Is there an existing setting where Magic was used to advance technology?

[Lorddenorstrus]

I was recently thinking about the Spelljammers I think they're called? Interdimensional ships was the gist I got, not super familiar with the setting. Was reading on it because of Baldurs Gate 3 and watching the Illithids tentacle ship fly around in that cool cinematic. And anyway a thought popped into my fried barely functional brain. (All work no sleep)

Other than ships, is there a setting where in general magic was used to advance tech? Because Spelljammers feel basically like space ships to me and it sounds like the premise to the start of like Psuedo Sci-Fi? Where it's still magic n crap but people aren't stuck on such a small scale for events.

[Saintheart]

House Cannith in Eberron?

Built Warforged, Lightning Rail, floating cities. Admittedly the tech level is probably more steampunk than proto-scifi.

[ShurikVch]

Dragonstar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonstar_(role-playing_game))
Greyhawk 2000 (https://greyhawkonline.com/greyhawkwiki/Greyhawk_2000)

[Eldan]

Definitely Eberron, for D&D. Iron Kingdoms, too, but not quite as modern.

In other RPGs... Exalted has a lot of Magitek. Shadowrun has both magic and technology, but they interact surprisingly little. Kind of in the world of Darkness, at least with the Technocracy, though their motives are different.

[Asmotherion]

I seccond Eberron. Definitelly the epitome of what you're seeking.

If you want Sci-Fi together with magic, Shadowrun is definitelly such a setting, but magic and technology are not co-dependant.

[MornShine]

Starfinder?

[lightningcat]

Eberron and DragonMech are magic as technology settings. As is Spelljammer for that matter.
Starfinder and DragonStar both use magic and technology interdependantly.
Shadowrun uses both independantly.
The Dresden Files uses both antagonistically, which is not what you are looking for, but worth noting.

[DMVerdandi]

I was recently thinking about the Spelljammers I think they're called? Interdimensional ships was the gist I got, not super familiar with the setting. Was reading on it because of Baldurs Gate 3 and watching the Illithids tentacle ship fly around in that cool cinematic. And anyway a thought popped into my fried barely functional brain. (All work no sleep)

Other than ships, is there a setting where in general magic was used to advance tech? Because Spelljammers feel basically like space ships to me and it sounds like the premise to the start of like Psuedo Sci-Fi? Where it's still magic n crap but people aren't stuck on such a small scale for events.

The best and most based setting. Negima.
Tons of manga have this premise actually, or something like it. Usually they WILL take the cue from fantasy tropes and NOT, but when they do, and do it well it's awesome. Many of the kind of manwha/webtoons series go DEEEEP into this.
Because once you harness magic, magitech just becomes tech.
The biggest limiter would be something like... Caster level, which indeed is a good way to set internal limits on it, or needing a sort of... equivalent exchange, turning physical energy into magical energy.

I AM THE SORCERER KING, does this MAGNIFICENTLY.
The MC is in essence, A spell point 3.5 wizard in the modern world, where there is that kind of MMO thing going on, and PC's are chosen at random.
Dude comes to earth and... GOES DUMB. I love it.

Solo spellcaster is like that. Not so much solo leveling. There are so many good ones. I don't have time to get into westaboo nonsense or wait for someone to break convention. The arms race is over. Half of the webtoons have converted over to 5e at this point. It's bananas.






But. In one's own personal setting, trying to pull a greyhawk without VERY clear explanation is ****ing dumb. The rules don't support the setting, since I could just be commoner 1/Wizard 1 and smoke the competition. And that IS why I think the west's fiction fails. Because they are so concerned with hyper prose books that they forget that munchkins don't put that as the highest level of fiction. It's actually the hard sci-fi that we like.

And the amount of change that would happen overnight if we got menus and like could play the game.
Once everyone realizes that 3.5's experience system is EXTREMELY BROKEN, and backdoors leveling up, It's a joke.
Afraid of dying early as a mage? Why? And nothing would last. Only some sort of divine intervention, physics incapatibility or, mass retardation could cause something so absolutely silly as mages that don't engineer regular stuff too.

