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What is the (presumed canon) level of Technology?

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Originally posted by Neo2151

I've been involved in a discussion about the 5th Edition Artificer of late, and I'm of the opinion that most of it's subclasses are too advanced to properly fit within the assumptions of the Realms (notably the Armorsmith, Battlesmith, and Artillerist).

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Apparatus of Kwalish exist.
Clockwork Horrors exist.

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Etc.
I know there is some sort of divine decree by several gods that limits advancement, but to what extent?

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https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1523721319732240384 https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1523728705193127936

May 10, 2022

@sebastiansanti1

Good morning Mr. Ed, I hope you have a good start of the week. Based on toril's extraplanar connections, is it possible that there is "technology" such as robots and weapons or equipment of that level hidden, crashed or found somewhere? Greetings lore master!

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@TheEdVerse

Oh, yes. ;}

In fact, I happen to know that...oh, but that would be TELLING. Darned NDAs.

So (sigh) that "yes" will have to do.

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@sebastiansanti1

What do you know?... wait NAD? what is a NAD, I am very confused @.@

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@TheEdVerse

NDA: Non-Disclosure Agreement. Meaning I can't talk about...

Things I've agreed not to talk about. ;}

However, those who were at Milwaukee-era GenCons and played in certain charity D&D sessions set in the Realms encountered some "futuristic" tech while adventuring.

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https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1178703561741553665

Oct 1, 2019

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@tatoskok

@TheEdVerse In earlier editions, the printing press existed but was still new. Some recent 5e adventures have Volo signing copies of his books. Does that mean printing press technology has advanced to the point of mass production? If not, where are we at in the 1490s?

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@TheEdVerse

The Spellplague and Sundering smashed through existing societies and trade flows like sledgehammers, delaying and creating chaos; a lot of individuals most interested in publishing (printing and distributing) went mad or died. So there was huge disruption and much delay. However, “simple” printing (one-page broadsheets [=newspapers], handbills [advertising], and forms/permits) wasn’t disrupted at all in particular cities or among the courtiers of a given realm.

So they went right on, and chapbooks (short booklets) very soon recovered, because they can be collated from pages that are essentially broadsheets (in terms of production, if not content). What this meant was that all of the major port cities up and down the Sword Coast and around the Shining Sea, cities of wealth or rallying wealth like the cities of Cormyr and Sembia, and Westgate and Zhentil Keep, and centers of books and readership like Derlusk in the Border Kingdoms, had small, hand-operated printing presses that did more than just broadsheets (the first offshoot growth industry? Official letterhead stationery for royalty and nobility, then guilds; the second: tickets for attending special events at clubs and fairs) by the 1420s DR, and these became faster, larger (assisted by improvements in making larger sheets of rag and pulp paper) throughout the 1400s. Good leather bindings, and page-edge treatments like gilding and waxing, started to appear in Waterdeep and Baldur’s Gate in the 1440s, and were swiftly copied elsewhere (the cities of the Tashalar swiftly became known for jewel-hued inks and a LOT of gilding, on pages).

By the 1470s, the concept of (for a price) keeping “forms” of previously-printed letterpress pages in warehouses for reprintings caught hold in higher-paying markets (often because nobles and other wealthy patrons) wanted to swiftly be able to get new printings of their memoirs to hand out, or little tomes of their philosophies or poetry, or the lyrics and poems of bards they were sponsoring. Volo took advantage of this, as did the authors of other travel guides and lurid romance chapbooks. Bookshops became fixtures of the Sword Coast port cities and all major Heartland trading cities and ports by 1475 DR, and places like Waterdeep, Silverymoon, Derlusk, Baldur’s Gate, and Suzail had local bestsellers and a marketplace of “here’s what’s coming” and “read a chapbook excerpt from the forthcoming new sequel to X by talented and famed Author Y” by 1478 DR. Traveling merchants (and simple peddlers, going from hamlet to village) since then have aided in spreading this ‘culture’ everywhere.

So Volo is signing copies of his latest as just one author among many (albeit a notorious one who can claim a long and successful career), by the 1490s.

One important difference from real-world history: religious tomes haven’t been part of this development, because they were ALWAYS on the scene, written out in duplicate by hand in monasteries and temples, and then by (in monasteries and temples, along with papermaking and binding) printing press.

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https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1081973949892886528 https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1081982225447555079

Jan 7, 2019

@newbiedm

@TheEdVerse how do you envision the future of Faerun, like if technology progressed (I don’t mean publishing wise), but the in-world future? Tech wise? Skyscrapers? Cars?

