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Do dwarves dream of magical shotguns?

brusbrus Member Posts: 944
edited June 2016 in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
Yes, Phillip K. Dick title pun intended :)

If you ask me there is some place for the steampunk realm hidden somewhere in Abeir-Toril.
What do you think of binding the 19th century Victorian steam engine era with fantasy in Forgotten realms ?

Imagine the battle with a rogue lich on zeppelin powered by magicaly infused steam engines which is crashing toward the mountain range. You need to figure it out how to survive the fight and the crash. Or,
fix the engine with the spell and make your fighter knock down the lich with the broken steam pipe. :)

The endless question which gives me sleepless nights is:

Do dwarves dream of magical shotguns? And by that I mean pixie powder infused shotguns.



EDIT: Sorry for grammar error in second option but I can't fix it.

  1. Do dwarves dream of magical shotguns?41 votes
    1. Yes, magical shotguns and spell infused zeppelins everywhere. Rejoice!
      46.34%
    2. No! Have you lost thy marbles? These two does not mix!
      34.15%
    3. Other
      19.51%
Post edited by brus on
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Comments

  • RavenslightRavenslight Member Posts: 1,609
    Of course they do! :)

    Though it may be more in the form of a nightmare...
  • dunbardunbar Member Posts: 1,603
    Yes, and they can remember them wholesale!
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    Everyone dreams of magical shotguns.


    http://barbarianprincess.com/?comic=page-276
  • NonnahswriterNonnahswriter Member Posts: 2,520
    I am not a dwarf, so I don't think it appropriate for me to speak for them. :neutral:

    But I certainly appreciate shotgun-wielding dwarves in zeppelins! :D
  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    Sure they do. It's a little low on their lists of dreams though. Drink is their first choice of dream, then perhaps a nice dwarven lad/lass to call theirs one day. Then more drink. Then killin' orcs. Then more drink.

    Somewhere down the line is magical shotguns.
  • mf2112mf2112 Member, Moderator Posts: 1,919
    I thought Dwarves dreamed of electric diggers?
  • mashedtatersmashedtaters Member Posts: 2,266
    I like steampunk. But I don't really like it in D&D.
    Warcraft steampunk is fine with me.
    Treasure Planet steampunk is a little too much.

    My reasoning for this is mixing technology and magic gets kind of confusing. Introducing high rate of fire, high-powered, accurate guns either makes high level characters (especially spell casters) irrelevant or the guns unrealistic and immersion-breaking. It's also difficult to present realistically dangerous starvation and freezing dilemnas to your players in world where there are manufactured microwaves and ovens everywhere.
    I tried mixing technology and magic in a world a few times, and every time I did the players (separate groups) managed to use technology to overcome with ease what I had thought would have been difficult challenges. Maybe that's just because I am a moron, but its honestly just difficult to anticipate everything your players will do in a fantasy-only world, let alone when introducing all the potential variables that technology brings. Making something challenging can be...challenging...regardless of the setting. Techno-magic introduces more variables to that challenge.
    Making minor technology dangerous, like a low-powered gun that is liable to blow itself up and kill you, is a perfect way to balance out this issue. It introduces risk without introducing overpowered, under-leveled characters.
    So in P&P I steer clear, but everywhere else it's awesome...including video games, to which I believe your post is referring.
  • brusbrus Member Posts: 944
    edited June 2016
    mashedtaters said:


    My reasoning for this is mixing technology and magic gets kind of confusing. Introducing high rate of fire, high-powered, accurate guns either makes high level characters (especially spell casters) irrelevant or the guns unrealistic and immersion-breaking. It's also difficult to present realistically dangerous starvation and freezing dilemnas to your players in world where there are manufactured microwaves and ovens everywhere.

    Guns and shotguns would use pixie powder for infusion so time for loading would be as for the crossbow/bow with a bolt/arrow.
    >Techno-magic introduces more variables to that challenge.
    Yes, balanced techno-magic system is difficuly to implement in the game, generally. It's a challenge.
  • mashedtatersmashedtaters Member Posts: 2,266
    One idea that I like is introducing high powered guns as unique artifacts of a time long gone, or as very rare and powerful magic items for high level characters. By that time, they can work similarly to a staff of disintegrate and isn't that game-breaking as the ammunition acts like a limited charge item. Given high level characters abilities, and in comparison to other powerful artifacts, I don't find them any more difficult to manage.
  • ArdulArdul Member Posts: 211
    This seems like a poll @Grum would have some insightful opinion on.
  • SmilingSwordSmilingSword Member Posts: 827
    Dwarves don't dream, something about being close to the stone or something. Oh that is a totally different universe.

    FR has it's own bunch of steampunk inspired stuff, lot's of automatons and such. I do love steampunk but I think think turning FR into Arcanum\PoE would completely ruin it for me.

    Now expanding on the Arcanum universe that is something I could get into.
  • brusbrus Member Posts: 944
    edited June 2016
    subtledoctor said:

    Pixie powder-infused shotguns? Sounds gnomish to me.

    The same. Gnomes and dwarves are part of smaller humanoids so they often choose ranged attacks. If they lack intelligence of mages they could use pixie powder with guns/shotguns to make magical mayhem.
    So, I concur that valid question could also be
    Do gnomes dream of pixie powder-infused shotguns? :wink:
  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    brus said:

    Do gnomes dream of pixie powder-infused shotguns? :wink:

    No! Gnomes are small, soulless and evil little... wait, we're not talking about WoW Gnomes, are we?