Magic has costs no? So reducing the cost is the absolute most important thing possible. The less you can rely on magic to get the same effect the better. This DOES NOT MEAN ABANDON MAGIC. What a smoothbrain take.



But does it mean... having *charge smartphone* as a cantrip would be groundbreaking? YES.
Would Google glasses of infinite wifi Drop like crazy?

Convert smoke into fog to eliminate polution, etc. But it's still useful to have cars instead of everyone flying everywhere unless it's REMARKABLY easy to do so.

More dope modern spells.

Find Remote
Calculator
Invisible servant NEVER stops being good.
Steve's Telepathic Ringtone.
Status,Kids(Allows you to cast divination magic on your kids at any range. Privacy settings are recorded)
Permanency: Tongues & comprehend language ALONE. This would completely erase the board as far as what we have going on.
Google Scholar's touch. Any text, physical or digital is comprehended. THE ABSOLUTE CHANGE in humanity. Crazy.
Incognito mode
STIMULANT FOCUS
Nystuls Nyquil

That's to say nothing about crop magic, textile magic, industrial magic, pharmacology magic?!
Does Cure Disease heal mental illness as well? What happens in the fantasy world when you use it on someone? Alignment change? They are better now?





In a month. IN A MONTH. If we actually all got this stuff? Society would completely change. There would be some killing, but... Mass heal mental health... Pbbt.




Dungeons & Dragons fatal flaw is that for some weird reason, no one ever just says... Obviously magic should be in the daily curriculum. If it's not so weak that you can only use it on one planet in the UNIVERSE, and kind of depends on personal stuff, but you CAN.

School would change in earth. Immediately. People were going nuts about coding for a while. If you can CODE THE UNIVERSE? And half of the way is NOT being like a wizard?


Wizards are old hat. At least in this game. That is not how it works. That class would change to epistomologist FAST. Standard coding language. unbuntu spellcasting [this is exactly what mage of the arcane order is like.] Red wizards becoming socialist mages. It's not just about the goofy old man who knows tricks.

Look at where WE are now. Kids would be INSANELY good at magic in 2 generations or so. Because they would grow up with it.


Only a few things tackle cultural stagnancy in a place where magic is plentiful, but not infinite. You can always have more people study non-magical methods, out of their own joy, and allowing them not to say... get on the googlebox and power some stuff for a living.



this is a game, and there is a whole homebrew section. If it was so easy as like handwaving the difficult parts? It would be a breeze.



So the stagnant fantasy trope is actually SUPER dead, and only enjoyed by people who don't mind looking away so that they can enjoy their cottagecore fantasy.
IRL, a king with no magic is not going to exist long. AT ALL. It would become a kratocracy overnight.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Thank you everyone it's a lot of stuff to look over. I'd glanced at Eberron before but I've never actually used an official setting before? I've only ever used Custom stuff from my own head and well I am currently using a Pathfinder Module because I've been working to much to make my own campaign 100%. Hence the thought of looking for one that's modifiable for the thought line I had.

I think I've got what I need to work with, although it will take some work to think about how the things I plan to add might effect the setting in general.

[Troacctid]

Eberron is very good. It's both fleshed out enough to have all the material you need and flexible enough to let you run whatever kind of campaign you want.

You might also be interested in Kamigawa, from Magic: The Gathering.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Isn't that like, the entire premise behind Starfinder?

[Bohandas]

The best and most based setting. Negima.
Tons of manga have this premise actually, or something like it. Usually they WILL take the cue from fantasy tropes and NOT, but when they do, and do it well it's awesome. Many of the kind of manwha/webtoons series go DEEEEP into this.
Because once you harness magic, magitech just becomes tech.
The biggest limiter would be something like... Caster level, which indeed is a good way to set internal limits on it, or needing a sort of... equivalent exchange, turning physical energy into magical energy.

