Banestorm without technophobic wizards?

[David Johnston2]

No, there's a big difference between a low tech society with magic that occasionally gets some hints about higher technology that they could develop and a high tech society that suddenly discovers that a bunch of their own grimoires have started to work. The latter society has scientists, widespread literacy and a population ten to a hundred times greater.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

No, there's a big difference between a low tech society with magic that occasionally gets some hints about higher technology that they could develop and a high tech society that suddenly discovers that a bunch of their own grimoires have started to work. The latter society has scientists, widespread literacy and a population ten to a hundred times greater.

Wasn't the postulation that Yrth developed without the technology ban? With the occasional influx of new banestorm 'visitors', I'd think it reasonable to assume that technology would develop along similar lines, in much the same way that Merlin strongly resembles our own Earth, despite the major divergence in 1945 (and the lesser changes that allowed magical theory to historically progress until the Trinity event made it possible to make it a major societal factor).

[Polydamas]

Not_another_shrubbery: That works up to TL 4 (although keep in mind that the real world didn't have Chinese engineers suddenly appear in Yorkshire, and English cannon-founders marooned in Dahomey) but the First Industrial Revolution depended on a lot of material and cultural things being in the right place at the right time. In a rational fantasy setting, its likely that it would take a long time before some Yrth culture was ready and able to build a steam engine. Fortunately, Banestorm isn't a rational fantasy setting!

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Wasn't the postulation that Yrth developed without the technology ban? ).

Yes. But not that it had a lot of people, a scientific tradition outside of the magic users, or that it was conveniently getting shipments of mechanical and electric engineers or petroleum geologists and chemists. Getting up to TL 5 is almost a given. But after that, if modernizing to our standards was so easy, there are are a bunch of third world nations that would be quite different. And that's with loads of access to all the knowledge and trade of the first world nations rather than a few randomly abducted passersby. Does known Yrth even have exploitable petroleum reserves? They only have one continent and it's substantially smaller than North America.

Would they even bother with the internal combustion engine instead of say, developing higher pressure steam boilers with a simple strengthening (or even heating) enchantment? Would they bother with small arms if they do develop industrial enchantment techniques like those of Technomancer and can crank out anti-missile amulets for entire military units?

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

In a rational fantasy setting, its likely that it would take a long time before some Yrth culture was ready and able to build a steam engine.

It might take some time. It seems equally likely that it might come about earlier than in TRW. Such things are safely treated as handwaves, I think. If you're primarily interested in cultural differences, it's easiest to assume that technology has progressed the same, at least broadly.
Letting your imagination run wild is OK, of course. We are talking about a world with a different geography and a collection of major cultural drivers (magic, other sapient races, the Banestorm).