Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd
I've always assumed that people in setting *do not* call this stuff meteoric. The idea that meteors (a phenomenon in the sky) have anything to do with stuff found on the ground is seriously anachronistic in a fantasy setting after all. The idea that meteorites were rocks that fell from the sky and were associated with meteors in some way is an early 19th century concept, though the assortment of holy stones (bethels) that supposedly fell from heaven, some (though not all) of which actually are meteorites allows you a little leeway on that if you insist.
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To be honest, I don't worry about TL when I write fantasy.
Dungeon Fantasy is TL Olden Times, which vaguely defaults to TL3 but blends in TL2 and TL4 all over the place, with dashes of TL0-1 and TL5 – and even pinches of TL(4+2) and TL(5+1) – where that seems fun. There may well be lens-grinding, telescope-making gnomes somewhere doing observational astronomy, and proto-steampunk dwarves forging iron in new and exciting ways. Toss in spells and the seeming need for magic-workers to invent double-speak to impress the plebes, and I'm sure that "meteoric" is absolutely fine as a term even in-setting. It just doesn't have to mean what it means to us as modern-day readers, or even be accurate within the game world.
Actually, a conceit of mine is that because magic messes up science and technology so thoroughly, TL ceases to have meaning and it all runs together . . . and because TL all runs together, divinatory magic is doomed to reveal almost nothing useful about science and technology. It's all a headachy hodge-podge that nobody can decipher, and it's a tossup who's nuttier: spellcasters and prophets who purport to have discerned or been shown the truth, or artificers and alchemists who actually believe their systems and calculations are founded on something more stable than whimsy and a divine sense of humor.