I AM THE SORCERER KING, does this MAGNIFICENTLY.
The MC is in essence, A spell point 3.5 wizard in the modern world, where there is that kind of MMO thing going on, and PC's are chosen at random.
Dude comes to earth and... GOES DUMB. I love it.

Solo spellcaster is like that. Not so much solo leveling. There are so many good ones. I don't have time to get into westaboo nonsense or wait for someone to break convention. The arms race is over. Half of the webtoons have converted over to 5e at this point. It's bananas.






But. In one's own personal setting, trying to pull a greyhawk without VERY clear explanation is ****ing dumb. The rules don't support the setting, since I could just be commoner 1/Wizard 1 and smoke the competition. And that IS why I think the west's fiction fails. Because they are so concerned with hyper prose books that they forget that munchkins don't put that as the highest level of fiction. It's actually the hard sci-fi that we like.

And the amount of change that would happen overnight if we got menus and like could play the game.
Once everyone realizes that 3.5's experience system is EXTREMELY BROKEN, and backdoors leveling up, It's a joke.
Afraid of dying early as a mage? Why? And nothing would last. Only some sort of divine intervention, physics incapatibility or, mass retardation could cause something so absolutely silly as mages that don't engineer regular stuff too.

Magic has costs no? So reducing the cost is the absolute most important thing possible. The less you can rely on magic to get the same effect the better. This DOES NOT MEAN ABANDON MAGIC. What a smoothbrain take.



But does it mean... having *charge smartphone* as a cantrip would be groundbreaking? YES.
Would Google glasses of infinite wifi Drop like crazy?

Convert smoke into fog to eliminate polution, etc. But it's still useful to have cars instead of everyone flying everywhere unless it's REMARKABLY easy to do so.

More dope modern spells.

Find Remote
Calculator
Invisible servant NEVER stops being good.
Steve's Telepathic Ringtone.
Status,Kids(Allows you to cast divination magic on your kids at any range. Privacy settings are recorded)
Permanency: Tongues & comprehend language ALONE. This would completely erase the board as far as what we have going on.
Google Scholar's touch. Any text, physical or digital is comprehended. THE ABSOLUTE CHANGE in humanity. Crazy.
Incognito mode
STIMULANT FOCUS
Nystuls Nyquil

That's to say nothing about crop magic, textile magic, industrial magic, pharmacology magic?!
Does Cure Disease heal mental illness as well? What happens in the fantasy world when you use it on someone? Alignment change? They are better now?





In a month. IN A MONTH. If we actually all got this stuff? Society would completely change. There would be some killing, but... Mass heal mental health... Pbbt.




Dungeons & Dragons fatal flaw is that for some weird reason, no one ever just says... Obviously magic should be in the daily curriculum. If it's not so weak that you can only use it on one planet in the UNIVERSE, and kind of depends on personal stuff, but you CAN.

School would change in earth. Immediately. People were going nuts about coding for a while. If you can CODE THE UNIVERSE? And half of the way is NOT being like a wizard?


Wizards are old hat. At least in this game. That is not how it works. That class would change to epistomologist FAST. Standard coding language. unbuntu spellcasting [this is exactly what mage of the arcane order is like.] Red wizards becoming socialist mages. It's not just about the goofy old man who knows tricks.

Look at where WE are now. Kids would be INSANELY good at magic in 2 generations or so. Because they would grow up with it.


Only a few things tackle cultural stagnancy in a place where magic is plentiful, but not infinite. You can always have more people study non-magical methods, out of their own joy, and allowing them not to say... get on the googlebox and power some stuff for a living.



this is a game, and there is a whole homebrew section. If it was so easy as like handwaving the difficult parts? It would be a breeze.



So the stagnant fantasy trope is actually SUPER dead, and only enjoyed by people who don't mind looking away so that they can enjoy their cottagecore fantasy.
IRL, a king with no magic is not going to exist long. AT ALL. It would become a kratocracy overnight.

My personal headcanon is that things are kept from changing in this way by some kind of conspkracy akin to the Secure-Contain-Protect Foundation from SCP, or the Tabula Rasa Society from Imajica. Possibly mediated by some form of curse or artifact and/or related to the Pact Primeval

[Lorddenorstrus]

Isn't that like, the entire premise behind Starfinder?

