrth game....I made it the Gnomes. They became my Droyne analogue.....

[Kaldrin]

Something occurred to me as I was reading through this thread. I don't think I've asked it before.

If magic were able to take a valuable substance like gold, which is the standard for most currencies nowadays, relatively valueless, what substance would modern countries make the standard for their currencies?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kaldrin

If magic were able to take a valuable substance like gold, which is the standard for most currencies nowadays, relatively valueless, what substance would modern countries make the standard for their currencies?

As gold is not the standard for modern currencies, it wouldn't really make any difference. Modern currencies are fiat currencies, and are basically backed by the economy of the nation that issues them.