Just wondering if your PCs have travelled to Greyhawk's far future.
I think it would be fascinating to see how a fantasy medieval campaign evolves. Does it become a high-tech science/sorcery world? Does magic wane and it becomes a pure sci-fi setting? Does the world stay the same?
I think there was a Greyhawk-in-the-far-future article in Dragon once. Was this any good? Which issue was it?
I was thinking that all the space craft that have crashed on Oerth could, indeed, be ships that have travelled *back* in time. So the passengers on such craft in S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and the City of the Gods could be Oerth natives sent back in time.
The Dragon issue was #277 and had several articles. Of paticular note was the Greyhawk 2000 by Philip Athans, which brung the central Flanaess into a modern age..with a sprawling GHC and Urnst states alliance. Although the waning of magic is mentioned in the '83 folio by Pluffet Smegder the Elder, there is no shortage of magical usage in that article. It also has a companion adventure in Dungeon #83 called Alterations.
In further developments, Iuz was wiped out by Furyondy bio-chemical and nuclear bombing creating a place now called the Daemon Scar and the elves had become eco-terrorists. Development of a dimensional travel railway to Ryuujin and dimensional accelerator (DiM)weapons mark a major change in the techological development of GH's take on magical psuedoscience, also provided is a high tech magical fighter bomber: E98 Devil Raptor.
Also in the issue are lots of suggestions on using magic and technology togather in a typical dungeon based adventuring game as well as Steam punk and a small bit on GH in a near Victorian age mentioning a trip to White Plume Mountain.
While I used parts of the article to start my game I used the d20 Modern rules and ditched some of the ideas like DiM weapons and I have magic harder to cast and the d20 Modern system supports that more. Although monsters, races and gods exist and move in my version of this GH Modern there are changes in the world and system that makes it mark on the campaign world in whole that each DM will answer in their own way.
While the article was a good start for me at least there are many ways to handle this subject and hopfully there is interest in others works as well. _________________ Canonfire Community Supporter and Forum Justicar
Dethand mentions Ryuujin (sp). This is, to me, the most "salvageable" part of the D227 "FutureHawk." It is a way better name than "Nippon." While D277 is arguably "canon," multiple futures are a staple of fantasy literature and nothing says the D277 future is the only future.
I have nothing written but have been playing around with the notion of developing the "seeds" of a future Ryuujin.
The Great Oerth Flood, available from the Homepage, is another very, very cool look at Oerth's future.
And, of course, there is the 83 set with its "dying magic" angle. This last can mean a number of things. I've toyed with the idea of using The Iron Kingdoms "steam-mek" setting as a future GH, but haven't got much beyond that.
I love the idea of time travel in GH, as it allows for a lot of "mileage" out of the now 25 year old Flanaess. I have an article submission written but unsubmitted on time and dimensional travel in GH that I will post once CF catches up with my submissions now in que.
Most of the time travel adventures I have run have been to the past or had "futurenauts" coming to CY 600 GH from the future. The above, however, are my immediate thoughts toward a "future" GH.
BTW, if you want a "wild ride" that may be time travel or may be dimensional travel, check out Dragon 100. The PCs are after nothing less than the Mace of St. Cuthbert. And they find it in modern day London in the Victoria and Albert Museum. An odd bit of "canon" from the vault.
I hate to be a killjoy, but the scenarios described in this thread are a nightmare come true for me. They represent the single worst thing that could happen to Oerth and the Greyhawk setting, worse than Iuz conquering the whole world, or the Oerth being destroyed by Dread Tharizdun. High-tech spaceships, no more magic, going from swords and armor to bullets and bombs...
THE HORROR!!! THE HORROR!!!! THE HORROR!!!
IMC, the technological levels of Oerth are frozen. PERMANENTLY. That means that man will never be able to fly without the assistance of mounts or magic, he will never be able to invent the internal combustion engine, and he will never be able to use electricity in any form except through a wizard's lightning bolt.
Why is it like this?
In real life, it's because I am totally, unequivocally, adamantly, eternally, devotedly, and utterly opposed to Oerth going beyond its current technology level. Things like hoists, waterwheels, rock drills and ballistae, early printing presses, cotton gins, and other technological devices that usually have to be powered by hand are just fine; what I want to avoid at all costs is an industrial revolution that ends up with science replacing sorcery, demihumans dying out, and Oerth essentially becoming as boring and drab as our real world.
In the fantasy world, I've already explained some of the reasons in the Greyhawk Travel Guide, but a more simple reason is that the gods simply will not allow it. That's just the way things are. And S3, as we all know, never actually happened; it was just a hallucination experienced by a bard who happened to sample some of the wicked mushrooms that grow in that area of the Barrier Peaks.
As to what the world will look like in the future, chances are it will have changed in other ways. Some states will still exist, others will be gone. Different social mores and attitudes will certainly exist, and new peoples, forms of architecture, magic, and cultures will appear. Gnomes might even have advanced technology to a certain extent...but at the heart of it, people will always be swinging swords and casting sorcery. Maybe it's akin to how things will look during the Renaissance as opposed to the Dark Ages; people still use swords and armor, but new philosophies and artistic styles have appeared, and cultures have changed and evolved. _________________ <div align="left">Going to war without Keoland is like going to war without a pipe organ. They both make a lot of noise and they're both a lot of dead weight, so what's the point in taking them along? </div>
I hate to be a killjoy, but the scenarios described in this thread are a nightmare come true for me. They represent the single worst thing that could happen to Oerth and the Greyhawk setting, worse than Iuz conquering the whole world, or the Oerth being destroyed by Dread Tharizdun. High-tech spaceships, no more magic, going from swords and armor to bullets and bombs...