I'm not familiar with it. Never looked into it. But maybe? I'll read into it, I'm looking at Eberron right now.

[StSword]

I'm not familiar with it. Never looked into it. But maybe? I'll read into it, I'm looking at Eberron right now.

Starfinder is Pathfinder in space, but not in a space dolphins and magitech spaceships way like Starjammer, but rather in advancement of technology while still having magic way.

In fact, the Wizard was replaced with the Technomancer (https://www.starjammersrd.com/classes/technomancer/).

But you might want to look at The Practical Enchanter (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/51242/The-Practical-Enchanter) by Distant Horizons Games.

It's not a setting book, per se, but it takes the item creation rules and expands them, turning magic item creation into a matter of engineering.

And if magic items are just engineering, well, magitech naturally follows.

[Jervis]

I’ll disagree with people on Eberron albeit on a technicality. Despite the magi tech ascetic the setting is actually just wide magic (that is common and ubiquitous magic but with proper high magic still rare). Everything in Eberron is a magic item, not technically magitek is a strict sense, in the same way that a golem isn’t.

Iron Kingdoms is a big second from me though. You have things like magical batteries and the like. It feels like technology is developing in tandem with magic and using it as a resource. Example you have normal fire arms with some people pumping magic into them to use them for touch spells and the like.

[ShurikVch]

Maybe, "Pulp Heroes" (Dungeon #90/Polyhedron #149) should be included in the list? Scientist's inventions are magic - in the game mechanic sense of the word (even if the inventor themself saying it isn't magic)

[Endarire]

Not D&D, but the worlds of Final Fantasy V - VIII may qualify.

[Bonzai]

I would also look at the Netheril Empire from the forgotten realms. With thier Mythals they were able to create flying enclaves and mass produce magic items on the cheap.

[Max Caysey]

I was recently thinking about the Spelljammers I think they're called? Interdimensional ships was the gist I got, not super familiar with the setting. Was reading on it because of Baldurs Gate 3 and watching the Illithids tentacle ship fly around in that cool cinematic. And anyway a thought popped into my fried barely functional brain. (All work no sleep)

Other than ships, is there a setting where in general magic was used to advance tech? Because Spelljammers feel basically like space ships to me and it sounds like the premise to the start of like Psuedo Sci-Fi? Where it's still magic n crap but people aren't stuck on such a small scale for events.

Doesn't that kind of defeat the whole idea of magic? I mean magic is pretty much the suspension of the natural laws of physics which technology is using to achieve a certain outcome. Using magic to enhance tech to achieve a certain outcome like flying is stupid when you could just use magic to fly...

Also Spelljammers are not interdimensional, but inter-crystal-spherian vessels... Something gate could have easily achieved!

[RSGA]

We see it as that, but if you look a whole lot of people just saw magic as a special case of natural philosophy/law (choose your or their favored term here), or a form of superior law in the same way that state law is superior to locality law. So making a flying carpet by invoking Lords of the Five Directions and three of their servitors of at least the third rank would be traditional but if anything like Bernouli's Principle exists in a universe where that actually works, somebody will try to fix the two together.

And that might lead to more experimentation or even have to start there, perhaps because the Lords of the Five Directions don't like whatever it is being used to form an internal frame.

[Jervis]

Doesn't that kind of defeat the whole idea of magic? I mean magic is pretty much the suspension of the natural laws of physics which technology is using to achieve a certain outcome. Using magic to enhance tech to achieve a certain outcome like flying is stupid when you could just use magic to fly...

Also Spelljammers are not interdimensional, but inter-crystal-spherian vessels... Something gate could have easily achieved!

A single sphere contains not only the material realm of a given setting, but the metaphysical realms as well. Fearune’s sphere contains the forgotten realms as well as their version of the Fey wild, 9 hells, etc. Those realms can exist as copies im multiple spheres. Gods, or at least some of theme, exist in multiple spheres. That’s why you can’t just planeshift from Fearune to Greyhawk.