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@TheEdVerse

Faerûn has energetic merchants who travel, so goods and tech and thoughts and culture get swiftly shared. In the near future, lots of turmoil as races shoved aside and dominated by ever-breeding humankind see their chances, and try to take them (in the chaotic aftermath of the Sundering). We've seen various players (Rage of Dragons) try to seize power, and strife within races (Storm King's Thunder), and your planned Dodkong campaign is another great example of this. With longtime "dampeners" like Larloch and the Srinshee off the stage, there will be a lot of bids for power. And the trodden-over-in-the-process common folk, tied to the land, are going to increasingly realize they need to be more self-reliant again (make their own clothes and tools and shelter, not just grow their own food), so they can hastily move if need be, and not have to rely on any merchant. Meaning they can close borders and shut others out if they want to. So high-yield gardening, small-forging, and gadgets that make swift processing and preservation of food (pickling, etc.) are going to be increasingly popular.

Handcarts for all, better roads within an area (barony, say) and tolls and guardposts to collect them and control which "outlanders" come in, etc. In the longer term, larger wagons but with much better means of rolling (multiple articulated wheelsets, so a wagon can flex and losing one wheel doesn't stop a conveyance, because it travels on eight or more, paired, and carries spares all over the roof. This will in turn lead to both more and better roads, and railways (we already have dwarf and gnome pushcart narrow-gauge mining railroads), and urban development along those routes, which when rulers realize this, will mean they push to build good travel networks in their territories, and so on. We will see more and better factories for building supplies (roofing, plumbing first), and then widespread printing and distribution of books. Coaches increased, and taxi services to short-haul furniture and bulk purchases. Rebuilding valuable city properties with new, taller buildings, but actual skyscrapers a LONG way off, I'm seeing more 3 to 4 storey buildings replaced by 6 to 8 floors.

Mechanization of farm work with ploughing and seeding and reaping machinery, migration of folk to cities...so it seems to be following real-world historical meta-patterns. One of the topics @GrubbsTweet and @StevenESchend and I often used to discuss was what role magic would play in altering real-world patterns, being as we have a goddess onstage (Mystra) who would work hard against attempts to outlaw or restrict mage use, or persecute or imprison and control users of magic. Fun discussions that never got resolved, as the "sweet spot" for D&D is in the "Wild West" era of magic use, with many competing systems, and still a lot of agency for good old sword-swingers...

But I see things starting with small "make my daily work life easier" gadgets and innovations (better drills and shovels and oven-forks) rather than big things, because big things invite big pushbacks.

These are the sort of conversations we had behind the scenes in the TSR days, and they still go on in the Wizards days (I recall some pleasant, if too short, chats with @ChrisPerkinsDnD and Matt @Sernett and others, as well as the big metaplanning Sundering summits). My manna/ambrosia/elixir of life. ;} We even talked about doing board games like this. Early on, I wanted to have a pull-out game in The Dragon that was all about shipping cargoes (ship and shore) up and down the Sword Coast. Literally move little cards that detailed goods being carried. (I wanted this as a roleplaying game aid for DMs as well as a stand-alone game), and one of the suggested options was that if the right combination of cargoes went to the same port, eventually an innovation/breakthrough would happen (score big points, in-game).

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@Abstruse

So question then...why is technology in the Forgotten Realms so stagnate then? By this point, it should be near a steampunk world...

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@TheEdVerse

It is near a steampunk world, in places. But you're overlooking the amount of chaos all the warfare covered/mentioned/implied in all of the published adventures has caused (Tuigan Crusade, Szass Tam's wars, return of Shade, etc etc etc), the utter upheaval of the Sundering, and the ongoing effects of magic. The whole focus of those conversations I was alluding to. Some folk see how they can profit by change, and pursue it. Most folks resist change, and in the Realms that means GUILDS as well as rulers who want to stay on top. Throw in orc hordes and the natural chaos of bad harvests/severe winters, hurricanes and so on, and the question could just as validly be put: why hasn't the Realms regressed a long way towards barbarism/local subsistence existence? You're assuming tech is stagnant; it's not, but innovations tend to only get pushes behind them if a merchant group with money to spend can see a way to handsomely profit off a change, or a ruler or war leader sees a military benefit. Or to put it another way: roleplaying setting design intended to maximize play opportunities for small groups of independent adventurers thrives on widespread chaos and change, but not necessarily lasting achievement and widespread advances for all. We're trying to live in the moment of the tipping point, and like Peter Parker not graduating for decades, making that moment last. :}

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https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/653680420974927872 https://x.com/TheEdVerse/status/653938843037638656

Oct 13, 2015

@BabylonsLament

Why has the Forgotten Realms never embraced technology? Even when magic has been less-than-reliable, steam power didn't get a go

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@TheEdVerse

That bit of the Realms didn't see publication; TSR wanted it DIFFERENT from kender and tinker gnomes.ButIslippedindwarfsteam

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@BabylonsLament

That makes sense; but time has passed, & w/ alchemy present, is now an opportune time for an introduction? Also, new management.