Haha. Can ya still stomach a flood on Oerth though?
I hate to be a killjoy, but the scenarios described in this thread are a nightmare come true for me. They represent the single worst thing that could happen to Oerth and the Greyhawk setting
Ya, I don't allow any sci-fi in my current GH campaign. I don't want to ruin the swords & sorcery mood and feel that I have.
This topic fascinates me, however. So much so, that I might run an *alternate* GH campaign where crashed space ships and droids mix it with sword and spell.
Actually, in my current -- strictly swords & sorcery -- campaign, I was toying with the idea of using stuff from Monte Cook's Chaositech and putting it in the Blackmoor region. This would explain the City of the Gods and the Egg without blowing out the whole thing into the realm of science fiction.
You see, the premise of Chaositech is that it's a pseudo-science (like Frankenstine's monster). It's high-tech *themed* items like ray emitters and proximity bombs but they're charged with raw chaos. Raw chaos ain't magic, it's just an intangible energy that makes the improbable probable through alien looking devices. A Chaositian just uses the Craft (Chaositech) skill to make them; there's no magic involved.
I was toying with the idea of using stuff from Monte Cook's Chaositech and putting it in the Blackmoor region. This would explain the City of the Gods and the Egg without blowing out the whole thing into the realm of science fiction.
You see, the premise of Chaositech is that it's a pseudo-science (like Frankenstine's monster). It's high-tech *themed* items like ray emitters and proximity bombs but they're charged with raw chaos. Raw chaos ain't magic, it's just an intangible energy that makes the improbable probable through alien looking devices. A Chaositian just uses the Craft (Chaositech) skill to make them; there's no magic involved.
Chaositech by Cook is a neat book. As usual for Malhavoc, the cool concept is not paid off quite to the same level as the initial coolness, IMO, but its still great stuff to steal. And as noted, it is not exactly technology.
It might make a neat addition along with Gates of Firestorm Peak, whose "Far Realm" will be revisited in an upcoming Dragon article, as I understand it. The "Far Realm" is a chaos infused "other" place.
On the NW Dungeon Map quadrant there is a mountain called "The Peak." Not sure if that is supposed to be Firestorm Peak, but would be as good a place as any. _________________ GVD
If guns don't work, how does the crashed starship in S3 still have power? You figure it's a tech level thing. What I did to facilitate this is to have an axiomatic shift due to planar tampering between Earth and Oerth (IMC). SO, tech works, but the general populace of Oerth has no clue that this now can happen. So, the general populace still uses medieval tech, the dwarves and gnomes use steam-tech, and those few who use higher-level tech do so in secret, or use it publically to conquer those with lower-level tech. My PC's try to keep high-tech secret, and use it themselves. If they find out about others using hi-tech, they basically do an X-files thing.
I've always felt that the presence of magic is what would prevent Greyhawk from advancing with an Industrial Revolution. Remember, many of the things technology allowed us to do, can already be done with magic. There might be the occasional technological advance, but for the most part, things would remain the same (why need a revolution to create electric turbines, when you could just have someone imrpison a creature from the demi-plane of lightning or something to do the same job?).
I agree on the magic stunting technology advancement. Magic however is in the hands of few practiced individuals i.e. mages, who typically don't like to share. The goal of technology is to make everyone's lives better and in many cases to turn a dollar. If mages' goal was to be rich then you'd start to get something closer akin to Eberron I bet ;)
I agree on the magic stunting technology advancement. Magic however is in the hands of few practiced individuals i.e. mages, who typically don't like to share. The goal of technology is to make everyone's lives better and in many cases to turn a dollar. If mages' goal was to be rich then you'd start to get something closer akin to Eberron I bet ;)
-Agreed.
I don't think technology supplants magic; it complements it. However, I suspect that (over time), that there is faster improvement in technology, than there is in magic, and that, relatively speaking, magic might be said to "fade" in importance.
Its possible that it would develop like Eberron, with Technology and Magic working together.
Alternatively they could follow seperate but lateral evolutions... magic would develop slower since only a few people could become master arcanists to continue arcane developments while a more people, from a wider variety of backgrounds could become engineers and scientists to develop technology... There wouldn't be much competition because magic is secretive and reserved by thoses that have for their exclusive use while technology would be more universally available. Eventually technology would outstrip magic.
And that leads to another possibility from our own history... let the inquisitions begin! Since magic is secretive and elitist, power groups that don't have access to it or control over it may try to purge it from a society in favor to something, in this case technology, that they have easier access and control over.
What about the reference to Boot Hill gunfighting in the 1E DMG? Doesn't that imply that in the future when magic dies out, there can be gunbattles? And then whos to say that magic doesn't come back after that era?
What about the reference to Boot Hill gunfighting in the 1E DMG? Doesn't that imply that in the future when magic dies out, there can be gunbattles? And then whos to say that magic doesn't come back after that era?
I'm full of questions!
-The same section in 1E DMG had Gamma World, as well.
I think the intent was that D&D PCs could visit the Old West, and that Old West NPCs might visit the D&D world (a al Murlynd).
The was also an article in Dragon (way back) called "Sturmgeschutz & Sorcery":
I thought the Greyhawk box set was written in a way which implied that A.D. 1983 could be analogous to C.Y. ...998? ...Which if you figure the American old west era takes place around A.D. 1800 through 1865, then maybe Boot Hill rules would apply to C.Y. 815 through 880.
The night hag protagonist in my games is destined to become a Chronomancer. Her future self has already left clues for her past self, to accomplish this. That being said, the future she has seen involves a burned out husk of a planet; the remains of Oerth after Tharizdun was freed.
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