[Max Caysey]

A single sphere contains not only the material realm of a given setting, but the metaphysical realms as well. Fearune’s sphere contains the forgotten realms as well as their version of the Fey wild, 9 hells, etc. Those realms can exist as copies im multiple spheres. Gods, or at least some of theme, exist in multiple spheres. That’s why you can’t just planeshift from Fearune to Greyhawk.

I would need a reference for that please!!

The reason you cant planeshift is because its the same plane! Namely the prime material! You can however teleport, you can also gate to some other plane and then gate to your destination. My point is, Spelljammer ships are not needed for multiverse travel or exploration. And if you do use spelljammer ships be sure to be able to cast Proctiv’s breach crystal sphere its only an 11th level spell!

[Tzardok]

Jervis' version seems to be based on 5e (as can be seen, for example, on their mention of the feywild).

In 2e, all the crystal spheres existed in the Great Wheel cosmology and formed together with the Phlogiston the Prime Material Plane. Back then it was in fact possible to teleport from, for example, Faerûn to the Flanaess, but the crystal spheres interfer with aiming. That means that such a teleport would be very likely to fail.

When 3.x came, they decided to sperate the settings stronger. Spelljammer and crystal spheres were thrown out, Greyhawk was connected to Great Wheel, and the Forgotten Realms got their Great Tree. Because there was crossover in the past that couldn't simply be retconed away, the Plane of Shadow was added to serve as the "connects cosmologies" plane.

5e decided to return to crystal spheres, but keeps the "each setting has their own cosmology" stuff. Furthermore, the Ethereal takes the place of the Phlogiston and the Plane of Shadows; if you walk through the Ethereal, you can reach other crystal spheres/cosmologies, but it is faster if you use a spelljammer.

I personally prefer 2e's version.

[Jervis]

Like he said basically. I always viewed the separation of cosmologies as a necessary consequence of the fact different settings can have vastly different cosmologies despite having the same or similar deities showing up. Deities basically being copied between settings and being unable to act between the spheres. (To the point that 2E clerics couldn’t prepare spells above a certain level while traveling) While they do all have a space on the material plane it seems like some kind of further separation is a given.

[animorte]

Have you watched Arcane?

[Bohandas]

I was recently thinking about the Spelljammers I think they're called? Interdimensional ships was the gist I got, not super familiar with the setting.

Spelljammers are more like spacefaring sailboats (like the White Ships from the Middle Earth novels). The Ships of Chaos are the interdimensional ones.


Furthermore, the Ethereal takes the place of the Phlogiston and the Plane of Shadows; if you walk through the Ethereal, you can reach other crystal spheres/cosmologies, but it is faster if you use a spelljammer.

Couldn't you reach the other spheres through the ethereal to begin with? Like, I don't remember if the phlogiston connected to the ethereal plane but it doesn't matter anyway, at worst you'd just have to leave your sphere's border ethereal and travel through the deep ethereal until you reached the next sphere's border ethereal

[Max Caysey]

Jervis' version seems to be based on 5e (as can be seen, for example, on their mention of the feywild).

In 2e, all the crystal spheres existed in the Great Wheel cosmology and formed together with the Phlogiston the Prime Material Plane. Back then it was in fact possible to teleport from, for example, Faerûn to the Flanaess, but the crystal spheres interfer with aiming. That means that such a teleport would be very likely to fail.

When 3.x came, they decided to sperate the settings stronger. Spelljammer and crystal spheres were thrown out, Greyhawk was connected to Great Wheel, and the Forgotten Realms got their Great Tree. Because there was crossover in the past that couldn't simply be retconed away, the Plane of Shadow was added to serve as the "connects cosmologies" plane.

5e decided to return to crystal spheres, but keeps the "each setting has their own cosmology" stuff. Furthermore, the Ethereal takes the place of the Phlogiston and the Plane of Shadows; if you walk through the Ethereal, you can reach other crystal spheres/cosmologies, but it is faster if you use a spelljammer.