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@TheEdVerse

New management, indeed, so loooooong out of my hands. I ceded creative control of the Realms in 1986.

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https://twitter.com/TheEdVerse/status/1620628542102073344

Feb 1, 2023

@AugustoCLock

@TheEdVerse , solve something for us, would you? The "Artificers" of High Imaskar weren't actual artificers, right? They were just wizards calling themselves artificers as a title. Like the rules of Netheril called themselves "Sorcerer-King" despite being Wizards.

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@TheEdVerse

Yes. In High Imaskar, "Artificer" meant a wizard who habitually created new spells (or variants of existing spells), and who'd crafted magic items. There's often a difference between in-Realms titles (which usually came first) and D&D game class and subclass titles.

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Jenzar El — 06/28/2023 10:56 AM

@Ed Greenwood How much does Gond know about technology Oddly, the Realms of 5,000 years ago has about the near exact same technology in 1500DR.

So, does Gond know 'near' everything about Technology? And what exactly is his limit? It would seem he knows more then all mortals in Realmspace. But to what limit? Would Gond know about radio? Electricity? Quantum Computers? Some might say Gond only "knows" what mortals know. Does he just sit around and wait for mortals to invent things and then he looks at it and goes "oh". So Gond would not know anything about a computer until some mortal invents it first?

Ed Greenwood — 06/28/2023 11:49 AM

Gond can foresee potential: what raw materials can work with which others (in alloys and amalgams), but NOT infusions or collisions with magic. Gond knows all about electricity. He knows about radiation and waves moving through ether. He does not know about radio as a tech, but he does know about natural radio waves (radiation; our tech is a means of capturing, modulating, and generating our own). Gond knows about jigs and automating processes, mechanically, but not about semiconductors and the miniaturization of circuit boards into chips. Tech in the Realms is not our real-world tech, and may not develop the same way (as we don't in our real world have "zap" instant magic). My father was a radar physicist who ended up a university prof teaching it after a long career in military and commercial applications, and we had long conversations about tech developing atop tech; he cautioned me not to assume our real-world tech is "absolute" and historical was more primitive, and that the way our world had gone was "the" way. Battery technology, for example, has lagged behind "what we want to do" for decades. And mortals, in the Realms, cannot know what gods know and don't know. WE know that the gods of the Realms are fallible, and their foreseeing is really good guessing, not absolute and mistake-free. Gond inspires his clergy to talk to inventors about this and that, and to experiment with this and that themselves (and sometimes prohibits experimentation [e.g. gunpowder], to try to "steer" innovation, so he obviously can know what mortals can't see yet. However, it's best for DMs to leave this as nebulous/fuzzy as possible, not have guiding principles and limits set in stone. The fine art of worldbuilding NEEDS wiggle room as breathing space.

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Augustoc, Femboy Warlock — 02/24/2023 2:19 AM

Ed, I've had a player want to create an Artificer when we're playing in the Realms in 1488 DR, but I said he could only do it if his character came from Lantan because that's what seemed to make sense to me, but are there any other places you can think of where someone could reasonably become an artificer?

The actual artificer class, not an imaskari wizard calling themselves Artificer as a title, that is.

Ed Greenwood — 02/26/2023 9:41 AM

Sure. There are several artificers dwelling in Baldur’s Gate, supported by local priests of Gond, who tutor apprentices. There’s also a small colony of Netherese (and opportunistic, inspired supporters from all over the Sword Coast, that include some undercover Zhentarim and Red Wizard agents) living in Neverwinter Wood and rebuilding the crashed “first enclave” of Xinlenal discovered there. These Netherese include some artificers who are tutoring because they need more skilled spellcasters to defend themselves, to earn coin, and to help with the rebuilding (right now, lots of plumbing and santitation systems work), and these Netherese are noticeably less arrogant and “we are always right, we aren’t savages like everyone else” than, say, the Thultanthans were.

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