    Who really knows what Gnomes dream about. They're weird little beings. I mean, are they fey, or are they relatives of the dwarves? Are they forest hermits or cozy hill dwellers? And why the heck do Svirfneblin not have daylight sensitivity like Duergar and Drow do? How have they not turned evil like just about everything else in the Underdark? They must be seriously unhinged if they could avoid that.

    And yes, I am rambling.
  • brusbrus Member Posts: 944
    JumboWheat01 said:

    No! Gnomes are small, soulless and evil little... wait, we're not talking about WoW Gnomes, are we?

    Who really knows what Gnomes dream about. They're weird little beings. I mean, are they fey, or are they relatives of the dwarves? Are they forest hermits or cozy hill dwellers? And why the heck do Svirfneblin not have daylight sensitivity like Duergar and Drow do? How have they not turned evil like just about everything else in the Underdark? They must be seriously unhinged if they could avoid that. And yes, I am rambling.

    We're talking about binding some race's lore background with fantasy/tech steampunk theme. Gnomes, svirfneblin, dwarves are suited for it in some imaginated realm.
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    Steampunk dwarves remind me a lot of Mike Mignola's short stories.
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited June 2016
    Magic and technology do not mix well. Playing Arcanum taught me this. Because technology uses the laws of nature, ie:pyshics, while magic defies and subverts them. They just can't stick together and work together in harmony, one will always reject the other. It's like water on a duck's feathers.

    A magical shotgun will most likely blast off and incinerate its wielder, if it functions at all.
    If it is purely magical:it is a wand of magic missile or wand of fire.
    If it is purely technical:a normal shotgun.
    No mix of the two IMHO.
  • JarrakulJarrakul Member Posts: 2,029
    I don't think advanced technology/magitech belongs in the realms as they currently exist. I certainly don't think it should be the "hat" of one part of the world, because then you lose out on all the weird social changes that technology brings with it. But if someone wanted to set a game 500 years in the future of the "current" realms, with technology to match, that could be pretty cool.
  • RavenslightRavenslight Member Posts: 1,609
    I at first took this poll as mere humor. If I consider the question seriously, I would have to say no. I don’t think such things would fit into this world, as I see it anyway.

    However, I do think I would enjoy an infinity engine game set in a 19th century Victorian Steampunk setting. :)
  • brusbrus Member Posts: 944
    edited June 2016
    Ravenslight said:

    I at first took this poll as mere humor. If I consider the question seriously, I would have to say no. I don’t think such things would fit into this world, as I see it anyway.
    However, I do think I would enjoy an infinity engine game set in a 19th century Victorian Steampunk setting. :)

    I intended this topic to be cheerful and funny but also possibility to put these things together into a working cohesion.
    Jarrakul said:

    But if someone wanted to set a game 500 years in the future of the "current" realms, with technology to match, that could be pretty cool.

    That's neat idea about Forgotten realms set far in the distant dystopian future. 3000 DR, 100000 DR ...

    Post edited by brus on
  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    Or just take a portal over to Eberron. What? It's been done the other way-around.
  • PteranPteran Member Posts: 388
    I may be totally off my rocker here but I seem to recall a character in one of Salvatore's books using explosives or a gunpowder of some type. Nanfoodle the Gnome maybe?

    I just did a quick Google search and it seems that followers of Gond might have access to "smoke powder" aka gunpowder.

    While I don't see them creating guns like we have them today, I could see dwarves or gnomes manufacturing something like a musket. Poor range and accuracy, slow to load, but if it hits that poor orc is gonna get blown away ;)
  • BillyYankBillyYank Member Posts: 2,768
    IIRC, it's canon in the FR that the gods have conspired to make technology like gunpowder and steam engines unreliable to preserve the primacy of magic.
  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    That would make sense. Like compare Eberron to the Realms. The Realms have gods who take a very real and active role in the world, letting their presence be known, while Eberron's deities are very... passive, one could say. Look who has more technology than the other.
  • PteranPteran Member Posts: 388
    JumboWheat01 said:

    That would make sense. Like compare Eberron to the Realms. The Realms have gods who take a very real and active role in the world, letting their presence be known, while Eberron's deities are very... passive, one could say. Look who has more technology than the other.

    Applying that logic to our world, I vote we all embrace polytheism! Technology will be destroyed and magic will prevail. We'll be flinging fireballs and lightning bolts in no time!

    On a somewhat more serious note, that makes a lot of sense. If the gods are actively working to keep technology under wraps, it seems plausible that the setting with more passive gods would have more technology.
  • magisenseimagisensei Member Posts: 316
    I don't see why not. BG2/Faerun already has weapons that fire their own ammo so a missile launcher shaped like a shot gun that fires a bullet (really just a modified sling) could easily be made by engineering dwarfs that felt like that they didn't want to continue swinging around a sling in order to fire it. Plus bows are meant for those pointed ear dev.... ahmm people err...elf people things not people who work for a living, so something smelted from iron from their own hands into a shape that fired something sounds wonderful. Lets get the iron smelters working... :) we'll show those pointed ear folks what real missile weapons look like.
  • JumboWheat01JumboWheat01 Member Posts: 1,028
    Please, dwarves don't swing around a sling. That's for the even shorter folk with the hairy feat. Real dwarven men (and lasses) throw hammers and axes.
  • deltagodeltago Member Posts: 7,811
    Magic makes technology redundant.

    Why invent the steam engine when you can cast haste on a steed and get their much faster.
    Why invent an airplane when there are flight and featherfall spells.
    Why invent a gun that has a chance to miss when a wand of magic missiles always hits.
    Why find the cure for cancer when restoration and resurrection exist.
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