I personally prefer 2e's version.

Thanks for clearing that up! I use something closest to the 2nd edition “The Great Wheel” for all my D&D, thats probably why I disagreed with Jervis’ post!

[Tzardok]

Like he said basically. I always viewed the separation of cosmologies as a necessary consequence of the fact different settings can have vastly different cosmologies despite having the same or similar deities showing up. Deities basically being copied between settings and being unable to act between the spheres. (To the point that 2E clerics couldn’t prepare spells above a certain level while traveling) While they do all have a space on the material plane it seems like some kind of further separation is a given.

Which is, as I mentioned, an artifact of 3.x. In 2e all those gods and all those settings had the same cosmology, the Great Wheel (except for Dark Sun, but that one's planes are local planar phennomena of the Red Sphere which cuts it off from the rest of the Wheel).
Furthermore, the thing with the clerics only affected you if you went to a world where your god didn't exist. If I'm a worshipper of Corellon Larethian from Greyspace and I travel to Realmspace, then I get my full clerical power because Corellon here and Corellon there are one and the same being. If I go to Krynnspace instead, my clerical power is reduced as Corellon doesn't have a presence in the Dragonlance setting.



Couldn't you reach the other spheres through the ethereal to begin with? Like, I don't remember if the phlogiston connected to the ethereal plane but it doesn't matter anyway, at worst you'd just have to leave your sphere's border ethereal and travel through the deep ethereal until you reached the next sphere's border ethereal

Sure. In 2e, all the spheres where in the same cosmology, in the same Material Plane, connected to the same Ethereal. In 5e, on the other hand, the Ethereal takes the role of the Plane of Shadows as the inter-cosmological plane, connecting multiple cosmologies with each other, with crystal sphere essentially becoming synonymous to cosmology, and spelljammers becoming ether-faring vessels instead of Phlogiston-faring.

[StSword]

Oh there's these old 3e books, d20 Arsenal and Factory by Perpetrated Press which aren't really a setting book but are technomagic books.

Arsenal is guns and armor, Factory is a robot race, technomagic cybernetics, and power armor.

Sadly not available from drivethru and other electronic publishers, so if you are interested you'd need to find the dead tree versions.

[icefractal]

Does using magic as a technology count?
Like, say, having in practice a text messaging / email system, but it's implemented via constructs linked by permanent telepathic bonds, and some permanent portals for interplanar connection?

[ShurikVch]

Doesn't that kind of defeat the whole idea of magic? I mean magic is pretty much the suspension of the natural laws of physics which technology is using to achieve a certain outcome. Using magic to enhance tech to achieve a certain outcome like flying is stupid when you could just use magic to fly...
It's not a game setting (AFAIK), but check the Lords Of Terror by Allan Cole (https://www.sffworld.com/2006/03/bookreview262/) - it's sci-fi althist, but all runs on various spirits...


Also Spelljammers are not interdimensional, but inter-crystal-spherian vessels... Something gate could have easily achieved!
Spelljammers are not - but Voidjammers are travelling through Astral, which connects everything (How else Githyanki could get to Athas, if Dark Sun campaign setting lacks Astral Plane in its cosmology?)



A single sphere contains not only the material realm of a given setting, but the metaphysical realms as well. Fearune’s sphere contains the forgotten realms as well as their version of the Fey wild, 9 hells, etc. Those realms can exist as copies im multiple spheres. Gods, or at least some of theme, exist in multiple spheres. That’s why you can’t just planeshift from Fearune to Greyhawk.
The existence of "crystal spheres" was a retcon made to make Spelljammer possible
Originally, Oerth was a parallel-world equivalent to our Earth, along with other parallels - such as Yarth (setting of Hero's Challenge Gamebooks by Gary Gygax and Flint Dille), Uerth (Gothic Earth), and Aerth. Parallel worlds could be accessed via Plane Shift (from one of Inner Planes, and with correct turning fork), magic items (Amulet of the Planes, Well of Many Worlds), or Probability Travel psionic power