In Worlds and Technology by Wolfgang Baur published in Kobold Press’s “The Kobold Guide to Worldbuilding” he lists four main categories of technology to consider when constructing a setting:

• “Technologies of motion: transportation and communication” (Movement)
• “Technology of Knowledge: Literacy and Printing” (Knowledge)
• “Technology of Warfare” (War)
• and “Technology of Life, Food, and Medicine” (Living Standards)

In this article I would like to touch on how I see the first of these categories taking shape in my world.

Movement

Since travel is one of the cornerstones of my campaign setting (see A Setting Primer – Part 1) it is both important that there be a variety of cool ways to travel to support a range of campaign scopes but that those methods of travel do not make the journey trivial. Teleportation as it is traditionally portrayed is a prime example. The teleport spells in a game like Pathfinder allow for the to skip entire portions of a campaign with a simple wave of the hands. Now while I could just remove a power like teleportation from my setting entirely the image of teleportation is really cool and one of the iconic moments in a fantasy game and therefore something I would like to still include. Which means that I have to make teleportation more interesting and part of the journey.

Are the Adventurers Present?

One of the magical materials in my world effects what I’m calling, for lack of a better term, a creatures presence in the world. Image that you were standing on a very large screen which was displaying Google Maps at full scale, so that the buildings appear as large as they do out on the street. Now image if you zoomed out, the buildings around you would blur and shrink before clarifying at the new, smaller, scale. Now each step you take on this screen allows you to travel farther on the screen.

That is essentially how teleportation works in my setting, however instead of the world around you changing scale what has actually happened is that you have been transported to a parallel world where the scale of reality is a little smaller and each of your steps takes you a little farther.

There are a couple of obstacles to this approach of course; one is that you cannot see what is at your destination before you arrive, if there is an angry mob in the street when you become present in your home plane you’ll be completely unprepared for it. Another, deeper, deeper problem is that to travel truly large distances at the best speed you will have to “zoom out” quite a bit, to the point that you cannot guarantee exactly where you will end up when you “zoom in” again. There is also the danger that you might meet the inhabitants of these parallel worlds you are tramping through and that they may not necessarily be friendly to your trespass in their home.

Air Travel

Another Iconic technology of travel in fantasy is flight. Whether via Giant Eagles, Balloon, or magic galleon, flight has always been an integral part of travel in a fantasy world. while flight via winged creature is certainly an option in my world, the more pertinent method for our purposes is via use of magical vehicles.

One of the easiest options for flight is by using a magically enhanced balloon. One of the magical materials can be used to enhance or reduce physical traits of people and objects. By utilizing the proper alloy of this material one can create a balloon gondola that much lighter than normal, allowing a balloon created using late 19th century technology to carry much more than it could unaided. A more advanced version of this technique is to create flying ironclads that function in much the same way, but use stronger magic to make the contents and structure of the vessel nearly completely weightless.

A more advanced method of air travel utilizes an allow that repels certain materials. By attaching multiple strong repelling shields to a light craft one can gain finer control over direction without relying on wind or mechanical methods. Of course this method also requires much more complex mechanisms to control it and is generally used in conjunction with the previous method.

Marvels of the Ancients

There is always the option of using the inscrutable technology of the previous generations to travel. While this is often faster and/or safer than the current methods it is also inherently dangerous because of the large amount of magical and technological knowledge that was lost when the empire fell. It may keep you safe from the elements and dangerous creatures that roam the land but when your two hundred year old walking machine breaks down, you will have to continue on foot to search for replacement parts. There are families and clans that live in such ancient machines, but they often keep their inherited knowledge of how to repair and maintain them secret, wary of others who may try to take the priceless machines away from them.

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That is all for tonight folks. I hope to continue on Thursday by speaking about how technology of the written word works in a world of many small isolated communities.